Uncle Tom's Cabin
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – It’s a shame that fewer and fewer people read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. All that lingers in the common vernacular is the slur “Uncle Tom” – an insult for a black man who is deemed too cooperative with whites.
The next time you hear someone refer to someone as an Uncle Tom, you should immediately assume they are ignorant. They have no idea what they’re talking about.
The only book that’s sold more copies than Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the Holy Bible. It is the book that told northern elites about slave life in the South. And they were horrified. The book grew the abolitionist movement and elevated human bondage to the moral issue of the day. The North’s resolve to fight the Civil War was non existent before Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
So who was Uncle Tom?
He was a slave in Kentucky. His master sold him and two others to pay off his debts. The two other slaves, fearing their family would be broken up, ran away. Uncle Tom was sold to a benevolent master, and lived as a ‘house negro’ in New Orleans. But Tom was sold again, and became the property of a brutal slaver, Simon Legree.
Uncle Tom was scorned by his Master because he refused to take the lash to another slave. Others planned to run away; they plotted their escape at Tom’s cabin. Uncle Tom, a Christian, made a solemn vow not to betray the runaways. The viscous slave hunter Tom Loker was injured while tracking the escapees. Uncle Tom took him to a Quaker village where his body, but not his soul, was mended. Uncle Tom was beaten to death for helping the runaways. As he died, his white tormentors marveled at his faithfulness. Only in Uncle Tom’s death do they see the evil of their ways.
Uncle Tom was not a collaborator with slavers. He’s an example of faith and unflinching loyalty.
The next time you hear someone call someone else an ‘Uncle Tom,’ suggest they fix their ignorance. Read the book.
I’m Chris Conley.
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