I have visited the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe in Hartford and read Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I have even seen the stained glass likeness of her at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. When I was growing up, I was taught that she was the epitome of New England Abolitionism. I was surprised a few years ago to find out that some historians question whether she was really an abolitionist at all, at least at the beginning of her public career.
I found an article in which her bona fides were examined. The article considers Stowe’s sometime embrace of “colonizationism,” i.e. the sending of freed blacks to Liberia in Africa or some other colony. The article is written by Professor Manisha Sinha. Sinha has devoted decades to researching the Abolitionist Movement. Her book The Slave’s Cause is an excellent work on Abolitionism. I deeply esteem Sinha’s knowledge of the subject. Here is her bio:
Manisha Sinha is Professor and Graduate Program Director of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was born in India and received her doctorate from Columbia University, where her dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft Prize. She is currently working on a co-authored history of the South, to be published by the University of North Carolina Press. She is the author of The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition and The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina.
According to the article:
Here is how the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center deals with the issue:
Q. Was Stowe an abolitionist (meaning was she a radical)?
Answer: Initially, Stowe believed in colonization (creating settlements in Liberia for emancipated people), but through experience of writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and preparing the Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she changed her mind…
A now-deceased friend of mine let me know that Stowe’s soft spot for colonization alarmed other anti-slavery advocates… At the 1853 convention of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society this discussion took place:
The Corresponding Secretary read an extract from a note from Mrs. Stowe, to the effect that she had no sympathy with the coercive policy of the Colonization Society, but thought Liberia now a “fixed fact,” and that the opportunity there afforded of sustaining a republican government of free people of color ought not to be disregarded by them or their friends; concluding with an assurance that she was “not a Colonizationist.”
Mr. George Downing spoke of the evil influence of the last chapter of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the matter of Colonization.Mr. Bacon said he had assisted Mrs. Stowe in her correspondence, and could give an explanation of her views on the subject of Liberia.
She had intended in “The Key” to have published a chapter on it, and to explain away the impression unexpectedly made by the book itself; but the size of “The Key” had so increased as she proceeded, that she had not space to do so. She had it in contemplation to publish such matter separately. He need scarcely tell them that Mrs. Stowe had the nicest regard for the feelings of the colored people themselves. She had no sympathy with the Colonization Society, but with the whole colored race, whether in Canada, the West Indies, or in Liberia. But she looked to Liberia as one of the means of elevating them; so that while she could point to a Frederick Douglass in this country, she might point also to a President Roberts in Liberia. They had held their places and maintained their standing when placed in a position to do so before their vaunted superiors; and knowing now their feelings against it, and that there was a demand at home for men of talent to be found amongst them, she would not advise all to go to Liberia. Mrs. Stowe had told him, that if she were to write “Uncle Tom” again, she would not send George Harris to Liberia. She thought, however, that they would there, in freedom, establish a good name and fame, which would be important, in its reflection, in abolishing distinctions of caste; and she looked to the colony as one of the great agents by which the colored race were to be elevated and dignified in the eyes of the lofty and contemptuous Saxon.
This is a superb article and it engages one of my ultimate fave topics connected to the CW/WBTS; Black American colonisation outside of America.
But it is hands down one of the utmost ‘one-dimensionally’ studied aspects of the war today.
I will come back asap with a fuller response but in short for now, it is absolutely imperative to understand there were two main ‘branches’ to the Black American Colonisation movement from about 1800-1920s-
The first was frankly offering an alternative form of White supremacy. This group wanted Black Americans GONE! Utterly and absolutely banished from America.
But there was a second branch which was a way of convening to Black Americans the same status, rights and influence as White Americans would long enjoy abroad.
In other words, this was a way of convening racial equality to Black Americans as AMERICANS ABROAD.
Black colonisation outside of America was one of my specialties. To do this, you MUST examine the relevant documents and records from outside of America to see what people abroad regarded the real or potential influx of Black Americans, in addition to the American evidences.
As I said above, there were two broad ‘branches’ of thought concerning the American Colonisation Society and other organisations/circles/etc, which espoused Black American Colonisation, and yet more nuance was added in by the disparate views of individuals.
It must be understood in any discussion that there was a large body of ‘voice’ in these, Abolitionist/Emancipationist/against slavery, generally speaking, that viewed the scheme in terms that John Wilkes Booth would well have approved of, (‘this country was made for the White man’). In other words, this view was motivated by seeing the scheme as the means to achieve an alternative form of White supremacy; Black Americans were to be removed from America as if they had never been present in any capacity. Frederick Douglass’ meeting with President Andrew Johnson is an example of this, when the President suggested to the former that if Black Americans emigrate to a land where they would be allowed to vote/hold political office/etc.
