Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a novel which constantly tries to portray one theme: life as a slave. However, the problem is that the slave narratives in the novel are not first-hand experiences as they are written by Stowe, who is a white woman. If compared to several first person narratives found in this interactive online exhibit by MOAD, the lives lead by the slaves in Stowe’s novel seem like paradise.
The slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Fountain Hughes, and Juan Francisco Manzano particularly show the brutality and evil of slavery which Stowe seems to miss portraying in most of the slaves’ lives in the novel.
Olaudah Equiano’s story is about his capturing and his travels to the New World. Equiano describes the fears he experienced and the horrors he faced after being captured by the white men. It was exceptionally striking when he described his reaction at the first time of seeing white humans: he was terrified to the bone because he thought he was going to be eaten by them. Olaudah Equiano constantly raises the image of blacks being furiously beaten and treated like animals.
Unlike Olaudah Equiano, Fountain Hughe was born into slavery. His story illustrates his childhood, and how he was treated by whites, being a black slave child. According to his narrative, slave boys usually did not wear pants or shoes until they were about thirteen or fourteen years old. He also mentions how he had to sleep on the floor because he was a slave. At the end of Hughe’s account, he says that he would kill himself if he ever got to experience slavery again.
Finally, there was the narrative of Juan Francisco Manzano. Unlike other slaves who were of African origin, he was born in Havana, Cuba. He however, was born free, but became enslaved shortly after being transferred at 10 years old. His narrative describes mainly the physical punishments which he had endured on almost a daily basis. Manzano’s story proves that it wasn’t mandatory to be African in order to be enslaved; you had to be of a color other than white.
These three narratives are evidence that the slave lives in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel are inaccurate. Stowe’s depiction of slavery is far from what it actually was. If compared to the lives of Equiano, Hughe, and Manzano, the lives of slaves such as Aunt Chloe seem to be nothing but lies. Since Harriet Beecher Stowe never experienced slavery firsthand, her portrayal of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin should not be taken seriously.
American Literature 
I agree that Harriet Stowe did not portray a good perspective on the lifestyle of African American slaves. She simply only showed the good side of it all, or at least the better side. She does not portray what half of these slaves had to go through, and what they had to see.
Perhaps Stowe intentionally CHOSE not to show or talk about the physical torments and hardships of slavery, knowing that the reader will simply be put off, because they have seen it all already. I think she wanted to lay more focus on the emotional conflicts and terrible times that the African American slaves went through, to in effect humanize and personify the slaves. They were seen as property. Pigs are property. They are slaughtered for bacon. We don’t mind: it tastes good, and they’re animals anyway. But if we were told and given evidence that there was a person in that pig, a person that had thoughts and feelings and cared about other people, we really wouldn’t like bacon that much.