page references, where given, are to the Lynne edition
The Lynne edition does not contain Mrs. Stowe's original preface which
is taken from the on-line Litrix edition
as an exerpt governed by the fair use/educational use doctrine:
THE scenes of this story, as its title indicates, lie among a race hitherto ignored by the associations of polite and refined society; an exotic race, whose ancestors, born beneath a tropic sun, brought with them, and perpetuated to their descendants, a character so essentially unlike the hard and dominant Anglo-Saxon race, as for many years to have won from it only misunderstanding and contempt.But another and better day is dawning; every influence of literature, of poetry, and of art, in our times, is becoming more and more in unison with the great master chord of Christianity, "good will to man."
The poet, the painter, and the artist now seek out and embellish the common and gentler humanities of life, and, under the allurements of fiction, breathe a humanizing and subduing influence, favorable to the development of the great principles of Christian brotherhood.
The hand of the benevolence is everywhere stretched out, searching into abuses, righting wrongs, alleviating distresses, and bringing to the knowledge and sympathies of the world and the lowly, the oppressed, and the forgotten.
In this general movement, unhappy Africa at last is remembered; Africa, who began the race of civilization and human progress in the dim, gray dawn of early time, but who, for centuries, has lain bound and bleeding at the foot of civilized and Christianized humanity, imploring compassion in vain.
But the heart of the dominant race, who have been her conquerors, her hard masters, has at length been turned towards her in mercy; and it has been seen how far nobler it is in nations to protect the feeble than to oppress them. Thanks be to God, the world has at last outlived the slave-trade!
The object of these sketches is to awaken sympathy and feeling for the African race, as they exist among us; to show their wrongs and sorrows, under a system so necessarily cruel and unjust as to defeat and do away the good effects of all that can be attempted for them, by their best friends, under it.
In doing this, the author can sincerely disclaim any invidious feeling towards those individuals who, often without any fault of their own, are involved in the trails and embarrassments of the legal relations of slavery.
Experience has shown her that some of the noblest of minds and hearts are often thus involved; and no one knows better than they do, that what may be gathered of the evils of slavery from sketches like these, is not the half that could be told, of the unspeakable whole.
In the northern states, these representations may, perhaps, be thought caricatures; in the southern states are witnesses who know their fidelity. What personal knowledge the author has had, of the truth of incidents such as here are related, will appear in its time.
It is a comfort to hope, as so many of the world's sorrows and wrongs have, from ate to age, been lived down, so a time shall come when sketches similar to these shall be valuable only as memorials of what has long ceased to be.
When an enlightened and Christianized community shall have, on the shores of Africa, laws, language, and literature, drawn from among us, may then the scenes of the house of bondage be to them like the remembrance of Egypt to the Israelite,- a motive of thankfulness to Him who hath redeemed them!
For, while politicians contend, and men are swerved this way and that by conflicting tides of interest and passion, the great cause of human liberty is in the hands of One, of whom it is said:
41: Chapter I
In Which the Reader is Introduced to
a Man of Humanity
afternoon of a chilly day in February
two men, one of whom was "a short, thick-set
man, with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of pretension
which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward in the world."
over-dressed, gaudy vest, ... conversation defied Murray's grammar;
profane
[reflecting bias against people not well trained in the use of the English language; if trained in Murray's on the way to being civilized; see: examples of a reference to Murray re: Free Men of Colour and modern grammar on line]
42-43: characterization of Tom: religious; went to Cincinnati alone on business; [Stow trying to establish through the worst of her characters that blacks can be good Christians]
43: small quadroon boy, between 4 & 5, glossy curls; gay robe of scarlet and yellow plaid,
44: Hulloa, Jim Crow said Mr. Shelby; snapped a bunch of raisins towards him; "Come here, Jim Crow, "Now Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and sing." commenced one of those wild, grotesque songs commmon among the negroes, in a rich clear voice, accompanying his singing with many comic evolutions of the hands, feet, and whole body, all in perfect time to the music." given a quarter of an orange. then like Old Uncle Cudjoe with rheumatism. then mimic reading of a psalm by Elder Robbins.
45: Eliza, quadroon, ca. 25 finely molded shape, fine female article; looking for Harry.
47: "Just for want of management" [sarcasm: second Wilberforce (Haley)]
48: introduces Tom Loker, former partner, hard on slaves
49: Kentucky folk spile your niggers
49: musing: silently picked their nuts for a season
51: shadow of law; Shelby trapped, owes money, must sell regardless of how kind a master he may be
53: Mrs. Shelby, ignorant of husband's business
affairs; reassures Eliza
[HBS portrays women as the teachers of manners, culture, but ignorant of business ; blacks bring style to their mistresses (Eliza and Mrs. Shelby's Hair); Slavery less onerous when economy in good shape in agricultural environments of a quiet and gradual nature:
"Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the State of Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a quiet and gradual nature, not requiring those periodic seasons of hurry and pressure that are called for in the business of more southern districts, makes the task of the negro a more healthful and reasonable one; while the master, content with a more gradual style of acquisition, has not those temptations to hardheartedness which always overcome frail human nature when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless and unprotected."
begins her lament that the pursuit of money and enjoying the good life
you can't afford (Shelby's bottle of wine) is the root of all evil
54: Eliza taken from real life, based upon a real character in Kentucky
[comments on Mullatos (intro George Harris) [suggests that miscegenation produces the best potential in humans? .....; inventor of hemp cleaner; HBS chooses to refer to an actual invention by a black man; introduces the Cotton Gin which implicitly links to the notion that mechanization increase the severity of the work for slaves deeper south and removes any hope of the gentler world of Kentucky?]
