Did Uncle Tom’s Cabin Book Help The Abolition Of Slavery In America?

During the days of slavery in the United States of America, when the Negro slaves were traded as if they were animals, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whether touched by the plight of the oppressed slaves or wants to make money, decides to write a book about it.

Once born Black, you have an extra mountain to climb among races

We need to find out first who was Harriet Beecher Stowe? She was born as a vicar’s daughter in a parsonage in Connecticut on July 15, 1811. In the book that I read about her, she was described as a physically weak woman, who had already written remarkable essays at the age of ten.

Following every detail of what is happening in the time of slavery, she recorded its findings in an extremely emotionally fascinating and deeply human story, which later became a book many want to read across the world.

At first, the story was placed in excerpts and appeared in a progressive magazine, called the ‘The National Era, and in 1852 it appeared in book form. However, not everyone was happy with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book.

In America itself, the issue of slavery was even the start of a war between supporters in the South, ‘the Confederation,’ and opponents in the North, ‘the United States,’ while the book itself became a center of controversy.

In the first year, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ became the title of Stowe’s book and it appeared in no less than 120 prints in the English, in the United States of America. 

In England, it became an equally overwhelming success, enabling a hesitant initial print run of 7,000 copies, followed by no fewer than 40 prints. Afterward, the book was translated into about 20 languages all over the world. 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, at the age of 40,  became the most read book of the nineteenth century. Eleven years after the publication, slavery was abolished.

However, after the abolition of slavery, the burden of African-Americans became heavier and the scourging whips were changed to scorpions, while the fight for human rights still going on. 

In my opinion, the success of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin actually humiliated and promoted racism against black people, throughout the United States of America and other countries, if one takes into consideration the number of languages this book was translated into.

I have a copy of the book myself, translated into Dutch. In Europe, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Luxemburg, speak Dutch. 

Among the mentioned European countries, Holland, Germany, and Belgium were the countries that committed the most serious crimes against humanity, ranging from, colonization, Apartheid, to the deliberate spread and infection of diseases in African countries. 

It’s a shame that decades after the abolition of slavery, the murder of a common man called George Floyd, by the police, has changed the United States of America, enabling a transformation that African-Americans haven’t dreamt about in decades, despite the country having its first black president, Barack Obama.

By Joel Savage