Anti-Slavery? Sure! Anti-Racism? Not so much.

I respect what Beecher was doing by writing this novel. It's remarkably admirable in its attempt to sway the pity of slave owners' wives, but let's not forget that her goal was not equality for blacks, but to have them sent back to Africa. Her black characters are stock stereotypes, and the only ones who don't border on the offensive have so little African blood that they can be mistaken for whites. I can't stand "sympathetic novels" and this one is no exception. Stowe was a pamphleteer, not a novelist. I would much rather read slave narratives in retrospect.

2/10