Mary Henderson Eastman

Aunt Phillis's Cabin (1852). by Mary Henderson Eastman

Aunt Phillis's Cabin; or, Southern Life As It Is by Mary Henderson Eastman is a plantation fiction novel, and is perhaps the most read anti-Tom novel in American literature. It was published by Lippincott, Grambo & Co. of Philadelphia in 1852 as a response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, published earlier that year. The novel sold 20,000-30,000 copies, making it a strong commercial success and bestseller. Based on her growing up in Warrenton, Virginia of an elite planter family, Eastman portrays plantation owners and slaves as mutually respectful, kind, and happy beings. Plot The story is set in unnamed rural town in Virginia, which is frequented by several plantation owners living around it. The town relies on trade from the cotton plantations for its economy. Understanding this, the plantation owners, in contrast to their neighbors in surrounding towns, have adopted a benign approach towards their slaves to keep them peaceful and assure the safety of the town. Several characters in and around the town are introduced throughout the story, demonstrating how this process works and the delicate balance of such a process in action........... Seth Eastman (1808-1875) and his second wife Mary Henderson Eastman (1818 - 24 February 1887) were instrumental in recording Native American life. Eastman was an artist and West Point graduate who served in the US Army, first as a mapmaker and illustrator. He had two tours at Fort Snelling, Minnesota Territory; during the second, extended tour he was commanding officer of the fort. Mary Henderson was born in Warrenton, Virginia in 1818 to a family of the elite planter class. She moved with her family to West Point, New York when her father was assigned as a surgeon at the military academy. There she met and married Seth Eastman in 1835 when she was seventeen and he was twenty-seven. As Henderson noted in her novel Aunt Phillis's Cabin (1852), she was a descendant of the First Families of Virginia and had grown up in slaveholding society. In 1841 Captain Eastman was appointed commander of Fort Snelling. He and his family lived there for years. This was when Henderson Eastman wrote Dacotah, or Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling (1849), which Seth Eastman illustrated. She used her time at Fort Snelling to record and preserve the local culture. Among the legends she allegedly collected from the Dakota was a version of the death of the lovelorn Chief's daughter, "Princess Winona." However, at that time in history, "Winona" which means first born was not in use as a proper name, and the Dakota do not use European titles of royalty. She sent her book to the US Congress in 1849; it is online on Project Gutenberg. After the Eastmans returned to the East, they lived in Washington, D. C. In the years of tension before the American Civil War, many writers published novels that dealt with each side of the slavery issue. After the stir caused by Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mary Henderson Eastman defended southern slaveholding society by writing Aunt Phillis's Cabin: or, Southern Life As It Is (1852). It sold 20,000-30,000 copies, making it a bestseller and one of the best-known of the anti-Tom novels produced in that period.............