Uncle Tom

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Uncle Tom and Eva

You are viewing a picture of Uncle Tom with Eva, from Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Lithograph was created in 1899, by the Courier Lithograph Company. Uncle Tom is pictured tenderly reading with Eva.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, was a novel by famous abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, and was first published as a serial in the National Era, in Washington, D. C., in 1850, and completed in Boston in 1852. The Rev. Josiah Henson, who died in Dresden, Ontario, Canada, May 5, 1883, at the age of ninety-three, was the original of Uncle Tom. He was a slave who was permitted to go freely from Kentucky to Ohio on his master's business, because he had given a promise that he would not attempt to escape, on a pledge of freedom at a certain time; but his master died before the appointed me and Henson was sold as a slave.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is a story of both the cruelty of Slavery, and the overcoming power of Love and Faith. The story of Uncle Tom's Cabin helped fuel the abolitionist movement of the 1850's, and played a role in changing the National perspective on Slavery.

The fact that Uncle Tom did his master's bidding, only to be cheated in the end, has led to the modern term "Uncle Tom" to refer to a black person who is allowing himself to be used by a whiter person, or white society in general.

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