Harriet Beecher Stowe portrays Christianity as a positive influence on slave owners. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for instance, Emily Shelby educates her slaves and comes to doubt the validity of the institution itself because she is a Christian. Little Eva’s abundant kindness to Tom and the rest of her father’s slaves also stems from her Christianity. Conversely, Stowe characterizes non-believers, like Simon Legree, as cruel and debauched. Frederick Douglass, however, presents the situation as being exactly opposite. Douglass argues that Christians make the worst slave owners because their brand of religion only reinforces their sense of their absolute mastery over their slaves.
