English > Uncle Tom’s Cabin: What We Say and What We Do

What we say and what we do often opposes one another, as we see in the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Mr. Shelby, a slave owner who is said to treat his properties in a human way is more similar to Haley, the villain and slave trader, than one would imagine. Harriet Beecher Stowe portrays Mr. Shelby as a gentleman who is forced to sell his most valuable slave, Tom, and a young boy, Harry, as a result of a business speculation that’s gone sour. Haley, on the other hand, buys and sells slaves like they were any other piece of property, but in his own view he is human in his treatment of his slaves, but only because he feels that if he treats them right, he can make a bigger profit. What Haley considers a just treatment however is nothing less than how one would treat an animal – puts them in chains and sells them on slave markets at a marked up price. Mr. Shelby is a little different from him in this respect, but is just as guilty because he is also hypocritical.

More than just two opposing views are discussed in the novel in regard to slavery. Some say it should be completely abolished, some state it is necessary for the nation and at the same time beneficial for the slaves, others think it is just a necessary evil, while for others slave trade is simply a means of living. Mr. Shelby belongs to the group that views slavery as a necessity; without slaves he couldn’t run his farm and his household. While he is a slave owner, he does everything in his power to make his slaves feel safe and comfortable, unlike many other owners especially in the South. It comes as a surprise to Mrs. Shelby as much as to his slaves when they learn that he sold his most trusted man, Uncle Tom, along with Eliza’s little boy, Harry. Is Mr. Shelby really as good as everyone thought, or he is just as bad as the next slave owner? He says to Mrs. Shelby, “I have agreed to sell Tom and Harry both; and I don’t know why I am to be rated, as if I were a monster, for doing what every one does every day” (36). He does feel guilty, but at the same time tries to rationalize his actions, which puts him on an equally low level with Haley.

Haley confesses to Mr. Shelby that “It’s always best to do the human thing, sir, that’s been my experience” (6). While their views of “human” treatment are not exactly the same, they are similar in many aspects. In his wife’s opinion, if Mr. Shelby was to treat his slaves humanly, he would make them free men just like he promised Tom “a hundred times of it” (36). But when Haley suggests selling Eliza’s child, Harry, Mr. Shelby says to him, “I would rather not sell him”. He adds, “I’m a human man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother, sir” (5). He is human enough to refuse separating a son from his mother, but not human enough to refuse the idea of slave trading and slavery as a whole.

Similarly to Mr. Shelby, Haley finds that without slaves he wouldn’t be able to sustain himself. Mr. Shelby couldn’t run his farm without slaves, and for Haley: “All I want is a livin’, you know ma’am; that’s all any on us wants, I s’pose” (63). Haley’s comparison of himself to the Shelbies is as ironic as it is true. While the Shelbies are highly regarded in the public eye for the treatment of their slaves, Haley is genuinely despised for his occupation. We can’t ignore his opinion of his trade as it is quite accurate, and at the same time demeaning to the “good” people like the Shelbies. Young Master George states the obvious that we all want to say to Haley: “I should think you’d be ashamed to spend all your life buying men and women, and chaining them, like cattle! I should think you’d feel mean” (116)! But Haley’s reply should make us somewhat reconsider what we think of him as opposed to the apparently just people like the Shelbies. “’So long as your grand folks wants to buy men and women, I’m as good as they is,’ said Haley; ‘‘tan’t any meaner sellin’ on ‘em, than ‘t is buyin’”(116)! This conversation is not intended to portray Haley as a man of high morals, rather to show that all slave owners, including Mr. Shelby, are just as guilty for holding people as free labor against their own will as those selling them for profit.

At the end, it is the young master, George Shelby, who grants freedom to all their slaves, and even promises to teach them how to live with their rights they gained as free people. He addresses them as “my good old friends” (499), while reassuring all of them that they can work for him from now on for salaries, and if he dies, they can’t be sold.

Had Mr. Shelby freed his people at the beginning of the novel, there would be no basis for the comparison with Haley, the ruthless slave trader. One could wonder would he have done the same thing had he stayed alive to learn about Tom’s faith. It seems that something cathartic, such as the death of a good friend is needed to change one’s beliefs. Mr. Shelby was too entrenched in the old ways of keeping slaves for even thinking of freeing them. We can therefore make a comparison between him and the slave trader Haley, as for both of them slaves were a means of surviving. Shelby thought himself as a better man than Haley, but at the end he was just as bad for not doing what his son, George had eventually did – freeing slaves and fighting for their freedom.