BURNING UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

The author sent me a copy of his novel to review:

If I didn’t recently read and review (12/09/2012) Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom's Cabin, I would be attracted to Carl Waters’ (Volume 1) version of this American classic. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most important novel ever written for the American people with the possible exception of Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense. Mr. Waters' novel is the first of four planned novels dissecting the original novel. One would ask, why? Well, according to the author, “The Burning Uncle Tom’s Cabin series comprises four books whose narratives are told from the slaves points of view. I have removed many of the racial stereotypes, plot holes, and excessive preaching from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s world changing story.” Waters also states in the book’s introduction, “I do not understand or agree with Uncle Tom’s overall mindset.” This is where I disagree. In my mind, Uncle Tom is the most courageous and righteous character in American Literature. When Tom died in Stowe’s 1852 novel, it ignited a groundswell of opinion against the South and slavery. When Stowe met President Lincoln in 1862 at the White House, he called her “The little woman who started this great war.” And, I believe the character of Uncle Tom had a lot to do with purging America of slavery.

Burning Uncle Tom’s Cabin deals with Stowe’s sidebar story of George Harris, his wife Eliza and their son, Harry. George lives on the plantation of the wicked Frank Harris. George is on loan to a hemp factory where he invented a hemp-cleaning machine to the delight of his foreman, Charles Wilson. Understandably, George, through his hard work, has earned the right to occasionally visit his wife and son at the Shelby Plantation five miles away. George is planning his escape to Canada. Meanwhile at the Shelby’s estate, Eliza and her son are treated as family (if that’s possible). But trouble is brewing. One day a slave trader appears at the plantation. Eliza overhears the trader, Dan Haley, calling in a debt from Mr. Shelby. He wants Uncle Tom and Eliza’s Harry to settle the debt. Eliza warns Uncle Tom and then runs for Canada with three year old Harry.

Back at the hemp factory, Mr. Harris suddenly appears and wants George back on the farm, so to speak. Why? On page thirteen, Mr. Wilson protests losing George and the contemptible Frank Harris says, “I won’t have him stayin’ another minute, pickin’ up airs and thinkin’ too high of himself! This boy’s a lazy, no good Negro, ain’t never done anything worthwhile at my plantation!” Once back on the plantation, Frank Harris treats George badly, giving him the worst chores possible. George is told that he will never see his Eliza and Harry again; in fact, he is forced to take a wife that Frank Harris picks out. When George objects, he is severely whipped and branded on the palm of his hand. Later that night, one of Uncle Tom’s sons sneaks over to George’s shack and informs him that Eliza and Harry are on the run to Canada. Now George is also on the run! All of this happens during the first 77 pages. The rest of this unique rewrite revolves around the pursuit of the Harris family by the slave traders. Will they make it to Canada, or will tragedy strike? You will have to buy your own copy of this revised version of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic to find out.

I believe it would be more advantageous for Mr. Waters to write his own Southern Gothic novel rather than pursue this project. The task he is taking-on is very difficult. I see talent in his writing, but certain attributes he is trying to change are very difficult and awkward to modify. For example: the language used in his variant of the novel. In the 1850s, writers like Stowe and Mark Twain used the African American Vernacular English dialect spoken by the negroes of the time period. The author could have used a cleansed version of this dialect. I’m talking about using the local colloquial expressions of the whites (which the author did occasionally) and the negroes (which the author didn’t do) to make the novel more believable. This is very hard to do and still accomplish what Mr. Waters set out to achieve, namely a novel where the slaves are not inferior to the whites; have equal intelligence, and have the courage to shed their shackles. In a certain way, the author did that, but lost credence by not using a purified version of the local vocabulary of 1851. Anyway, I commend the author for taking on this very difficult endeavor, but it wasn’t original enough for me.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: In 1853, Stowe published, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin to dispute the claims from the South that the original book exaggerated the cruelty of the slaves. In the new book, Stowe gave documented examples of cruelty along with corroborative statements. The book was well received worldwide except for the South. The book sold 90,000 copies in the first month alone.

Goodreads.com states, “When first published, Uncle Tom's Cabin brought with its huge success enormous attention to the depravity of slavery. Many people, however, questioned the basis of truth of the novel. In response, Ms. Stowe gathered her research materials and published them in this now rare book.”

Wikipedia.org states, “The reaction of Stowe’s contemporaries to A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin was very similar to the reaction to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with both very positive and very negative reviews. The responses of abolitionists and Northerners in general were among the positive, lauding the proof of the evils of slavery and the confirmation of the truth of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The great interest in Uncle Tom’s Cabin in England also transferred to the Key. One English review of the 1853 publication called it a “marvelous book, more so if possible than Uncle Tom’s Cabin itself.” This same review also commends Stowe’s self-control and character. This impression of Stowe and the reception of the book is much different than the reaction to the Key in the South.

The pro-slavery response to the Key paralleled the response to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Despite Stowe using documented examples to make the Key a verification of the truth of Stowe’s depiction of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, most Southern reviews still claimed that Stowe was misrepresenting slavery and exaggerating the cruelty of the institution. A review in the Southern Literary Messenger called the Key a “distortion of the facts and mutilation of the records, for the sake of giving substance to the scandalous fancy, and reduplicating the falsehood of the representation.” Although these reviews claimed that Stowe was misrepresenting slavery, they did not accuse Stowe of using false documentation. Rather they claimed that the examples that Stowe provides are the most extreme instances, which she gathered to give the worst possible impression of the institution of slavery, and of the south. One critic, William Simms, accused her of using faulty argumentation by gathering facts to prove her assumption, instead of forming assumptions based on facts. Another pro-slavery reaction to both Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin was, rather than critiquing the work itself, a critique of Stowe’s character. Many reviews made insinuations about what sort of woman Stowe must be to write about such events as were found in the Key. One review by George Holmes questioned whether “scenes of license and impurity, and ideas of loathsome depravity and habitual prostitution [are] to be made the cherished topics of the female pen” and appealed to women, especially southern women, not to read Stowe’s productions.”

Historyengine.richmond.edu discovered some disdain for Stowe’s Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin dated 7/1/1853, “In 1853 Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the companion to her famous novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and she titled it A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her purpose in writing the book was to explain why she thought that whites were still unwilling to take pity on slaves. While Stowe claimed that she understood that slaves were more than property, she postulated that other whites still saw slaves as sub-human. Stowe did admit that she did not fully understand blacks, but she thought that by applying Christian kindness to them, their situation might be helped. One shocking thing that Stowe revealed was that she believed that slaves repulsed themselves; she wrote that they thought they were evil because their skin was black. She did not think that blacks were capable of reaching the same intellectual and moral heights as whites, and she blames that inability on their disgust in themselves. Southerners were not at all pleased with Stowe's book. Critics characterized it as having a narrow field of view. She was accused of making generalizations about Southerners as being unaffected by the plights of slaves. This bothered critics who felt that Southerners were not deficient in their morality. One critic tried to explain that the North had the same prejudices as the South. He wrote wherever man is found, we find equally the same vices, crimes, and weaknesses. Southerners were also alarmed at the lack of biblical references in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. They felt that she was writing too righteously not to be using the Bible. The outrage caused by Stowe's book in South was significant because it exemplified the schism between what southerners thought about northerners, what northerners thought about southerners, and the truth.”

Drawing of Eliza and Harry jumping the ice floes (a 1938 book edition)