Colonization and Expatriation in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

by Jeremy Borgia

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is among the most important—and popular

—books of the nineteenth century. Stowe’s depiction and critique of slavery was a catalyst in the

abolitionist movement, and is even thought to have accelerated the United States’ slide into civil

war. The impetus for the book was the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act; passed as a compromise

between Northern Free-soilers and Southern slave holders, the law mandated that all fugitive

slaves should be returned to their masters, and made it a crime for Northerners to harbor them.

The law emboldened many Northerners who had quietly opposed slavery but had failed to take

any significant or meaningful action in support of their stance. It essentially required Northerners

to enforce pro-slavery laws, leaving a sour taste in the mouths of many and ultimately pushing

many abolitionists out of inaction. The book was wildly successful, selling over a million copies

within its first year; yet, despite its success in engendering raucous debate amongst Americans

over the issue of slavery, it was—and is still—not without its critics. Criticism of the book has

often focused on Stowe’s personal opinions regarding racial equality, and whether they possibly

weaken the message and legacy of her book.

Before delving into Stowe’s critics, it is important to first contextualize the criticism

within the politics of Stowe’r era. The American Colonization Society (ACS), founded in 1817,

was the primary proponent of so-called “colonization,” the belief that expatriating freed slaves to

Africa would be preferable to emancipation and eventual racial integration. Its stated purpose

was to establish independent colonies in Western Africa to be peopled by both freed slaves and

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free-born African Americans who would bring "civilization" and Christianity to Africa. “The

American Colonization Society seemed to promise all things to all people…It claimed to be a

missionary enterprise, a remedy for the Upper South's expanding free black population, a

conservative step toward gradual abolition, a solution to pauperism in Northern cities, and the

dawn of expanded commerce with Africa” (Dorsey). However, the movement was based on the

premise that white prejudice against blacks was so ingrained that African Americans could never

be completely equal unless they were wholly removed from white society. "There appears to

exist in the breasts of white men in this country," Frederick Freeman declared, "a prejudice

against the colour of the African, which nothing short of divine power can remove."

Colonizationists voiced little hope for resolving the conditions of both institutional and social

racism, finding mass ethnic expatriation a reasonable and more realistic alternative to the

prospect of racial integration. Black and white liberal abolitionists insisted that

colonizationalists’ claims merely concealed their racism. Colonization was "the offspring of

Prejudice," black abolitionist Sarah Forten contended; she was convinced "that it originated more

immediately from prejudice than from philanthropy.” (Dorsey, 79). There were, however, some

blacks who articulated their belief that white Americans were “so racist that the white American

populace would be unable to survive let alone succeed in the United States once slavery was

outlawed” (Boots, 3). Baptist missionary Lott Cary, a former slave from Virginia and one of the

earliest colonists in Liberia, reportedly said, "I am an African, and in this country, however

meritorious my conduct and respectable my character, I cannot receive the credit due to either. I

wish to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my

complexion” (Dorsey, 91). It was not unreasonable for some blacks to be in favor of

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colonization, which allowed them to defy the claim of the pro slavery faction that slaves are

naturally dependent on their white masters and could never obtain economic security on their

own. Additionally, a move to Liberia allowed them to distance themselves geographically from

ties of gratitude and obligation towards whites, particularly Northern abolitionist whites who,

though anti-slavery, still held many deep-seated racist beliefs (Ryan, 762).

White colonizationalists shaped the underpinnings of both white supremacy and white

male dominance for the rest of the century by drawing upon what they perceived to be the

lessons of history, nature, and even scripture in order to construct a rationale for colonization.

“The only black man who could be considered by colonizationalists as intelligent, enterprising,

courageous—in other words, a true man—was one who recognized that he could not live among

white people and chose to go to Africa. All others were mired in ignorance, prejudice, or under

the influence of evil forces” (Dorsey, 85). It was into this heated and complex discussion that

Stowe entered when her book’s Harris family moved to Liberia. At the end of Uncle Tom’s

Cabin, Eliza's husband George Harris moves the now-free family to Liberia, which the ACS

established as a place to repatriate freed slaves. By sending the Harris family to Liberia, Stowe

stepped into this messy debate between her contemporaries, putting at risk her reputation. Her

conclusion removed her surviving black characters from the United States, fundamentally

altering the construction of the nation whose racial cohesion—even integration—she had

carefully advocated earlier in the book. The success of the book’s overarching argument depends

on the creation of interracial responsibility between characters; yet, the novel ends with

resegregation and a return to allegiance based on race (Ryan). By including voluntary

colonization in her book, she acknowledges the vigorous debate about the merits of black

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migration and colonization outside of the United States. Ultimately, though, her colonization

narrative “appealed more to the head than to the heart of the novel’s audience” (Boots, 3). Her

plan reinforced racial separation, with black and white acting as benevolent agents only to their

own race. That is, “while black emigrants serve Africans, in a post emigration United States

Anglo-Americans are left to serve the needy whites who remain within its borders” (Ryan, 762).