55: owner shown about by George "who, in high spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy conciousness of inferiority. What business had his slave to be marching round the country, inventing machines, and holding up his head among gentlemen?" Harris was also the name of the owner;
57: manufacturer could see beyond color and appreciate George, tries to get owner to change his mind; [implication that the industrialization/work ethic of the north could prove more favorable to the development of color blind evaluation of people on the basis of their genious and work ethic?]
58: slavery worse than hanging
[notion that labor saving devices will be
the deathknell of slavery; true that the development (at last) of cotton
picking machines set the sharecropper 'free' to migrate to the cities of
the north? HBS Has a rosy view of life in a factory and ignores the
reality, fate of the American worker in an increasingly industrialized
economy.]
60: unhappy George tells Eliza that he can read, write better than owner, learned it all himself; been patient, but now is going to run;
61: beaten by young Tom Harris; "Well," said Eliza, mournfully, "I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn't be a Christian."
62: Dog Carlo drowned by Harrises
63: Owner hates "Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their head up above him, ..." tries to get George to take another woman as his wife; Eliza defends her master, George reminds her that master could die; or might sell the child; that slave marriages are not legal.
65: decides to pretend to be leaving Eliza; then will run;
[women (Eliza) are strong and silent, holding in their emotions (doesn't tell George her fears); note use of the term 'wicked']
66: Chapter IV An Evening in Uncle Tom's Cabin
66: [note description of the cottage, role of Aunt Chloe in making it bucolic; note also that a black poet, Francis Harper, after the civil war, created a poem about Aunt Chloe.; see an analysis of the Cabin and of the Shelby plantation.]
67: Aunt Chloe, first cook of the neighborhood [note Masquerade Ball in North Platt, Nebraska in 1895]
"Aunt Chloe took her stand, as being decidedly in upper walks of life" on the carpet in what constituted her drawing-room
68: black George Washington? over the fireplace
at the table sat "Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby's best hand, who, as he is to be the hero of our story, we must daguerreotype [use as a verb] for our readers. He was a large, broadchested, powerfully-made man, of a full glossy black, and a face whose truly African features were charactrized by an expression of grave and steady good sense, united with much kindliness and benevolvence. There was something about his whole air self-respecting and dignified, yet united with a confiding and humble simplicity."
young master George Shelby, bright boy of 13, teaching Tom to write;
69: Tom was Chloe's "old man"
72-73: Chloe, fully in charge of the mistress's kitchen
73: like the slave trader, young George, when full, throws scraps to the woolly heads and glistening eyes of the hungry kids watching him eat
73: Chloe has a baby, [which makes her ca. 40?]
75: Tom holds the baby [see 1890 illustration] up "Aint she a peart young un"
78: "New Jersualem" negro mind, impassioned and imaginative, always attaches itself to hymns and expressions of a vivid and pictorial nature; ..." George well trained in religious things by his mother.
79: Tom's ability to pray, childlike, touching simplicity, excelled; scene switches from the cabin to the halls of the master and Haley, Shelby;
80: Shelby not very reassured by Haley, is left smoking a 'solitary' cigar
81: Chapter V Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Owners
84: Mrs. Shelby distraught over sale of Tom and little Harry; Mr. Shelby suggests she sounds like an abolitionist. Condemns ministers who support slavery on moral grounds (85); condemns abolitionists for not knowing what they are talking about.
86: Haley would 'sell his own mother at a good percentage- not wishing theold woman any harm, either'; a man of leather
89: Tom's worthy helpmeet Chloe
90: Mrs. Shelby according to Eliza: "If
she an't a Christian and an angel, there never was one"
Chloe tries to persuade Tom to leave too,
with his pass;
91: Tom willing to sacrifice himself to save the rest of the Shelby slaves; dog Bruno kept in the cabin by Chloe and Tom;
92: Chapter VI Discovery
96: Black Sam wants Tom's job; "pass in his pocket--all grand as Cuffee"
100: effects of beechnut (sharp, triangular)
that Sam put under Haley's saddle;
103: Sam and Andy review the days escapades
and have a good laugh
[Sam and Andy like their mistress; want
promotion; see her intent and delay the hunt]
104: Chapter VII The Mother's Struggle
105: pauses to moralize re: rightness of Eliza's flight; [intends to take drastic measures if caught?]
107: Eliza was "also so white as not to be known as of colored lineage, without a critical survey, asn her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected."
