Humanity

What is humanity? I mean, what constitutes humanity? Hard to say, since the American definition has shifted in the past one hundred and fifty years. Harriet Beecher Stowe uses Uncle Tom’s Cabin to present—no incriminate—the American understanding of humanity in the 1850s.

The title of chapter one proclaims Stowe’s thesis for the chapter, “In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity”. Can you hear the irony as she writes? Is this man, Haley—a slimy, deceptive slave trader—truly a man of humanity? Is his debtor, Shelby—hesitatingly willing to sell his best man—truly a man of humanity? I propose neither is, though I give Shelby more sympathy than Haley. What is just or humane about selling a man—even when regarded as your property?

As the two men barter the sale of Uncle Tom and little Harry, Shelby remarks, “I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy [Harry] from his mother, sir.” Yet, my dear gentleman, you are willing to separate a man from his wife and children? Are you truly humane?

Haley’s plain speech makes clear his view of the slaves: “Lor bless ye, yes! These critters an’t like white folks . . .” Is that so, sir? Yet the man goes on boldly saying “It’s always best to do the humane thing, sir; that’s been my experience”—and continues to liken himself to William Wilberforce! The nerve! The irony! He likens himself to the man who devoted his entire life to abolition in England!

I had to grin as Stowe openly mocked both men’s proclamations of humanity. You can hear humor in her voice and truly laugh with her as she says, “Perhaps you laugh too, dear reader; but you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say and do.”

As for the humanity of striping a young child from his mother, Haley operates under the method of “out of sight, out of mind”—sure, that’s humane. After all, “’Tan’t, you know, as if it was white folks, that’s brought up in a way of ‘spectin’ to keep their children and wives, and all that. Niggers, you know, that’s fetched up properly, ha’n’t no kind of ‘spectations of no kind; so all these things comes easier.” I wonder—where’s the humanity is in that?

(403)

*Quotations from Norton’s Second Critical Edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 1