A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin / Presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded. Together with corroborative statements verifying the truth of the work.

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

In Hindostan there is a class called the Pariahs, with which no other class will associate, eat or drink. Our missionaries tell the converted Hindoo that this prejudice is unchristian; for God hath made of one blood all who dwell on the face of the earth, and all mankind are brethren in Christ. With what face shall they tell this to the Hindoo, if he is able to reply, “In your own Christian country there is a class of Pariahs who are treated no better than we treat ours. You do not yourselves believe the things you teach us.”

Let us look at the treatment of the free negro at the North. In the States of Indiana and Illinois the most oppressive and unrighteous laws have been passed with regard to him. No law of any slave state could be more cruel in its spirit than that recently passed in Illinois, by which every free negro coming into the state is taken up and sold for a certain time, and then, if he do not leave the state, is sold again.

With what face can we exhort our Southern brethren to emancipate their slaves, if we do not set the whole moral power of the church at the North against such abuses as this? Is this course justified by saying that the negro is vicious and idle? This is adding insult to injury.

What is it these Christian states do? To a great extent they exclude the colored population from their schools; they discourage them from attending their churches by invidious distinctions; as a general fact, they exclude them from their shops, where they might learn useful arts and trades; they crowd them out of the better callings where they might earn an honorable livelihood; and, having thus discouraged every elevated aspiration, and reduced them to almost inevitable ignorance, idleness and vice, they fill up the measure of iniquity by making cruel laws to expel them from their states, thus heaping up wrath against the day of wrath.

If we say that every Christian at the South who does not use his utmost influence against their iniquitous slave-laws is guilty, as a republican citizen, of sustaining those laws, it is no less true that every Christian at the North who does not do what in him lies to procure the repeal of such laws in the free states is, so far, guilty for their existence. Of late years we have had abundant quotations from the Old Testament to justify all manner of oppression. A Hindoo, who knew nothing of this generous and beautiful book, except from such pamphlets as Mr. Smylie’s, might possibly think it was a treatise on piracy, and a general justification of robbery. But let us quote from it the directions which God gives for the treatment of the stranger: “If a stranger sojourn with you in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth among you shall be as one born among you: thou shall love him as thyself.” How much more does this apply when the stranger has been brought into our land by the injustice and cruelty of our fathers!

We are happy to say, however, that the number of states in which such oppressive legislation exists is small. It is also matter of encouragement and hope that the unphilosophical and unchristian prejudice of caste is materially giving way, in many parts of our country, before a kinder and more Christian spirit.

Many of our schools and colleges are willing to receive the colored applicant on equal terms with the white. Some of the Northern free states accord to the colored free man full political equality and privileges. Some of the colored people, under this encouragement, have, in many parts of our country, become rich and intelligent. A very fair proportion of educated men is rising among them. There are among them respectable editors, eloquent orators, and laborious and well-instructed clergymen. It gives us pleasure to say that among intelligent and Christian people these men are treated with the consideration they deserve; and, if they meet with insult and ill-treatment, it is commonly from the less-educated class, who, being less enlightened, are always longer under the influence of prejudice. At a recent ordination at one of the largest and most respectable churches in New York, the moderator of the presbytery was a black man, who began life as a slave; and it was undoubtedly a source of gratification to all his Christian brethren to see him presiding in this capacity. He put the questions to the candidate in the German language, the church being in part composed of Germans. Our Christian friends in Europe may, at least, infer from this that, if we have had our faults in times past, we have, some of us, seen and are endeavoring to correct them.

To bring this head at once to a practical conclusion, the writer will say to every individual Christian, who wishes to do something for the abolition of slavery, begin by doing what lies in your power for the colored people in your vicinity. Are there children excluded from schools by unchristian prejudice? Seek to combat that prejudice by fair arguments, presented in a right spirit. If you cannot succeed, then endeavor to provide for the education of these children in some other manner. As far as in you lies, endeavor to secure for them, in every walk of life, the ordinary privileges of American citizens. If they are excluded from the omnibus and railroad-car in the place where you reside, endeavor to persuade those who have the control of these matters to pursue a more just and reasonable course. Those Christians who are heads of mechanical establishments can do much for the cause by receiving colored apprentices. Many masters excuse themselves for excluding the colored apprentice by saying that if they receive him all their other hands will desert them. To this it is replied, that if they do the thing in a Christian temper and for a Christian purpose, the probability is that, if their hands desert at first, they will return to them at last—all of them, at least, whom they would care to retain.

A respectable dressmaker in one of our towns has, as a matter of principle, taken colored girls for apprentices, thus furnishing them with a respectable means of livelihood. Christian mechanics, in all the walks of life, are earnestly requested to consider this subject, and see if, by offering their hand to raise this poor people to respectability and knowledge and competence, they may not be performing a service which the Lord will accept as done unto himself.

Another thing which is earnestly commended to Christians is the raising and comforting of those poor churches of colored people, who have been discouraged, dismembered and disheartened, by the operation of the fugitive slave law.