Dissemblance In Uncle Tom's Cabin

Rebellion has appeared numerous times in the dark history of slavery. One of the few successful ways slaves resisted their slave owners was in a non violent way known as dissemblance. Dissemblance is to disguise or conceal ones true nature or appearance and was perfectly explained by this statement from an ex slave, “Got one mind for the white folk, nother I know that is me”. Historians throughout time had argued dissemblance was used as self preservation. It can be argued there is a difference between dissemblance and being submissive. The relationship between a slave owner and slave has always been misconstrued as slave owners would lie to themselves saying they were helping slaves. Obviously slavery was detrimental to Africans that were caught in the slave trade.

An “Uncle Tom” is an epithet that stemmed from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel titled “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. In this novel, slaves that were considered to be subservient to the oppressors were called Uncle Toms. Even though this term Uncle Tom stems from a novel, the novel itself was inspired by a very true story of Josiah Henson. Henson who was an ex slave who was sold back into slavery, instead of rebelling in violence, Henson rather decided to work with his oppressors. Eventually he escaped back north to Canada, where he would write his autobiography about his life. Slave owners were full of themselves, they valued their slaves as domestic