The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865-1900

by Thomas Dixon

"The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865-1900" by Thomas Dixon is a novel published in 1902. The first book in Dixon's Reconstruction trilogy presents a controversial portrayal of the post-Civil War South, depicting Reconstruction leaders and emancipated slaves as villains while casting Ku Klux Klan members as anti-heroes. Written as a direct response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Dixon reimagines Stowe's characters with inverted sympathies, promoting white supremacist ideology through his racist interpretation of Reconstruction-era America.