108: early spring; ice on the Ohio;
112: back at the Shelby's Tom given the day to be free; referred to as 'boy' [note Aunt Chloe's use of Revelations as read to her by George]
112: estimate of Tom's age: held Mr. Shelby as a one year old in his arms when, Tom was eight.
113: Shelby had no dogs; Haley tricked into going the long, less traveled way to the River.
118: Eliza crosses the ice, pulled up the bank bya Mr. Symmes, [not"Phineas Fletcher"]
119: no dogs in the chase, but mentioned by Symmes as common; reference to Fugitive slave law: "Besides, I don't see no kind of 'casion for me to be hunter and cather for other folks, neither." So spoke this poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left to do."
Andy and Sam refuse to ride their horses over "Lizy's bridge"
121: Chapter VIII Eliza's Escape
123: Marks and Loker;
125: mentions Red River; mother plungest to death with blind child rather than face slavery
129: learn Haley's first name is Dan; Tom Loker demands $50 as price of going after Eliza and Harry; Adams and Springer subcontracted to do the work of hunting?
131: Marks and Loker have dogs, but won't use them for fear that they would damage the mechandise
132: sarcasm re: fugitive slave law: trader and catcher may yet be among our aristocracy (anti-money?)
133: learn Mrs. Shelby is Emily
135: back at Shelby's; "Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with a Negro than with a child; both instinctively see the true state of the case, ..."
138: Sam as a politician, orator, "boys
like you, Andy, means well, but they can't be spected to collusitate the
great principles of action."
[important emphasis on the power of women
in the household, especially with regard to Mrs. Shelby's role]; explantation
by Sam of persistence; full of himself; gives a 'pathetic' benediction
and sends everyone off to bed (at Aunt Chloe's insistence).
141: Chapter IX In Which it Appears that a Senator is but a Man.
State Senator and Mrs. Bird (Ohio)
143: Mrs. Bird, 4 ft high, timid, "her husband and children were her entire world, and in thse she ruled more by entreaty and persuasion than by command or argument." arroused by cruelty, became passionate
145: Old Cudjoe works for the Birds; Birds in mourning for a lost child; Eliza plays upon the loss; p. 149
152: Mrs. Bird in control: never one to tell her husband I told you so; waited to hear her liege lord's intentions, when he should think proper to utter them.
153: He suggests that the late son's things
(Henry's) be given to Eliza "that drawer full of things ..."
156: politician faced with reality abandons
political position in favor of stringent fugitive slave laws
159: Honest John Van Trompe:
161: took Eliza on and $10 from Bird
162: Chapter X The Property is Carried Off
164: "They are not naturally daring and enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate"; fear of being sold down river; quotes Hamlet, 165
165: fear of being sold down river "ners the African, naturally patient, timid and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and leads him to suffer...
165: Tom referred to as Chloe's husband
171: Tom carted off by Haley in shackles; Masr George catches up, gives him a dollar; Tom's advice [Chesterfield?] to George: obey parents, respect them, etc.
175: XI In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind
encounter between Mr. Wilson and George Harris (in disquise); discourse on the difference freedom makes; Kentucky tavern scene; H brand on George's hand; rehash of narrative up to this point, but with object of explaining unchristian, inhumaneness of slavery
192: XII Select Incident of Lawful Trade
198: Haley buys a young boy, separates her from her Mother (site is Washington KY); goes on board La Belle Riviere;
200: use biblical 'defense' of slavery to ridicule such justifications (Noah the drunk cursing his son Ham)
201: reappearance of the Drover from chapter XI who is sarcastic when suggesting slaves be deprived of their souls to make them beasts of burden, etc. Drover, laconic observer of the truth; Haley turns to his accounts to ease his conscience "a specific for an uneasy conscience"
210: Joel Parker footnote re: comparing slavery's harshness to domestic quarrels: slavery has "no evils but such as are inseparable from any other relations in social and domestic life."
female slave separated from her child, lured on the boat with promises of joining her husband, commits suicide that night
Haley simply writes her off as a loss. Ends with moralizing on a legislature that could condemn the slave trade from Africa but not from Kentucky;
214: The Quaker Settlement
215: "So much has been said and sung of
beautiful young girls, why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old
women?" Rachel Halliday, husband Simeon; Eliza, Harry and then George,
among the quakers; leave with Phineas Fletcher
226: XIV Evangiline
Tom again, shackles removed; on upper deck;
230: St. Clare introduced, along with 5-6 year old Eva
231: Tom childlike, "Tom, who had the soft, impressible nature of his kindly race, ever yearning toward the simple and childlike, watched the little creature with daily increasing interest." almost devine, half believed her to be an angel;
233: Evangeline St. Clare falls in the water;
233-34: saved by Tom, taken to ladies cabin
where she was fussed over by women who did little to help in fact made
disturbance and hindered her recovery in every possible way.
238: Tom is told he is sold to St. Clare; says he does not drink;
239: XV Of Tom's Mew Master, and Various Other Matters
St. Clare's wife Marie, fine figure, pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; hard on servants, only child [but it is St. Clare who is sickly over loss of real love in NE; thoroughly selfish woman
243: faded, sickly
244: Miss Ophelia
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