www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 VOLUME 1: ISSUE 8 ||January 2020 || Email: [email protected] Website: www.whiteblacklegal.co.in 1 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 DISCLAIMER No part of this publication may be reproduced or copied in any form by any means without prior written permission of Editor-in-chief of WhiteBlackLegal – The Law Journal. The Editorial Team of WhiteBlackLegal holds the copyright to all articles contributed to this publication. The views expressed in this publication are purely personal opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Editorial Team of WhiteBlackLegal. Though all efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and correctness of the information published, White Black Legal shall not be responsible for any errors caused due to oversight or otherwise. 2 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 EDITORIAL TEAM EDITOR IN CHIEF Name - Mr. Varun Agrawal Consultant || SUMEG FINANCIAL SERVICES PVT.LTD. 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The erudite response of legal luminaries shall be solicited to enable readers to explore challenges that lie before law makers, lawyers and the society at large, in the event of the ever changing social, economic and technological scenario. With this thought, we hereby present to you WHITE BLACK LEGAL: THE LAW JOURNAL 4 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 Introduction Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe, was an important book of its time which highlighted the deplorable conditions of the enslaved African-Americans in the 1850s. Harriet Beecher Stowe was further inspired to fight against after the attacks on the African-Americans in the Cincinnati Riots of 18291. Later, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, she launched a scathing attack on the people supporting the legislation with her book ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. She had further written books like ‘Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp’, ‘The Minister’s Wooing’, ‘The Lives and Deeds of Self-Made Men’ to name a few. Her stories primarily were expressive of the socio-political scenarios of her time which she tried to bring about with her books. During those times, slaves were not recognized as legal persons, and therefore neither did have rights nor duties. Therefore, they were subjected to assault, torture and widespread attacks from a section of the society who considered themselves to have a superior identity. The African-Americans neither could hold property, nor had any sort of citizenship per se. Furthermore, during that time period, a divide started growing between the Northern States, which were against slavery and the Southern States, which were pro-slavery. It is in this socio-political scenario that this novel had been written. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) primarily revolves around Tom, an African-American slave and his hardships in life which is reflective of how slaves and African-Americans were generally treated in the 19th Century. The story commences with a setting in Kentucky, a South-Eastern state in the United States of America. A famer, Arthur Shelby and his wife, Emily who are generally compassionate towards his slaves, is forced to trade his slaves, Tom and a child, Harry due to their shabby financial position. In fact, Emily had vowed to Eliza, Harry’s mother that she would never trade her child. This attitude comes from the fact that Emily was very much moved by the misfortune of past miscarriages of Eliza. Harry and Eliza therefore run away and Tom was sold, much to the dismay of George, the Shelby’s son. 1 Parfait, Claire. The Publishing History of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852-2002, Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2007, 71-72. 5 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 Tom is sold to Augustine St Clare and is taken to New Orleans. There, he grows very close to the daughter of St. Clare, Eva. St. Clare was aware of the wrongs in slaver but since he could financially help himself and his family through slavery, he would not vehemently protest. Later, with the unfortunate death of his child, Eva, he finally gives in by pledging to free Tom and make him a free man. But with Lady Fortune not in Tom’s favor, St. Clare too dies after succumbing to his injuries after getting stabbed. His wife, who had lost both her child and husband, then sells Tom to a crooked owner of a plantation, named Simon Legree. Simon had simultaneously purchased another slave girl named Emmeline and took her and Tom to Louisiana. There, they meet other slaves and see that Simon was essentially a cruel man who would aggressively subject the slaves to inhumane torture. Meanwhile, Tom had developed a faith in God through St. Clare’s regular recitation of the Bible to him. Legree hated that so much that he orders Tom to beat and whip the other slaves to deter him from the faith. It’s almost impossible for him to derive a relationship between slaves and religion. An African- American slave cannot pray to the same entity as their white owners. Slowly from continuously being subjected to cruelty, Tom thinks of giving up. Just then he has a vision of Jesus and Eva which renews his faith in God. He makes Cassy, another slave girl and Emmeline abscond. This infuriates Legree and he orders his supervisors to kill Tom. Even though they cruelly beat him up and kills him, Tom did not give up on his faith. This character of Tom changes the supervisors and they eventually converted to Christianity. George Shelby later comes to take him back but finds about his death, and his death makes George free all his slaves and preach Christianity to them. In a parallel plot, there is the family of Harry, Eliza and her husband planning to go to Canada but they are ambushed by a slave hunter named Tom Loker who gets shot in one of their face-offs. Even though Loker wanted to kill them, they take Loker to a Quaker settlement for treatment. Loker has a change of heart as he realizes the flaws of the general view towards the African-Americans which makes him give up the job of slave hunting. The Sign of Times To understand the whole crux of the novel, one has to understand the prejudice that existed in those times. The novel was written at the time when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. Slavery in the 1840s was taking a direction which was unfavorable to the White population because numerous slaves were running away to the North which was a safer place for the African-Americans. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was weakening as the Northern States 6 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 wanted to do away with the Act2. The case of Prigg v Pennsylvania 41 U.S.(16 Pet) 539 (1842) in the Supreme Court further disregarded the Act by holding that the State cannot take steps to bring back the slaves who had run away. But while they held the then laws of Pennsylvania unconstitutional, it created scope for the State to draft new laws3 . Post that, in 1850, from 3-11th June, in Nashville, there was a convention held by the States to support slavery which gave rise to the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law 1850. The novel is based on the backdrop of the Fugitive Slave Law 1850 as we can see that multiple African-Americans like Cassy, Emmeline, Eliza and her family were trying to flee. They were still accustomed to the idea that they could run away to the North or to places like Canada. But the Act of 1850 introduced a rule of law that ordered restoration of slaves who had run away. This order was cast even upon the free states of the North after the Compromise of 1850. A shining example of the consequences of the Act can be seen in the case of Antony Burns4, a free man who had fled to Boston but was being reinstated into slavery after the law was enacted. He was later placed on trial in 1854 and after a long struggle of the abolitionists; they had managed to free Burns. But Burns eventually died as a result of the torture he had to endure during the time he was reinstated. This can be seen in the context of Tom. Tom in most of his life had been around people who were generous. But later, when he was sold to Simon Legree, he was subjected to violent treatment to the extent of death. The basis of the case of Anthony Burns was on the foundation of the Fugitive Slave Act. The Act was placed to enforce the Constitution’s Article IV, the ‘Fugitive Slave Clause’ which stated that: “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of law of regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” People who looked positively to abolish slavery were also looked down upon in that period of time.