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

“The most glaring and remarkable errors are found in the statements respecting nosology, the prevalence of insanity, blindness, deafness and dumbness, among the people of this nation.

“The undersigned have compared these statements with information obtained from other more reliable sources, and have found them widely varying from the truth; and, more than all, they have compared the statements in one part of the census with those in another part, and have found most extraordinary discrepances. They have also examined the original manuscript copy of the census, deposited by the marshal of the District of Massachusetts in the clerk’s office in Boston, and have compared this with the printed edition of both Blair and Rives, and Thomas Allen, and found here, too, a variance of statements.

“Your memorialists are aware that some of these errors in respect to Massachusetts, and perhaps also in respect to other states, were committed by the marshals. Mr. William H. Williams, deputy marshal, states that there were one hundred and thirty-three colored pauper lunatics in the family of Samuel B. Woodward, in the town of Worcester; but on another page he states that there are no colored persons in said Woodward’s family.

“Mr. Benali Blood, deputy marshal, states, on one page, that there were fourteen colored pauper lunatics and two colored lunatics, who were supported at private charge, in the family of Charles E. Parker, in the town of Pepperell; while on another page he states that there are no colored persons in the family of said Parker. Mr. William M. Packson states, on one page, that there are in the family of Jacob Cushman, in the town of Plympton, four pauper colored lunatics, and one colored blind person; while on another page he states that there are no colored persons in the family of said Cushman.

“But, on comparing the manuscript copy of the census at Boston with the printed edition of Blair and Rives, the undersigned are convinced that a large portion of the errors were made by the printers, and that hardly any of the errors of the original document are left out. The original document finds the colored insane in twenty-nine towns, while the printed edition of Blair and Rives places them in thirty-five towns, and each makes them more than ten-fold greater than the state returns in regard to the paupers. And one edition has given twenty, and the other twenty-seven, self-supporting lunatics, in towns in which, according to private inquiry, none are to be found. According to the original and manuscript copy of the census, there were in Massachusetts ten deaf and dumb and eight blind colored persons; whereas the printed editions of the same document multiply them into seventeen of the former and twenty-two of the latter class of unfortunates.

“The printed copy of the census declares that there were in the towns of Hingham and Scituate nineteen colored persons who were deaf and dumb, blind, or insane. On the other hand, the undersigned are informed, by the overseers of the poor and the assessors, who have cognizance of every pauper and tax-payer in the town, that in the last twelve years no such diseased persons have lived in the town of Scituate; and they have equally certain proof that none such have lived in Hingham. Moreover, the deputy marshals neither found nor made record of such persons.

“The undersigned have carefully compared the number of colored insane and idiots, and of the deaf and dumb and blind, with the whole number of the colored population, as stated in the printed edition of the census, in every city, town, and county of the United States; and have found the extraordinary contradictions and improbabilities that are shown in the following tables.

“The errors of the census are as certain, if not as manifest, in regard to the insanity among the whites, as among the colored people. Wherever your memorialists have been able to compare the census with the results of the investigations of the state governments, of individuals, or societies, they have found that the national enumeration has fallen far short of the more probable amount.

“According to the census, there were in Massachusetts six hundred and twenty-seven lunatics and idiots supported at public charge; according to the returns of the overseers of the poor, there were eight hundred and twenty-seven of this class of paupers.

“The superintendents of the poor of the State of New York report one thousand and fifty-eight pauper lunatics within that state; the census reports only seven hundred and thirty-nine.