Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.[1] The character was seen by many readers as a ground-breaking humanistic portrayal of a slave, one who uses nonresistance and gives his life to protect others who have escaped from slavery. However, the character also came to be seen, especially based on his portrayal in pro-compassion dramatizations, as inexplicably kind to white slaveholders. This led to the use of Uncle Tom – sometimes shortened to just a Tom[2][3] – as a derogatory epithet for an exceedingly subservient person or house negro, particularly one aware of their own lower-class racial status.