CHAPTER XLV

Concluding Remarks

The writer has often been inquired of, by correspondents from different parts of the country, whether this narrative is a true one; and to these inquiries she will give one general answer.

The separate incidents that compose the narrative are, to a very great extent, authentic, occurring, many of them, either under her own observation, or that of her personal friends.  She or her friends have observed characters the counterpart of almost all that are here introduced; and many of the sayings are word for word as heard herself, or reported to her.

The personal appearance of Eliza, the character ascribed to her, are sketches drawn from life.  The incorruptible fidelity, piety and honesty, of Uncle Tom, had more than one development, to her personal knowledge.  Some of the most deeply tragic and romantic, some of the most terrible incidents, have also their parallels in reality.  The incident of the mother’s crossing the Ohio river on the ice is a well-known fact.  The story of “old Prue,” in the second volume, was an incident that fell under the personal observation of a brother of the writer, then collecting-clerk to a large mercantile house, in New Orleans.  From the same source was derived the character of the planter Legree.  Of him her brother thus wrote, speaking of visiting his plantation, on a collecting tour; “He actually made me feel of his fist, which was like a blacksmith’s hammer, or a nodule of iron, telling me that it was ‘calloused with knocking down niggers.’  When I left the plantation, I drew a long breath, and felt as if I had escaped from an ogre’s den.”

That the tragical fate of Tom, also, has too many times had its parallel, there are living witnesses, all over our land, to testify.  Let it be remembered that in all southern states it is a principle of jurisprudence that no person of colored lineage can testify in a suit against a white, and it will be easy to see that such a case may occur, wherever there is a man whose passions outweigh his interests, and a slave who has manhood or principle enough to resist his will.  There is, actually, nothing to protect the slave’s life, but the character of the master.  Facts too shocking to be contemplated occasionally force their way to the public ear, and the comment that one often hears made on them is more shocking than the thing itself.  It is said, “Very likely such cases may now and then occur, but they are no sample of general practice.”  If the laws of New England were so arranged that a master could now and then torture an apprentice to death, would it be received with equal composure?  Would it be said, “These cases are rare, and no samples of general practice”?  This injustice is an inherent one in the slave system,—­it cannot exist without it.