I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the first time three and a half years ago. I started right before I left Amsterdam, and finished it after I returned to the States. It is, to date, my favorite book. I appreciate so much the character Tom who has a walk with God that is extraordinarily exemplary–he is a man, enslaved by whites, who responds to his situation and to his oppressors with compassion, love, and forgiveness. He prays for their souls, and weeps for their brokenness. While I draw strength and inspiration by his witness, this attitude that he portrays did garner criticism from African-Americans who felt that Tom was too passive, and should have shown more dissatisfaction with his position. In fact, to call someone an “Uncle Tom,” is an insult that connotes a black who is submissive and content to be in a subservient position. As I read the book, I don’t see Tom as content with his position in society–he deeply mourns the brokenness of his situation–but his faith allows him to withstand the horrors of slavery as he trusts that his God is preparing a place of peace for him in His heavenly Kingdom. Tom understands that the whites who commit these crimes against Him do so because they do not know the love of Christ and are in spiritual darkness. Ergo, Tom seeks to demonstrate that love to them, and actively chooses to live by the way of the cross, which includes loving those who hatefully persecute him.
When I agreed to teach American Literature this year, I was most excited about teaching this book. We are in the middle of it now. I have had the chance to do some research on the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and have really enjoyed learning about this woman of God who responded to the call on her life to use her writing talents to speak God’s truth about the slavery issue that was poisoning the U.S. in the 1800s. I was reading through the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Mid-Nineteenth Century United States by Moira Davison Reynolds and was blown away when I read about Harriet’s experience that led to her beginning the book.
“According to members of the Stowe family, at church Harriet had a vision. She saw a Negro being flogged viciously at the order of his master. As the man died, he prayed that those who had wronged him would be forgiven. Harriet participated in the communion service in a mechanical, distracted manner, and afterwards walked home. Later that day she wrote out her vision, using names. The saint-like man was Uncle Tom, the owner was Simon Legree, and his henchmen were Sambo and Quimbo. Then she added something: the Christ-like action of Uncle Tom made converts of Sambo and Quimbo.”
Reading that Harriet, a Christian, received this vision moved my heart to praise God. It may seem odd to think that one way God responded to the slavery issue was by moving one of His children to write a book that would challenge and anger people unto laboring and speaking out for change, but that is exactly what I think He did. Not to say that the book was the one and only thing that caused the end of slavery, but certainly it was used as one way that contributed to the dissolve of slavery. God heard the cries of the slaves and He responded. He demonstrated His faithfulness to justice when He delivered the slaves from the institution of slavery. As Harriet reminded us in her preface,
“…the great cause of human liberty is in the hands of one, of whom it is said:
“He shall not fail nor be discouraged
Till He have set judgment in the earth.
He shall deliver the needy when he crieth,
The poor, and him that hath no helper.
He shall redeem their sould from deceit and violence,
And precious shall their blood be in His sight.”
