Anti-Tom literature
Anti-Tom literature consists of the 19th century pro-
Uncle Tom's Cabin
First published in serialized form from 1851–52 (in the
The Southern literary response
Part of a series on |
Slavery |
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The response to Stowe's novel in the
These anti-Tom novels tended to feature a benign white patriarchal master and a pure wife, both of whom presided over childlike enslaved people in a benevolent extended-family-style plantation. The novels either implied or directly stated the view that African Americans were unable to live their lives without being directly overseen by white people.[3]
Today, these novels and books are generally seen as pro-slavery propaganda. The anti-Tom genre died off with the start of the American Civil War.[4]
Simms, Hentz, and other pro-slavery authors
The two most famous anti-Tom books are
Simms' The Sword and the Distaff came out only a few months after Stowe's novel and contains several sections and discussions that debate Stowe's book and view of slavery. The novel focuses on the Revolutionary War and its aftermath through the lives of Captain Porgy and one of his slaves.[4] Simms' novel was popular enough that it was reprinted in 1854 under the title Woodcraft.
The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee Hentz was published two years after Uncle Tom's Cabin. Hentz's novel offers a defense of slavery as seen through the eyes of a northern woman—the daughter of an abolitionist—who marries a southern enslaver. Like other books in the genre, Hentz's novel tries to show that black people could not function well without oversight by whites. Her novel also focused on the fear of a slave rebellion, especially if abolitionists did not stop stirring up trouble.[2]
Simms and Hentz's books were two of between 20 and 30 pro-slavery novels written in the decade after Uncle Tom's Cabin. Another well-known author who published anti-Tom novels is
Little Eva: The Flower of the South, by Philip J. Cozans, was a rare example of anti-Tom literature intended to be a children's novel.[6]
Selected anti-Tom novels
Among the novels in the anti-Tom genre are:
- The Sword and the Distaff; or, "Fair, Fat and Forty": A Story of the South at the Close of the Revolution by William Gilmore Simms (1854)
- White Acre vs. Black Acre: A Case at Law by William M. Burwell (1856)
- Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South by Martha Haines Butt(1853)
- English Serfdom and American Slavery; or, Ourselves as Others See Us by Lucien B. Chase (1854)
- Ellen; or, The Fanatic's Daughter by Mrs. V.G. Cowdin (1860)
- Little Eva: The Flower of the South by Philip J. Cozans (1853)
- "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Contrasted with Buckingham Hall, the Planter's Home by Robert Criswell (1852)
- Mary H. Eastman(1852)
- The Ebony Idol: A Tale by Mrs. G.M. Flanders (1860)
- Liberia; or, Mr. Peyton's Experiments by Sarah Josepha Hale (1853)
- Frank Freeman's Barber Shop: A Tale by the Rev. Baynard R. Hall (1852)
- The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee Hentz (1854)
- Tit for Tat by "A Lady of New Orleans" (1856)
- The Lofty and the Lowly, or Good in All and None All Goodby M. J. McIntosh (1853)
- Uncle Robin, in His Cabin in Virginia, and Tom Without One in Boston by J. W. Page (1853)
- The Cabin and Parlor; or, Slaves and Masters by Charles Jacobs Peterson (1852, under the pseudonym of J. Thornton Randolph)
- The North and the South; or, Slavery and Its Contrasts: A Tale of Real Life by Caroline Rush (1852)
- The Black Gauntlet: A Tale of Plantation Life in South Carolinaby Mary Howard Schoolcraft (1860)
- Life at the South; or, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" As It Is: Being Narratives, Scenes, and Incidents in the Real "Life of the Lowly"by W. L. G. Smith (1852)
- Mr. Frank, the Underground Mail-Agent by Vidi (1853)
- Life in the South: A Companion to Uncle Tom's Cabin by C. H. Wiley (1852)
- The Leopard's Spots, by Thomas Dixon Jr. (1901)
- The Clansman, by Thomas Dixon Jr. (1905)
See also
- African American literature
- Slave narratives
- Southern literature
References
- Notes
- ^ Notes on Book Archived 2009-02-28 at the Wayback Machine, accessed Feb 16, 2007
- ^ a b c "Caroline Lee Hentz's Long Journey Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine" by Philip D. Beidler. Alabama Heritage Number 75, Winter 2005.
- ^ Joy Jordan-Lake, Whitewashing Uncle Tom's Cabin: Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists Respond to Stowe, Vanderbilt University Press, 2005
- ^ a b c Lucinda MacKethan, "An Overview of Southern Literature by Genre", Southern Spaces, February 16, 2004.
- ^ Mary Henderson Eastman, Aunt Phillis's Cabin, University of Virginia, accessed 9 Dec 2008
- ^ Philip J. Cozans, Little Eva: The Flower of the South, c. 1853