Uncle Tom's Cabin
white descent. His mother was one of those unfortunates of her race,
marked out by personal beauty to be the slave of the passions of her
possessor, and the mother of children who may never know a father. From
one of the proudest families in Kentucky he had inherited a set of fine
European features, and a high, indomitable spirit. From his mother he
had received only a slight mulatto tinge, amply compensated by its
accompanying rich, dark eye. A slight change in the tint of the skin
and the color of his hair had metamorphosed him into the
Spanish-looking fellow he then appeared; and as gracefulness of
movement and gentlemanly manners had always been perfectly natural to
him, he found no difficulty in playing the bold part he had
adopted—that of a gentleman travelling with his domestic.
Mr. Wilson, a good-natured but extremely fidgety and cautious old
gentleman, ambled up and down the room, appearing, as John Bunyan hath
it, “much tumbled up and down in his mind,” and divided between his
wish to help George, and a certain confused notion of maintaining law
and order: so, as he shambled about, he delivered himself as follows:
“Well, George, I s’pose you’re running away—leaving your lawful master,
George—(I don’t wonder at it)—at the same time, I’m sorry, George,—yes,
decidedly—I think I must say that, George—it’s my duty to tell you so.”
“Why are you sorry, sir?” said George, calmly.
“Why, to see you, as it were, setting yourself in opposition to the
laws of your country.”
“_My_ country!” said George, with a strong and bitter emphasis; “what
country have I, but the grave,—and I wish to God that I was laid
there!”
“Why, George, no—no—it won’t do; this way of talking is
wicked—unscriptural. George, you’ve got a hard master—in fact, he
is—well he conducts himself reprehensibly—I can’t pretend to defend
him. But you know how the angel commanded Hagar to return to her
mistress, and submit herself under the hand;[1] and the apostle sent
back Onesimus to his master.”[2]
[1] Gen. 16. The angel bade the pregnant Hagar return to her mistress
Sarai, even though Sarai had dealt harshly with her.
[2] Phil. 1:10. Onesimus went back to his master to become no longer a
servant but a “brother beloved.”
“Don’t quote Bible at me that way, Mr. Wilson,” said George, with a
flashing eye, “don’t! for my wife is a Christian, and I mean to be, if
ever I get to where I can; but to quote Bible to a fellow in my
circumstances, is enough to make him give it up altogether. I appeal to
God Almighty;—I’m willing to go with the case to Him, and ask Him if I
do wrong to seek my freedom.”
“These feelings are quite natural, George,” said the good-natured man,
blowing his nose. “Yes, they’re natural, but it is my duty not to
encourage ’em in you. Yes, my boy, I’m sorry for you, now; it’s a bad
case—very bad; but the apostle says, ‘Let everyone abide in the
condition in which he is called.’ We must all submit to the indications
of Providence, George,—don’t you see?”
George stood with his head drawn back, his arms folded tightly over his
broad breast, and a bitter smile curling his lips.
“I wonder, Mr. Wilson, if the Indians should come and take you a
prisoner away from your wife and children, and want to keep you all
your life hoeing corn for them, if you’d think it your duty to abide in
the condition in which you were called. I rather think that you’d think
the first stray horse you could find an indication of
Providence—shouldn’t you?”
The little old gentleman stared with both eyes at this illustration of
the case; but, though not much of a reasoner, he had the sense in which
some logicians on this particular subject do not excel,—that of saying
nothing, where nothing could be said. So, as he stood carefully
stroking his umbrella, and folding and patting down all the creases in
it, he proceeded on with his exhortations in a general way.
“You see, George, you know, now, I always have stood your friend; and
whatever I’ve said, I’ve said for your good. Now, here, it seems to me,
you’re running an awful risk. You can’t hope to carry it out. If you’re
taken, it will be worse with you than ever; they’ll only abuse you, and
half kill you, and sell you down the river.”
“Mr. Wilson, I know all this,” said George. “I _do_ run a risk, but—”
he threw open his overcoat, and showed two pistols and a bowie-knife.
“There!” he said, “I’m ready for ’em! Down south I never _will_ go. No!
if it comes to that, I can earn myself at least six feet of free
soil,—the first and last I shall ever own in Kentucky!”
“Why, George, this state of mind is awful; it’s getting really
desperate George. I’m concerned. Going to break the laws of your
country!”
“My country again! Mr. Wilson, _you_ have a country; but what country
have _I_, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are
there for us? We don’t make them,—we don’t consent to them,—we have
nothing to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us
down. Haven’t I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don’t you tell us
all, once a year, that governments derive their just power from the
consent of the governed? Can’t a fellow _think_, that hears such
things? Can’t he put this and that together, and see what it comes to?”