The question, then, is why Stowe’s views regarding colonization matter in the bigger

picture of post-slavery America. The colonizationalist ending of Uncle Tom’s Cabin has fueled

Stowe’s critics who argue that her representations are more damaging than liberating. Karen

Sánchez-Eppler articulates many critics’ dismay at the book’s segregationist resolution when she

decries ‘‘Stowe’s failure to imagine an America in which blacks could be recognized as

persons.’’ The question of Stowe’s politics is much more nuanced than her being pitted against

her critics in a simple binary of good or bad; indeed, much of the scholarship surrounding

Stowe’s politics has argued that her politics are more ambivalent than they are conclusive. It is

possible to be critical of Stowe’s politics, then, while acknowledging the good of some of her

views. The point, then, is that it continues to matter how ‘‘good’’ Stowe’s politics were, and not

only because Uncle Tom’s Cabin, her most famous novel, is so explicitly and passionately

activist. It matters because Stowe’s book has come to embody both the antislavery and racial

equality movements of the nineteenth century. “Stowe has come to represent—perhaps most

pointedly for Euro-American women in the academy—earnest, middle-class, white activism. In

the process, she has proven to be a vexing icon—both an honored foremother and a specter of

good intentions gone awry” (Ryan, 751). With this—the “so what,” if you will—we now go

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forward to discuss whether or not Harriet Beecher Stowe was, in fact, a proponent of

colonialization.

There are many critics who argue that Stowe was not a proponent of colonialization. One

such critic, Christopher Diller, based his views on his readings of Stowe’s various prefaces to the

different editions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that were published throughout the United States and

Europe. Diller states that the preface “has been responsible as the novel itself for the enduring

but misguided assumption that Stowe was an apologist for black expatriation and colonialism. As

Robert S. Levine notes in correcting that view, Uncle Tom’s Cabin argues for colonialism only

halfheartedly” (Diller, 621). The American preface, Diller argues, is more accurately read as a

strained attempt to mediate between the disparate views of white America mid nineteenth

century, who could not agree on the existence of slavery itself, let along what to do after its

dissolution. White abolitionists themselves were split on the issue of colonialization. Essentially,

Diller posits that Stowe’s inclusion of colonization in her story was, rather than an endorsement,

an acknowledgement of the debate. Another critic, Cheryl Boots, points to the scene of the book

where blacks are gathering on the Shelby farm to sing hymns with the young George Shelby.

This display of community and culture, Boots argues, demonstrates Stowe’s belief that there is

potential for a successful American multi-racial society. Critic Liz Sonneborn recognizes that

Stowe’s characters’ decision to move to Africa “seems like an endorsement of the colonization

policy.” But, she argues, Stowe likely did not mean it as such. “After all,” she says, “it is Harris’s

decision, not one the narrator prescribes for all freed slaves.” All of these critics argue that Stowe

was not likely to be well versed in the argument of the day surrounding colonization, so had not

fully fleshed out her views. They point to Stowe’s later denials that she endorsed

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colonizationalism—then out of style—as evidence that she had finally had the time and means to

formulate an informed opinion. However, these critics undermine their own argument, revealing

that Lyman Beecher, Stowe’s father, was himself a proponent of colonization. Thomas Graham,

on the topic, said that:

“Her favorable treatment of colonization has been cited to indicate Mrs. Stowe’s latent racism or at least her truckling to Negrophobia in the North. Possibly the latter charge contains some truth, since her father, Lyman Beecher, supported colonization because it went along with white prejudices and thus might hasten emancipation…Although she was not in sympathy with [colonization], she does suggest that after a number of years of ‘uplifting’ in the North, emancipated slaves should be encouraged to return to Africa. A major element in her thinking was her romantic hope that in Africa the Negro would be free to build a splendid Christian civilization” (Graham, 620).

