Uncle Tom's Cabin - Part I

   

For the next several blogs I will quote portions of a 24-page review (yes, 24 pages!) of Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Possible Amelioration of Slavery which was published in The North American Review in 1853. Besides its length and sharply critical review of the book, it is an amazing political diatribe about slavery and “abolition parties”, some of it considerate of beliefs and opinions we hold today, some of it completely unacceptable in light of the emancipation of slaves, the Civil War, and all that has happened since. It’s fascinating to read what a man of the times had to say about Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the sensibilities of his day. Today’s blog is the opening of the review and the author’s comments on the Eva and Tom characters.

The enthusiastic reception of Mrs. Stowe’s novel is the result of various causes. One is the merit of the book itself. It is, unquestionably, a work of genius. It has defects of conception and style, exhibits a want of artistic skill, is often tame and inadequate in description, and is tinctured with methodistic cant; but, with all its blemishes, thought, imagination, feeling, high moral and religious sentiment, and dramatic power shine in every page. It has the capital excellence of exciting the interest of the reader; this never stops or falters from the beginning to the end. The characters are drawn with spirit and truth.

[The author then describes what he thinks of each of the main characters ending with Eva and Tom.] Eva and Tom are dreams; the one is a saint, the other an angel. But dreams are founded on realities, and we are all such stuff as dreams are made of. These characters are both exaggerated; but to color and idealize is the privilege of romance, provided the picture does not overstep the modesty of nature or contradict nature. There are no Evas or Uncle Toms, but there are some who possess, in a lower degree, their respective virtues.

North American African-American Communities in the 19th Century

Surviving original home at Elgin Settlement

There were many African-American communities in the United States, a particularly successful one in Michigan. The richest man in town built a mansion on the lake. But the most famous North American black enclave in the 19^th century was the nine-thousand-acre Elgin Settlement in Kent County, Ontario, Canada, not far from Detroit. 

In the 1800's Kent County became known as a place of refuge for fugitive slaves who escaped from the South, but it enticed both free blacks and slaves to settle along the Thames River. The land was rich in natural resources and far enough away from the border that it was relatively safe from slave hunters.

The people of the Elgin Settlement swore off liquor, soaked up Greek and Latin, planted flower gardens, and made their own tools. The settlers raised corn, wheat, tobacco, hemp, maple sugar, cows, sheep and hogs and had black walnut orchards. They put up picket fences and built homes with at least four rooms set 30 feet back from the road. They had a school, a sawmill, brickyard, rope factory, and gristmill. There were grocery stores, churches, a meat market and a tiny candy store. 

Anti-slavery lectures and other meetings took place in the grocery stores, which were the “humping, pulsing, laughing, story-sharing, neighbor-helping” heart of the town. After dark, people sat on the porch and told stories about the old times in the South and the family members they’d lost. The Elgin Settlement was quoted as being called “the coloured man's Paris”.

Rev. William King of Louisiana is credited with establishing the Kent County community that included the Elgin Settlement. He had moved from Ireland to Louisiana as a young man and married into a family that owned slaves. King did not believe in slavery, but he could not free his slaves in Louisiana, so he traveled to Canada and bought a large tract of land on which to start a settlement. Despite government objections, he pursued his goal to create a Utopian community where blacks and whites would be treated equally.

Although the black settlers in Elgin knew they might be captured and returned to slavery, when the Civil War started, many black men from the Settlement went to fight.  Several of the black officers who fought in the war were from the Settlement. After the war some of the black settlers returned to the U.S to find lost family and to help with reconstruction. But many stayed in Canada and continued to contribute to the area’s wealth.

Woman Soldier and Spy

Emma Edmonds disguised herself as a man at the outbreak of the Civil War and enlisted in the Union army under the name Frank Thompson. While stationed in Virginia at the beginning of the Peninsular campaign, Edmonds volunteered for a mission inside Rebel lines at Yorktown.

Edmonds decided to infiltrate Rebel lines disguised as a black man. She bought clothing from a fugitive slave, obtained a wig "of real negro wool", and colored her head, hands, and arms with silver nitrate. She slipped past Rebel pickets at night and the next morning joined slaves who were returning to Yorktown after taking breakfast to the pickets. At Yorktown Edmonds and the slaves were put to work with picks and shovels on fortifications. After a day of hard labor, Edmonds recorded that her hands were "blistered from my wrists to the finger ends."

That evening, Edmonds talked one of the slaves into exchanging duties with her. For the next two days she carried buckets of water around the camp, a job that enabled her to gather intelligence about the fortification and its armament.

The evening of her third day inside Rebel lines, Edmonds was sent with her group of slaves to carry supper to the picket lines, where she was surprised to find that some of the pickets were black men. Edmonds reported that as she was talking to one of the black pickets, an officer came up, gave her a gun, and ordered her to take the place of a picket who had recently been shot. Taking advantage of her position, she slipped away during the night and returned to the Yankee lines with the captured weapon and information about Confederate fortifications.