Women as Protectors in Uncle Tom's Cabin

            One of the most interesting aspects of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the portrayal and significance of women in a primarily white male debate over the issue of slavery. Through Stowe’s depiction of several strong-willed white women as saviors and protectors of African American slaves, the author implies that women are capable of challenging men’s political stance toward slavery and can play a significant role in dismantling the institution of slavery or at least preventing the passage of stricter fugitive laws.

            Stowe suggests that one of the reasons women oppose slavery and help slaves gain freedom is because they recognize that the role of mothers to protect their children and keep their families united is universal and transcends race. White women can relate to slaves (particularly enslaved mothers) and are horrified by what they frequently express in the novel as the cruelest aspect of slavery: the dissolution of families and particularly the separation of mother and child.

            One part of the novel in which Stowe clearly comments on women’s influence occurs in Chapter IX when Mrs. Bird challenges her husband’s political stance and makes him reevaluate the consequences of his political role. Mr. Bird first tries to defend his support of stricter fugitive laws by suggesting that politics and personal opinion are inherently separate and that strong public support for slavery overshadows sympathy toward slaves and the brutal conditions they face. Mrs. Bird, initially described as a “timid, blushing little woman” boldly challenges her husband and makes him aware of his own hypocrisy by telling him, “There’s a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right thing and you don’t believe in it [slavery] yourselves, when it comes to practice” (829, 830). Eliza quickly forms a strong emotional bond with Mrs. Bird upon discovering that they have both experienced the loss of a child. Despite Mrs. Bird’s mourning over her son’s recent death, she makes a great sacrifice by giving his clothes—her last remaining memories of her son—to Harry. She tells her sons, “I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common person—to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his blessings with them!” (835). In this statement, Mrs. Bird acknowledges Eliza as a person rather than by her status as an African American slave. She prioritizes Eliza and Harry’s safety and wellbeing over her own happiness to prevent Eliza from suffering a great tragedy—the separation from her last remaining child. Stowe’s attempt to connect with a female audience becomes clear in this chapter when the narrator interjects, “mother that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave…happy mother that you are, if it has not been so!” (835). The technique Stowe employs here—the narrator’s direct address to specific reader demographic (i.e. mothers)—is used throughout the novel to suggest a connection between characters within in the novel and the novel’s contemporary audience. Mrs. Bird’s sympathy for Eliza and Harry and her ability to evoke an emotional response in her husband ultimately convinces Mr. Bird to risk his reputation and defy his political opinion to ensure their protection and freedom.

            This chapter is only one example in the novel of a woman’s ability to relate to and protect slave families. The potential for women to act as saviors is also presented in the debate that occurs between several women on pg. 844 and in Eva’s charity toward and love and care for her father’s slaves.