Upon the discovery of Tom’s death, George decides to liberate the slaves residing on his plantation evoking a series of cries from those he has enslaved about what they are now to do. In reaction, George gives the following speech:

“My good friends,” said George, as soon as he could get a silence, “there’ll be no need for you to leave me. The place wants as many hands to work it as it did before. We need the same about the house that we did before. But, you are now free men and women. I shall pay you wages for your work, such as we shall agree on. The advantage is, that in case of my getting in debt, or dying,–things that might happen,–you cannot now be taken up and sold. I expect to carry on the estate, and to teach you what, perhaps it will take you some time to learn,–how to use the rights I give you as free men and women. I expect you to be good and willing to learn; and I trust in God that I shall be faithful, and willing to teach. And now, my friends, look up and thank God for the blessing of freedom” (Stowe 447). 

While Uncle Tom’s Cabin significantly forwarded the abolitionist movement, it still fails to fully condemn slavery by modern standards. Justifications are offered for slaveholders who practiced slavery in a christian way. George, one of these aforementioned slaveholders, seems to be praised for the book for not only freeing his slaves, but also for offering to continue guiding them into freedom. It was common through the book for certain slave owners to attempt to take on a parental or guiding role to those they enslaved, but the unequal power dynamic, immorality of slavery, and the constant condescension to black people caused it to seem more like they viewed them as pets. All George is offering in this scene is what would in modern standards be considered less than the bare minimum or as the bar is on the floor, and as a result he receives praise. He claims their freedom comes from God giving him the authority of a god in his choice to free them. 

Also, I have a hard time believing that George intends to pay these slaves he’s freeing an actual, living wage, and that they weon;t just get caught in a cycle of sharecropping as was common practice after the abolition of slavery. Even though he no longer “owns” them he still has an immoral authority over them. George is in a sense the white savior of the novel. And, while I understand that this was written in a different time period, I believe it’s still important to acknowledge that his actions weren’t heroic by any means. The novel helped progress abolition forward, but it by no means, likely due to the need to please a white audience, can fully express the grossness of all slave owners, even those you can argue are “good, christian people.”