Aunt Phillis's Cabin; Or, Southern Life As It Is

by Mary H. (Mary Henderson) Eastman

"Aunt Phillis's Cabin; Or, Southern Life As It Is" by Mary H. Eastman is a plantation fiction novel published in 1852 as a direct response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Drawing from her Virginia upbringing, Eastman portrays slavery as a benign institution where plantation owners and enslaved people coexist in mutual respect and happiness. The story follows various characters in rural Virginia, demonstrating what the author presents as the "essential happiness" of enslaved people compared to free blacks in the North.