Indeed, Graham seems to indicate Stowe’s sympathies—at the very least—for colonization in his

very argument against that fact. Stowe’s father’s pro-colonization beliefs predispose many critics

to assert that Stowe held similar beliefs; the conclusion of her novel, to them, seems to confirm

it. Her hope that blacks “would be free to build a splendid Christian civilization” in Africa, a

romantic hope shared by many colonizationalist advocates, indicates Stowe’s view of blacks as a

tool to spread European Christianity within their own separate sphere, rather than as equal

citizens worthy of integration and assimilation into American society.

Many critics believe that Stowe was a proponent of colonization as suggested by her

family history and the content of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Elizabeth Ammons points to Stowe’s

characterization of George Harris, who was likely a frightening character for white Americans,

whatever their stance on slavery. Harris is an articulate, opinionated, and armed black man who

is willing to harm white people who threaten the well-being of his family. Ammons says:

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“Stowe places her support for Liberian emigration in the mouth of George Harris, her smartest, angriest, most militant black—which, of course, goes a long way toward explaining her support for an idea that abolitionists from Douglass to Garrison roundly condemned. Deportation conveniently solves the problem of dealing with demands for racial equality in America. If at the end of Uncle Tom’s Cabin George Harris remained in the United States, or even just across the border in Canada, how would Stowe contain his militant voice, not just for emancipation for also for black equality? Imagine Tom living rather than dying, and the point becomes obvious. Tom would never pose a problem because he has learned well the obedient behaviors of a servant and, even more important, subscribes to a philosophy of Christian nonviolence and forgiveness. George Harris, however, does present difficulties. Educated, enraged, determined not to acquiesce in American racism, he represents a character potentially out of the author’s control: an articulate advocate for racial equality in the United States. Similarly, Topsy, ‘civilized’ and educated, represents a threat, as do an independent Eliza, the Harris children, Cassy, and quickly mentioned at the end, Cassy’s son, an educated ‘young man of energy.’ Consequently, Stowe, in the tested tradition of the ACS, packs them all off to Africa, the place for dangerous, ambitious, free American blacks.” (Ammons, 237-8)

Ammons argues here that Stowe, like many abolitionists, is, although antislavery, racist. Indeed,

many abolitionists fought against slavery because they recognized its inconsistency with their

Christian values, not because of a progressive belief that racial inequality itself was wrong.

Fighting to end slavery did not necessarily mean fighting to end white supremacy, which is why

Stowe and others endorse colonization. Removing educated, assertive, free blacks from the

United States meant removing the problem of whites having to participate in a social change

even more profound than the abolition of slavery: the change of white society relinquishing their

unearned white privilege, power, and dominance on which the U.S. system was structured in the

nineteenth century (Ammons).

Ultimately, it is clear that Harriet Beecher Stowe held some pro-colonization views.

Based on her family history, her book prefaces, and her other works, it is clear that the

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expatriation conclusion to Uncle Tom’s Cabin is indeed demonstrative of some of Stowe’s

beliefs. In the American edition of her novel, published out of Boston in 1852, it says:

“The scenes of this story, as its title indicates, lie among a race hitherto ignored by the associations of polite and refined society; and exotic race, whose ancestors, born beneath a tropic sun, brought with them, and perpetuated to their descendants, a character so essentially unlike the hard and dominant Anglo-Saxon save, as for many years to have won from it only misunderstanding and contempt.”

This passage illustrates Stowe’s attitude toward blacks. Namely, it shows that, despite her

antislavery activism, she did not view blacks as equal to whites. This context is very important; it

is for this same reason that many of Stowe’s contemporary abolitionists advocated for

colonialization. The preface later says:

“When an enlightened and Christianized community shall have, on the shores of Africa, laws, language and literature, drawn from among us, may then, the scenes from the house of bondage be to them like the remembrance of Egypt to the Israelite,—a motive of thankfulness to Him who hath redeemed them!”

This passage more clearly reveals Stowe’s colonializationalist views. She is clearly speaking of a

time when freed slaves will return to the shores of Africa. Drawing upon Biblical imagery, she

superimposes her own romantic notions of an exodus upon the freed slaves. This same rationale

was used by many colonializationalist advocates who dreamt that freed slaves could act as

messengers for Christianity to the African continent. This thinking allowed white Americans not

only to exonerate themselves and their nation from the great crimes of slavery, but went so far as

to assign a divine purpose to that crime. Rather than acknowledging the pure evil of the slave

trade, they tried to find God’s hand and work in it. In addition to her preface, Stowe reveals her

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thinking on colonialization in some of her earlier work, namely the geography books that she

published roughly twenty years before Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Throughout the geography books,

titled Primary Geography for Children and First Geography for Children, the development of

