A former paper on Mrs Stowe's remarkable book, presented a little
episode, the heroine of which was Eliza, a female slave on the estate
of a Mr Shelby in Kentucky. We now turn to the story of Tom himself,
whose transfers from hand to hand afford the authoress an opportunity
of describing the private life and feelings of slave-owners, and the
unwholesome and dangerous condition of society in the south.
Tom, we have hinted, was jet black in colour, trustworthy and valued
by his master, who was compelled by necessity to part with him to
Haley, a slave-trader. The separation of this honest fellow from his
wife Chloe, and his children, was a sad affair; but as Tom was of a
hopeful temperament, and under strong religious impressions, he did
not repine at the fate he was about to encounter, dreaded as that
usually is by persons in his situation. 'In order to appreciate the
sufferings of the negroes sold south, it must be remembered that all
the instinctive affections of that race are peculiarly strong. Their
local attachments are very abiding. They are not naturally daring and
enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate. Add to this all the
terrors with which ignorance invests the unknown, and add to this,
again, that selling to the south is set before the negro from
childhood as the last severity of punishment. The threat that
terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind, is the threat of
being sent down river.
'A missionary among the fugitives in Canada told us, that many of the
fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped from comparatively kind
masters, and that they were induced to brave the perils of escape, in
almost every case, by the desperate horror with which they regarded
being sold south--a doom which was hanging either over themselves or
their husbands, their wives or children. This nerves the African,
naturally patient, timid, and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and
leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness,
and the more dread penalties of recapture.'
After a simple repast in his rude cabin, Tom prepared to start. Chloe
shut and corded his trunk, and getting up, looked gruffly on the
trader who was robbing her of her husband; her tears seemingly turned
to sparks of fire. Tom rose up meekly to follow his new master, and
raised the box on his shoulder. His wife took the baby in her arms, to
go with him as far as the wagon, and the children, crying, trailed on
behind. 'A crowd of all the old and young hands in the place stood
gathered around it, to bid farewell to their old associate. Tom had
been looked up to, both as a head-servant and a Christian teacher, by
all the place, and there was much honest sympathy and grief about him,
particularly among the women. Haley whipped up the horse, and with a
steady, mournful look, fixed to the last on the old place, Tom was
whirled away. Mr Shelby at this time was not at home. He had sold Tom
under the spur of a driving necessity, to get out of the power of a
man he dreaded; and his first feeling, after the consummation of the
bargain, had been that of relief. But his wife's expostulations awoke
his half-slumbering regrets; and Tom's disinterestedness increased the
unpleasantness of his feelings. It was in vain that he said to
himself, that he had a _right_ to do it, that everybody did it, and
that some did it without even the excuse of necessity: he could not
satisfy his own feelings; and that he might not witness the unpleasant
scenes of the consummation, he had gone on a short business tour up
the country, hoping that all would be over before he returned.'
Haley, with his property, reaches the Mississippi; and on that
magnificent river, a steam-boat, piled high with bales of cotton from
many a plantation, receives the party. 'Partly from confidence
inspired by Mr Shelby's representations, and partly from the
remarkably inoffensive and quiet character of the man, Tom had
insensibly won his way far into the confidence even of such a man as
Haley. At first, he had watched him narrowly through the day, and
never allowed him to sleep at night unfettered; but the uncomplaining
patience and apparent contentment of Tom's manner, led him gradually
to discontinue these restraints; and for some time Tom had enjoyed a
sort of parole of honour, being permitted to come and go freely where
he pleased on the boat. Ever quiet and obliging, and more than ready
to lend a hand in every emergency which occurred among the workmen
below, he had won the good opinion of all the hands, and spent many
hours in helping them with as hearty a good-will as ever he worked on
a Kentucky farm. When there seemed to be nothing for him to do, he
would climb to a nook among the cotton-bales of the upper deck, and
busy himself in studying over his Bible--and it is there we see him
now. For a hundred or more miles above New Orleans, the river is
higher than the surrounding country, and rolls its tremendous volume
between massive levees twenty feet in height. The traveller from the
deck of the steamer, as from some floating castle-top, overlooks the
whole country for miles and miles around. Tom, therefore, had spread
out full before him, in plantation after plantation, a map of the life
to which he was approaching. He saw the distant slaves at their toil;
he saw afar their villages of huts gleaming out in long rows on many a
plantation, distant from the stately mansions and pleasure-grounds of
the master; and as the moving picture passed on, his poor foolish
heart would be turning backward to the Kentucky farm, with its old
shadowy beeches, to the master's house, with its wide, cool halls, and
near by the little cabin, overgrown with the multiflora and bignonia.