Mr. Wilson’s mind was one of those that may not unaptly be represented
by a bale of cotton,—downy, soft, benevolently fuzzy and confused. He
really pitied George with all his heart, and had a sort of dim and
cloudy perception of the style of feeling that agitated him; but he
deemed it his duty to go on talking _good_ to him, with infinite
pertinacity.
“George, this is bad. I must tell you, you know, as a friend, you’d
better not be meddling with such notions; they are bad, George, very
bad, for boys in your condition,—very;” and Mr. Wilson sat down to a
table, and began nervously chewing the handle of his umbrella.
“See here, now, Mr. Wilson,” said George, coming up and sitting himself
determinately down in front of him; “look at me, now. Don’t I sit
before you, every way, just as much a man as you are? Look at my
face,—look at my hands,—look at my body,” and the young man drew
himself up proudly; “why am I _not_ a man, as much as anybody? Well,
Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father—one of your
Kentucky gentlemen—who didn’t think enough of me to keep me from being
sold with his dogs and horses, to satisfy the estate, when he died. I
saw my mother put up at sheriff’s sale, with her seven children. They
were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different masters; and I
was the youngest. She came and kneeled down before old Mas’r, and
begged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child
with her; and he kicked her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it;
and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to
his horse’s neck, to be carried off to his place.”
“Well, then?”
“My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister. She
was a pious, good girl,—a member of the Baptist church,—and as handsome
as my poor mother had been. She was well brought up, and had good
manners. At first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near
me. I was soon sorry for it. Sir, I have stood at the door and heard
her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart,
and I couldn’t do anything to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for
wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no
slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her chained with a
trader’s gang, to be sent to market in Orleans,—sent there for nothing
else but that,—and that’s the last I know of her. Well, I grew up,—long
years and years,—no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul
that cared for me more than a dog; nothing but whipping, scolding,
starving. Why, sir, I’ve been so hungry that I have been glad to take
the bones they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little
fellow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn’t the hunger, it
wasn’t the whipping, I cried for. No, sir, it was for _my mother_ and
_my sisters_,—it was because I hadn’t a friend to love me on earth. I
never knew what peace or comfort was. I never had a kind word spoken to
me till I came to work in your factory. Mr. Wilson, you treated me
well; you encouraged me to do well, and to learn to read and write, and
to try to make something of myself; and God knows how grateful I am for
it. Then, sir, I found my wife; you’ve seen her,—you know how beautiful
she is. When I found she loved me, when I married her, I scarcely could
believe I was alive, I was so happy; and, sir, she is as good as she is
beautiful. But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away
from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into
the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says,
to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he
comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live
with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in
spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn’t _one_ of all
these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister,
and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power
to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him nay! Do you call these the
laws of _my_ country? Sir, I haven’t any country, anymore than I have
any father. But I’m going to have one. I don’t want anything of _your_
country, except to be let alone,—to go peaceably out of it; and when I
get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, _that_ shall
be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop
me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I’ll fight for my liberty to
the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right
for them, it is right for me!”
This speech, delivered partly while sitting at the table, and partly
walking up and down the room,—delivered with tears, and flashing eyes,
and despairing gestures,—was altogether too much for the good-natured
old body to whom it was addressed, who had pulled out a great yellow
silk pocket-handkerchief, and was mopping up his face with great
energy.
“Blast ’em all!” he suddenly broke out. “Haven’t I always said so—the
infernal old cusses! I hope I an’t swearing, now. Well! go ahead,
George, go ahead; but be careful, my boy; don’t shoot anybody, George,
unless—well—you’d _better_ not shoot, I reckon; at least, I wouldn’t
_hit_ anybody, you know. Where is your wife, George?” he added, as he
nervously rose, and began walking the room.
“Gone, sir gone, with her child in her arms, the Lord only knows
where;—gone after the north star; and when we ever meet, or whether we
meet at all in this world, no creature can tell.”
“Is it possible! astonishing! from such a kind family?”
“Kind families get in debt, and the laws of _our_ country allow them to
sell the child out of its mother’s bosom to pay its master’s debts,”
said George, bitterly.
“Well, well,” said the honest old man, fumbling in his pocket: “I
s’pose, perhaps, I an’t following my judgment,—hang it, I _won’t_
follow my judgment!” he added, suddenly; “so here, George,” and, taking
out a roll of bills from his pocket-book, he offered them to George.
“No, my kind, good sir!” said George, “you’ve done a great deal for me,
and this might get you into trouble. I have money enough, I hope, to
take me as far as I need it.”
“No; but you must, George. Money is a great help everywhere;—can’t have
too much, if you get it honestly. Take it,—_do_ take it, _now_,—do, my
boy!”
“On condition, sir, that I may repay it at some future time, I will,”
said George, taking up the money.