Clint Smith: The Man Who Became Uncle Tom

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/10/josiah-henson-uncle-tom-harriet-beecher-stowe/675122/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/l5Uq6

“Among all the singular and interesting records to which the institution of American slavery has given rise,” Harriet Beecher Stowe once wrote, “we know of none more striking, more characteristic and instructive, than that of JOSIAH HENSON.”

Stowe first wrote about Henson’s 1849 autobiography in her 1853 book A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an annotated bibliography of sorts in which she cited a number of nonfiction accounts she had used as source material for her best-selling novel. Stowe later said that Henson’s narrative had served as an inspiration for Uncle Tom.

Proslavery newspaper columnists and southern planters had responded to the huge success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by accusing Stowe of hyperbole and outright falsehood. Benevolent masters, they said, took great care of the enslaved people who worked for them; in some cases, they treated them like family. The violent, inhumane conditions Stowe described, they contended, were fictitious. By naming her sources, and outlining how they had influenced her story, Stowe hoped to prove that her novel was rooted in fact.

A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an immediate success; its publisher reported selling 90,000 copies by the end of 1854. Abraham Lincoln himself may have read the book, at a crucial turning point in the Civil War: Records indicate that the 16th president checked it out from the Library of Congress on June 16, 1862, and returned it on July 29. Those 43 days correspond with the period during which Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation.

*snip*

[niyad]

1. Fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. I do believe we need to examine the true origins of this book, since we

are using the term so liberally these days.

Here's why:

"Still, when I read it recently, sections of the book took me by surprise. My understanding of Uncle Tom, I came to see, had been informed less by the character in the book than by the distortions of the character that followed in the succeeding decades, when he came to be known as a lackey and a traitor. The Tom of the novel, while not as fully realized as some of Stowe’s white characters, was kind, thoughtful, and brave—a tragic hero who sacrifices his own life rather than give up information about where two enslaved Black women are hiding. This was not the Tom I thought I knew."

[Biophilic]

3. So many things have been distorted or outright lied about.

I sometimes wonder if I have any real understanding of reality, especially our history.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. To a much smaller degree, the left sometimes makes the

same missteps as the right when it comes to literature. We just don't have the same demonic objective as they do. They're like the Dunwich Horror in their momentum.

[Biophilic]

5. And this isn't new. I was a history major in the 60's.

Our history has been whitewashed for a very long time. It depresses me sometimes, but at least some of us are trying to change the stories to something more real. Emotionally I loved Gone with the Wind, intellectually it just didn't make sense. Unfortunately, our emotions often win over our intellect until we outgrow those emotions.