There he seemed to see familiar faces of comrades who had grown up
with him from infancy: he saw his busy wife, bustling in her
preparations for his evening meals; he heard the merry laugh of his
boys at their play, and the chirrup of the baby at his knee, and then,
with a start, all faded; and he saw again the cane-brakes and
cypresses of gliding plantations, and heard again the creaking and
groaning of the machinery, all telling him too plainly that all that
phase of life had gone by for ever.'
An unlooked-for incident raises up a friend. 'Among the passengers on
the boat was a young gentleman of fortune and family, resident in New
Orleans, who bore the name of St Clare. He had with him a daughter
between five and six years of age, together with a lady who seemed to
claim relationship to both, and to have the little one especially
under her charge. Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl,
for she was one of those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no
more contained in one place than a sunbeam or a summer breeze; nor
was she one that, once seen, could be easily forgotten. Her form was
the perfection of childish beauty, without its usual chubbiness and
squareness of outline.'
This angelic little creature was attracted by Tom's appearance; and
speaking kindly to him, expressed a hope of serving him, by inducing
her papa to become his purchaser. Tom had just thanked the little lady
for her intentions, when the boat stopped at a landing-place. At its
moving on again, Eva, who leaned imprudently on the railings, fell
overboard. Tom was fortunately standing under her as she fell. 'He saw
her strike the water and sink, and was after her in a moment. A
broad-chested, strong-armed fellow, it was nothing for him to keep
afloat in the water till, in a moment or two, the child rose to the
surface, and he caught her in his arms, and, swimming with her to the
boat-side, handed her up, all dripping, to the grasp of hundreds of
hands, which, as if they had all belonged to one man, were stretched
eagerly out to receive her. A few moments more, and her father bore
her, dripping and senseless, to the ladies' cabin, where, as is usual
in cases of the kind, there ensued a very well-meaning and
kind-hearted strife among the female occupants generally as to who
should do the most things to make a disturbance, and to hinder her
recovery in every way possible.'
Next day, as the vessel approached New Orleans, Tom sat on the lower
deck, with his arms folded, anxiously from time to time turning his
eyes towards a group on the other side of the boat. 'There stood the
fair Evangeline, a little paler than the day before, but otherwise
exhibiting no traces of the accident which had befallen her. A
graceful, elegantly-formed young man stood by her, carelessly leaning
one elbow on a bale of cotton, while a large pocket-book lay open
before him. It was quite evident, at a glance, that the gentleman was
Eva's father. There was the same noble cast of head, the same large
blue eyes, the same golden-brown hair; yet the expression was wholly
different. In the large, clear blue eyes, though in form and colour
exactly similar, there was wanting that misty, dreamy depth of
expression; all was clear, bold, and bright, but with a light wholly
of this world: the beautifully cut mouth had a proud and somewhat
sarcastic expression, while an air of free-and-easy superiority sat
not ungracefully in every turn and movement of his fine form. He was
listening with a good-humoured, negligent air, half comic, half
contemptuous, to Haley, who was very volubly expatiating on the
quality of the article for which they were bargaining.
"All the moral and Christian virtues bound in black morocco,
complete!" he said, when Haley had finished. "Well, now, my good
fellow, what's the damage, as they say in Kentucky; in short, what's
to be paid out for this business? How much are you going to cheat me,
now? Out with it!"
"Wal," said Haley, "if I should say thirteen hundred dollars for that
ar fellow, I shouldn't but just save myself--I shouldn't, now, raily."
"Papa, do buy him! it's no matter what you pay," whispered Eva softly,
getting up on a package, and putting her arm around her father's neck.
"You have money enough, I know. I want him."'
Tom was purchased, and paid for. 'Come, Eva,' said St Clare, as he
stepped across the boat to his newly-acquired property. '"Look up,
Tom, and see how you like your new master." Tom looked up. It was not
in nature to look into that gay, young, handsome face without a
feeling of pleasure; and Tom felt the tears start in his eyes as he
said, heartily: "God bless you, mas'r!"
"Well, I hope he will. What's your name? Tom? Quite as likely to do it
for your asking as mine, from all accounts. Can you drive horses,
Tom?"
"I've been allays used to horses," said Tom.
"Well, I think I shall put you in coachy, on condition that you won't
be drunk more than once a week, unless in cases of emergency, Tom."
'Tom looked surprised, and rather hurt, and said: "I never drink,
mas'r."
"I've heard that story before, Tom; but then we'll see. It will be a
special accommodation to all concerned if you don't. Never mind, my
boy," he added good-humouredly, seeing Tom still looked grave; "I
don't doubt you mean to do well."
"I sartin do, mas'r," said Tom.
"And you shall have good times," said Eva. "Papa is very good to
everybody, only he always will laugh at them."