Stowe’s faith in expansionism and in abolition lead her to embrace antiracist reform while

simultaneously rejecting the full enfranchisement of blacks. “Stowe’s geopolitical view rests on

the ideas that a natural geographic order separates distinct racial groups and that whites are the

only appropriate subjects of US space, history, and destiny. In these two books, the white child

embodies national geopolitics, and this exclusive embodiment makes African American bodies

incompatible with the nation” (Ben-Zvi, 10). In these books, Stowe advocates the Monroe

Doctrine, the expansion of Anglo-Saxon civilization throughout the American continent,

presenting slavery as a foil to that expansion. In both books, only “Europeans” are described as

settlers, while the noun is conspicuously omitted when discussing those of other races. This

distinction is crucial in determining Stowe’s view of slavery in relation to expansion: slavery is

the antithesis to the expansion of white, European Christianity throughout the American

continent. It is for this reason that slavery is immoral, not because it excludes slaves from U.S.

freedom. With this in mind, it becomes clear why Stowe would—indeed, must—advocate for

colonialization if she advocates for the end of slavery. Free or enslaved, blacks are an obstacle to

the spread of European-style Christianity throughout America. Blacks can fit into her world

view, as described in her geography textbooks, as long as each race it kept on its own separate

continent. Ultimately, Stowe argues that racism must be eradicated, but the world in which she

would have such reform take place must be ordered into racially distinct spheres. Stowe’s

resistance to the integration of American society recalls Jefferson’s fantasy of colonization,

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which imagined a future U.S. declaration of blacks as “a free and independent people” away

from its borders. Like Jefferson, Stowe suggests that foreign rather than domestic policy should

purge the nation of slavery and that slavery has been a historical accident whose solution lies in

separating America and white US citizens from Africa and blacks. Within this worldview, free

blacks are an unintelligible population belonging nowhere, and the binary geographies that

control the geopolitical relations between Africa and America threaten to frustrate Stowe’s hope

for a reorganized Africa where the descendants of slaves will be able to rebuild their political

lives (Ben-Zvi, 31-2).

Regardless of Stowe’s personal views on the issue of colonialization, one cannot argue

that the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not have a profound effect on the slavery debate in

the United States. The millions of copies sold, as well as the litany of “anti-Tom” literature after

it, demonstrate that it struck along a fault line of American identity and politics. However, her

legacy and that of her novel require us to place it in the context of the culture from which it

emerged. The reality of the nineteenth century is that abolition on its own was radical and

progressive; still, many, if not most abolitionists, were people of their time, and held the common

and deep-seated racist views of their time. Because of her novel, we are tempted to transform

Stowe herself into a beacon of the twenty-first century notion of racial equality. However, Stowe,

as evidenced by the novel itself, was susceptible to the prejudices of her time. That fact does not

need to subtract from Stowe’s legacy. Rather, it humanizes it.

Works Cited

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Ammons, Elizabeth. "Freeing the Slaves and Banishing the Blacks: Racism, Empire, and Africa

in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin: A Casebook.

Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. 227-48. Print.

Ben-Zvi, Yael. "The Racial Geopolitics of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Geography Textbooks."

Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 29.1 (2012): 9-36. Print.

Boots, Cheryl C. "Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Abolition Soundtrack in Uncle Tom’s Cabin." Forum

on Public Policy Online 2010.2 (2010). Web.

Diller, Christopher G. "The Prefaces to Uncle Tom’s Cabin" The New England Quarterly 77.4

(2004): 619-45. JSTOR. Web.

Diller, Christopher G. "Sentimental Types and Social Reform in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Studies in

American Fiction 32.1 (2004): 21+. Literature Resource Center. Web.

Dorsey, Bruce Allen. "A Gendered History of African Colonization in the Antebellum United

States." Journal of Social History 34.1 (2000): 77-103. Religion and Philosophy

Collection. Web.

Graham, Thomas. "Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Question of Race." The New England

Quarterly 46.4 (1973): 614-22. JSTOR. Web.

Ryan, S. M. "Charity Begins at Home: Stowe's Antislavery Novels and the Forms of Benevolent

Citizenship." American Literature 72.4 (2000): 751-82. Academic Search Premier. Web.

Sonneborn, Liz. Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Chelsea House, 2009. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. "Author's Preface to the English Edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin" Preface.

Uncle Tom's Cabin. London: Thomas Bosworth, 1852. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. "Preface to Uncle Tom’s Cabin" Preface. Uncle Tom's Cain. Boston:

John P. Jewett, 1852. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Print.