This is the view by which Black American Colonisation is seen and understood today by the wider historical community. And there’s no diminishing that this certainly was part of it.
But there was another ‘branch’ of the scheme; it could also be a way of asserting ‘America’ around the world and was a way of convening to Black Americans abroad equal influence, treatment, rights and most importantly of all, status as Americans which White Americans would enjoy from about the end of the Revolution to the 1920s, approximately.
For it is crucial to understand that White Americans whom decamped their homeland did not see themselves as leaving America in this era; they were seen as bringing America to the world and advancing her interests and influence. Examples of this with White Americans literally abound. Texas is the exemplar in history, but also the Catalpa Incident, the gold rushes in what is now Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the Eureka Stockade in the colony of Victoria, Australia, the settlement of the Canadian prairies, (a BIG reason that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were created was to ensure that this area stayed under the control of the British Empire and wasn’t appropriated by the United States), the settlement in what’s now Ontario by American settlers before the War of 1812, (a big reason that the War Hawks in the US Congress advocated that conflict is they expected that these newly landed American settlers would aid and assist them), etc, etc.
Individuals also played a key role in this, such as Winston Churchill’s mother, King O’Malley in Australia, George King, whom was the step-father of Ned Kelly and is said to have strongly influenced Ned’s ideas and notions about Republicanism, etc, etc.
Black Colonisation came to be seen as a way of advancing to Black Americans the same pioneering status as Americans equally with their White counterparts. Examples of this can be seen in Liberia itself with Thomas Morris Chester, (The Black Pioneer), and other African locales such as Martin Delany. The Gibbs brothers, Thomas Clarkson and Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, both worked in this capacity, the latter becoming the first Black American elected to political office in North America, winning a seat in the legislature of the colony of Vancouver Island, (on Vancouver Island, an entire contingent of Black American immigrants had formed both a military band and an armed militia), or John Joseph of the Eureka Stockade, (his American status was a factor in why/how he was tried in court for his participation in this event equally with White men).
The key is understanding that not all Black Americans necessarily agreed with Frederick Douglass and/or the Washington DC Black American community whom met with Abraham Lincoln in December of 1862 at the White House; a sizeable body of opinion therein saw this as a good idea and themselves as distinctly American in at least their overseas objectives, espousing a distinctly American perspective wherever they went and leaving a distinct American mark.
For example, I’ve read that in the 1820s, newspapers in what is now Ontario, Canada, that were sympathetic to the Underground Raildroad and anti-slavery causes also noted that the influx of Black American fugitive slaves signaled, ‘an American presence in the land.’ And Mifflin Wistar Gibbs and the rest of the Black American immigrants constantly were the source of speculation that they were the presence of ‘American interests’.
It’s true that Abraham Lincoln never completely eschewed Black American colonisation, but what is critical to understanding this is he changed the manner in which he viewed this from being one of pure ‘deportation for ethnic cleansing’ to embracing the above view as seeing it as a means of bringing America to the world. Taking all the information we can of the Benjamin Butler, Martin Delany and British foreign office into account indicates that this was a driving motivation for him and caused him to break with the support he gave to the scheme as had Henry Clay, his hero.
(Allow me to say that Phililp Magness relies heavily on the Benjamin Butler evidence for his arguments. Magness certainly has merit in some of these and the Butler evidence is vital to reckon with. But what is NOT widely known is that Butler himself was an ardent advocate of advancing American interests as the expense of the British Empire in the post-war. When a member of the US Congress after the war, he advocated not only American appropriation of Canadian territories, but was reckless with regards to provoking hostility between American and the Empire, at one time giving a speech where he said American fisheries ought to simply enter into Canadian waters and obtain as much fish as they could without seeking permission or licenses of any kind, stating, ‘it was selfish for Canadians to keep all the fish in their waters to themselves’). This attitude reveals his aggressive and nationalistic support for American figures and circles abroad, official and unofficial, to advance ‘America First’, to use contemporary language).
For Lincoln became aggressive that the ONLY Black Americans that would leave America were those that wished to and that these would leave with the full support and weight of the US Government retained by them.
So Harriet Beecher Stowe being an advocate of Black Colonisation actually fits in well with Abolitionist circles in the pre-war, (as many advocated the scheme out of a sense of racial restructuring), but in her specific case, she fits much more with the ‘second branch’ of voice in these circles; that of seeing Black Americans as Americans abroad.