"Papa is much obliged to you for his recommendation," said St Clare
laughing, as he turned on his heel and walked away.'
Augustine St Clare was a wealthy citizen of New Orleans, and possessed
a domestic establishment of great extent and elegance, with a body of
servants in the condition of slaves, to whom he was an indulgent
master. The description of this splendid mansion, with its lounging
and wasteful attendants, its indolent, pretty, and capricious
lady-mistress, and the account of Ophelia, a shrewd New-England
cousin, who managed the household affairs, must be considered the
best, or at least the most amusing portion of the work. The authoress
also dwells with fondness on the character of the gentle Eva, a child
of uncommon talents, but so delicate in health, so ethereal, that
while still on earth, she seems already an angel of paradise leading
and beckoning to Heaven. Eva was kind to everybody--kind even to
Topsy, a negro girl whom St Clare had one day bought out of mere
charity, on seeing her cruelly lashed by her former master and
mistress. Topsy is a fine picture of a brutalised young negro, who
never speaks the truth even by chance, and steals because she cannot
help it. Every one gives up Topsy as utterly irreclaimable--all except
the gentle Eva. Caught in a fresh act of theft, Topsy is led away by
Eva. 'There was a little glass-room at the corner of the veranda,
which St Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy
disappeared into this place.
"What's Eva going about now?" said St Clare; "I mean to see." And
advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the
glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips,
he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat
the two children on the floor, with their side-faces towards them,
Topsy with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but,
opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears
in her large eyes.
"What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won't you try and be good?
Don't you love _anybody_, Topsy?"
"Donno nothing 'bout love. I loves candy and sich--that's all," said
Topsy.
"But you love your father and mother?"
"Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva."
"Oh, I know," said Eva sadly; "but hadn't you any brother, or sister,
or aunt, or"----
"No, none on 'm--never had nothing nor nobody."
"But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might"----
"Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so good," said
Topsy. "If I could be skinned, and come white, I'd try then."
"But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would
love you if you were good."
'Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of
expressing incredulity.
"Don't you think so?" said Eva.
"No; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger!--she'd's soon have a toad
touch her. There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do
nothin'. _I_ don't care," said Topsy, beginning to whistle.
"O Topsy, poor child, _I_ love you," said Eva, with a sudden burst of
feeling, and laying her little thin white hand on Topsy's shoulder--"I
love you because you haven't had any father, or mother, or
friends--because you've been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I
want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't
live a great while; and it really grieves me to have you be so
naughty. I wish you would try to be good, for my sake; it's only a
little while I shall be with you."
'The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears;
large bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the
little white hand. Yes, in that moment a ray of real belief, a ray of
heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul. She
laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed; while the
beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some
bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.
"Poor Topsy!" said Eva, "don't you know that Jesus loves all alike? He
is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as I do, only
more, because he is better. He will help you to be good, and you can
go to heaven at last, and be an angel for ever, just as much as if you
were white. Only think of it, Topsy; _you_ can be one of those spirits
bright Uncle Tom sings about."
"O dear Miss Eva!--dear Miss Eva!" said the child, "I will try--I will
try! I never did care nothin' about it before."'
By such persuasions, Eva had the happiness to see the beginning of
improvement in Topsy, who finally assumed an entirely new character,
and attained a respectable position in society.
Eva, after this, declined rapidly. Uncle Tom was much in her room.
'The child suffered much from nervous restlessness, and it was a
relief to her to be carried; and it was Tom's greatest delight to
carry her little frail form in his arms, resting on a pillow, now up
and down her room, now out into the veranda; and when the fresh
sea-breezes blew from the lake, and the child felt freshest in the
morning, he would sometimes walk with her under the orange-trees in
the garden, or, sitting down in some of their old seats, sing to her
their favourite old hymns. The desire to do something was not confined
to Tom. Every servant in the establishment shewed the same feeling,
and in their way did what they could.' At length, the moment
of departure of this highly-prized being arrives. 'It is
midnight--strange, mystic hour, when the veil between the frail
present and the eternal future grows thin--then came the messenger!'
St Clare was called, and was up in her room in an instant. 'What was
it he saw that made his heart stand still? Why was no word spoken
between the two? Thou canst say, who hast seen that same expression on
the face dearest to thee--that look, indescribable, hopeless,
unmistakable, that says to thee that thy beloved is no longer thine.
'On the face of the child, however, there was no ghastly imprint--only
a high and almost sublime expression--the overshadowing presence of
spiritual natures, the dawning of immortal life in that childish soul.
'They stood there so still, gazing upon her, that even the ticking of
the watch seemed too loud.' Tom arrived with the doctor. The house was
aroused--'lights were seen, footsteps heard, anxious faces thronged
the veranda, and looked tearfully through the glass doors; but St
Clare heard and said nothing; he saw only _that look_ on the face of
the little sleeper.
