El color del corazón: La historia de Harriet Beecher Stowe y la novela que cambió una nación: La cabaña del tío Tom

SPANISH ORIGINAL: An exciting novel, tremendously human and real, describing the adventures of the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the writer of one of the most influential books in history: Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Story based on real facts

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe, daughter and wife of a congregational pastor. At thirty-nine, after losing a child of a few months, she decided to write a story about the terrible situation of slaves in the United States. After a sermon, she tells that a slave man appeared to her and showed her his sufferings. Uncle Tom's Cabin soon became the most read book of its time and an example of Christian love and criticism of racial segregation.

In 1849 the family has moved to Brunswick, Maine, for her husband to teach at Bowdoin College. Her husband, Calvin, encourages her to join his work at the church, but she is so sad that it seems as though nothing can cheer her up again. In the end, she decides to attend the service and sees a mysterious man of color in one of the last pews in the church.

Harriet approaches the stranger again, talks to him and, sitting on a bench, begins to tell her sad story.

Sam is a slave who has fled a tobacco plantation in Maryland, owned by an evil landowner who tortured and killed his slaves. Poor Tom lives his lowest hours on the ship, until an encounter with a young woman changes his life forever. There he meets Sarah, who asks her father, Matthew, to buy him. He is taken to New Orleans, where, through Sarah, Sam becomes a Christian and begins to experience joy in the midst of such a miserable life. Sarah promises to free him, but the young woman dies suddenly. Her father dies shortly after, and in the end, Sam is sold to a terrible man named Joseph White. Sam's Christian behavior exasperates Joseph, who tries to hinder his faith and prevent him from reading the Bible and speaking to other slaves about God. Sam helps two of the slaves to escape, which makes his master almost beat him to death. Sam's testimony impacts one of the bosses, who ends up converting. Through a group of Quakers, he decides to help Sam reach the north, where after many hardships he manages to achieve freedom. There he meets Harriet, who decides to tell his story, although changing some of the specifics, such as his real name and that of some of the people in the story.

The novel begins to be published in installments in the magazine The National Era, having a good reception, but also receiving much criticism from readers in the southern United States.

Sam decides to return to the South to look for his family, and Harriet does not know anything about him again.

In the end, Harriet changes the specifics of the book and, after several problems, manages to publish the book in 1852, which becomes a great success and raises awareness in the country on the need to abolish slavery in all states.

In the epilogue, Abraham Lincoln receives Harriet in the White House, where he tells her that her novel has provoked a war but has also helped the liberation of the slaves.

The novel is told in the first person by Harriet, combining a chapter in the present tense that tells the life of the author: her problems for being a writer and woman, the loss of her young son, as well as the struggle for education of women that her sister Catharine had undertaken; along with others in which the story that gave rise to Uncle Tom's Cabin and the narrative of Tom's life and his misfortunes is told.

A deeply evocative novel, which shows the life of one of the most influential women in the world. A story that has never been told. A story about love, loss, justice, and its capacity for transformation.