Censorship In Uncle Tom's Cabin

Ever since its publication in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has influenced individuals at home in the United States of America, as well as touched the hearts and prodded the minds of millions of people across the globe. Throughout the nineteenth century, varied responses arose from different countries in Europe that had read and analyzed Harriet Stowe’s well-known text. From appealing to the religious aspects of a nation’s culture to relating to the political turmoil and structure in a country, Uncle Tom’s Cabin strikes a different chord with each European nation that it is exposed to. Stowe’s novel’s sphere of influence manages to reach not only Spain, Germany, and France, along with other European

Although Spain had abolished slavery in its British colonies in 1811, it remains one of the last countries with “a colonial slave economy in the Americas,” more specifically, Cuba and Puerto Rico until 1873. Therefore, Spain still associated with slavery through its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. Lisa Surwillo, a professor at Pennsylvania State University – University Park, states that “Stowe’s abolitionist novel enjoyed unbridled proliferation and offered an adaptable lens through which to consider Spain’s role in the slave trade across the Atlantic, outside official discourse”. Uncle Tom’s Cabin influences the Spanish people's views on the transatlantic slave trade that they were condoning and additionally, profiting off of, and this novel gives faces and names to those enslaved individuals of the Spanish empire present across the ocean in Puerto Rico and Cuba. Stowe's prolific book personalizes the impersonal, the problem that Spanish individuals did not come face to face with everyday: the fact that Spain still engaged in the transatlantic slave

As the Spanish government censors many second and third editions of politically controversial and progressive newspapers, “their editors simple replace the censored articles with sections of Uncle Tom’s Cabin – no longer a literary novelty but a way to hint at what had been suppressed”. While the traditional antislavery message may not have been strongly impactful in this case, Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s theme of progressiveness and call for change and rebellion seems to have provoked the Spanish people over topics concerning free speech and censorship. A specific publisher, Ayguals de Izco, “emphasizes the favorable reception of the piece [Uncle Tom’s Cabin] in enlightened countries,” ultimately “placing Spanish censors in the uncomfortable position of either approving Uncle Tom’s Cabin or confirming the Spanish anxiety of being perceived as culturally backward”. In the end, the Spanish government does not censor Stowe’s work due to its already extensive influence worldwide, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin stands for a success among the Spanish people, a controversial novel that had not been banned by the government. Overall, Uncle Tom’s Cabin alters the beliefs of Spain and its people concerning their involvement in the transatlantic slave trade as well as symbolizes freedom from oppression