"Oh, if she would only wake, and speak once more!" he said; and,
stooping over her, lie spoke in her ear: "Eva, darling!"
'The large blue eyes unclosed--a smile passed over her face; she tried
to raise her head, and to speak.
"Do you know me, Eva?"
"Dear papa," said the child with a last effort, throwing her arms
about his neck. In a moment, they dropped again; and as St Clare
raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal agony pass over the face:
she struggled for breath, and threw up her little hands.
"O God, this is dreadful!" he said, turning away in agony, and
wringing Tom's hand, scarce conscious what he was doing. "O Tom, my
boy, it is killing me!"
'The child lay panting on her pillows, as one exhausted; the large
clear eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those eyes that spoke so
much of heaven? Earth was passed, and earthly pain; but so solemn, so
mysterious, was the triumphant brightness of that face, that it
checked even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed around her in breathless
stillness.
"Eva!" said St Clare gently. She did not hear.
"O Eva, tell us what you see! What is it?" said her father.
'A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said,
brokenly: "O love--joy--peace!" gave one sigh, and passed from death
unto life!'
Previous to the death of the dear Eva, she had induced her father to
promise to emancipate Tom, and he was taking steps to give this
faithful servant his liberty, when a terrible catastrophe occurred. St
Clare was suddenly killed in attempting to appease a quarrel in one of
the coffee-rooms of New Orleans. His family were plunged into grief
and consternation; and by his trustees the whole of the servants in
the establishment, Uncle Tom included, were brought to sale in the
open market.
'Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving to and fro
over the marble pavé. On every side of the circular area were little
tribunes, or stations, for the use of speakers and auctioneers. Two of
these, on opposite sides of the area, were now occupied by brilliant
and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and
French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various wares. A
third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a
group waiting the moment of sale to begin. And here we may recognise
the St Clare servants, awaiting their turn with anxious and dejected
faces.
'Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of faces
thronging around him for one whom he would wish to call master; and,
if you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting out of
two hundred men one who was to become your absolute owner and
disposer, you would perhaps realise, just as Tom did, how few there
were that you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom
saw abundance of men, great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried
men; long-favoured, lank, hard men; and every variety of
stubbed-looking, common-place men, who pick up their fellow-men as one
picks up chips, putting them into the fire or a basket with equal
unconcern, according to their convenience; but he saw no St Clare.
'A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in
a checked shirt, considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much
the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like
one who is going actively into a business; and, coming up to the
group, began to examine them systematically. From the moment that Tom
saw him approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him,
that increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of
gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, large, light-gray eyes,
with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burned hair,
were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large,
coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time
to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force;
his hands were immensely large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and very
dirty, and garnished with long nails, in a very foul condition. This
man proceeded to a very free personal examination of the lot. He
seized Tom by the jaw, and pulled open his mouth to inspect his teeth;
made him strip up his sleeve to shew his muscle; turned him round,
made him jump and spring, to shew his paces.' Almost immediately, Tom
was ordered to mount the block. 'Tom stepped upon the block, gave a
few anxious looks round; all seemed mingled in a common, indistinct
noise--the clatter of the salesman crying off his qualifications in
French and English, the quick fire of French and English bids; and
almost in a moment came the final thump of the hammer, and the clear
ring on the last syllable of the word "_dollars_," as the auctioneer
announced his price, and Tom was made over.--He had a master!
'He was pushed from the block; the short, bullet-headed man, seizing
him roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to one side, saying, in a
harsh voice: "Stand there, _you_!"'
By his new and rude master, Tom was forthwith marched off; put on
board a vessel for a distant cotton-plantation on Red River; stripped
of his decent apparel by his savage owner, and dressed in the meanest
habiliments. The treatment of the poor negro was now most revolting.
He was wrought hard under a burning sun; half-starved; scourged;
loaded with the grossest abuse. All this ends in a rapid decline of
health; and his story terminates with an account of his death, his
last moments being dignified by a strong sentiment of piety, and of
forgiveness towards his inhuman taskmaster.
We have now presented a sufficiently ample abstract of _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_, a work which will undoubtedly be perused at length by all who
feel deeply on the subject of negro slavery. Of the authoress, Mrs H.
B. Stowe, it may be said, that her chief merit consists in close
observation of character, with a forcible and truth-like power of
delineation. In plot, supposing her to aim at such a thing, she
decidedly fails, and the winding-up of her _dramatis personæ_ is
hurried and imperfect. Notwithstanding these defects, however, she has
succeeded in rivetting universal attention, while her aims are in the
highest degree praiseworthy.