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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