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US history
Course: US history > Unit 5
Lesson 1: Sectional tension in the 1850s- The slave economy
- Life for enslaved men and women
- Early abolition
- The Mexican-American War
- The Compromise of 1850
- Abolition, slavery, and the Compromise of 1850
- Uncle Tom's Cabin - influence of the Fugitive Slave Act
- Uncle Tom's Cabin - reception and significance
- Uncle Tom's Cabin - plot and analysis
- The Kansas-Nebraska Act and party realignment
- Bleeding Kansas
- Manifest Destiny: causes and effects of westward expansion
- Sectional conflict: Regional differences
- Dred Scott v. Sandford
- Dred Scott, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and the election of 1860
- The eve of the Civil War
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Uncle Tom's Cabin - plot and analysis
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," a 1850s book, stirred the Civil War with its powerful depiction of slavery. The story follows Eliza and her son escaping north, while Uncle Tom is sold south. The book highlights the clash between Christian faith and slavery, ending with Tom's martyrdom inspiring others to renounce slavery.
Want to join the conversation?
- Kim said that Tom led even Simon Legree to Christianity but I just finished Uncle Tom's Cabin today and from what I understood Tom's death just scared him even more than he was from the ghost stuff and led him to become a drunk and eventually drink himself to death. Am I getting it wrong or did Kim mean something else?(10 votes)
- I believe that is true, I’m almost done with uncle toms cabin.(8 votes)
- why did slavery happen?(7 votes)
- The tribes in Africa were already capturing and enslaving people from other tribes. The explorers saw this and offered to buy those slaves to take across the Atlantic to the U.S. In the U.S. it had been tried to enslave Native Americans, but they died from European diseases to which they had no immunity, and it was too easy for Native Americans to escape to an area they already knew and family who would help them. They had tried European bondsmen, but they were lost when their term of service was up. The Africans had better immunity and could not escape back across the ocean.(13 votes)
- who is the book by(4 votes)
- If you are asking who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, it was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published on March 20, 1852.(7 votes)
- Why is it that Uncle Tom's Cabin considered as the Second Great Awakening?(3 votes)
- It's not really, it is considered to be a huge sensation possibly inspired by The Second Great Awakening, though.(2 votes)
- If lot's of people didn't like Uncle Tom's Cabin, why didn't certain states or at least individual towns ban the book/novel?(4 votes)
- Well, that's a really good question, and good questions are the hardest to answer. My best shot at it was that even if it was banned, no one would abide to it; or maybe it would be a threat to our 1st amendment.(3 votes)
- From this plot analysis I do not see how Uncle Tom as a character can be viewed in a negative light - it seems like he was simply trying his best to get by after being dealt a really terrible deck of cards in life. Yet I know Uncle Tom is generally used as an insulting term. Can you explain how Uncle Tom is used as an insult and what action by Uncle Tom in the book is the reason for this?(3 votes)
- It refers to a coping skill where individuals use passivity and submissiveness when confronted with a threat, leading to subservient behaviour and appeasement, while concealing their true thoughts and feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom_syndrome(4 votes)
- How many books were sold in the first year?(3 votes)
- 300,000 copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin were sold in the first year.(4 votes)
- Kim said that Tom led even Simon Legree to Christianity but I just finished Uncle Tom's Cabin today and from what I understood.(4 votes)
- What would happen if the government found you owning a slave in the U.S.A?(3 votes)
- Before the 13th Amendment passed, that would be just fine. You might even get elected to the federal government (many Presidents, Vice Presidents, Senators and members of the House of Representatives owned slaves back then.)
Since the 13th Amendment passed, you would be found a criminal. But, if you released your slaves, the US government would pay to cover your financial loss.(3 votes)
- Did any of the slaves in the south fight the abolitionist just because the wanted to stay slaves?(3 votes)
- That’s a interesting question. I always assume that all slaves would want to be part of the abolition to help.(3 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] So Becca and
I have been talking about Uncle Tom's Cabin which is
this book from the 1850s that Abraham Lincoln actually
said started the Civil War. So how did this book start a war? So in this video we'll tell
you more about the plot. But in the previous video
we kind of discussed what was going on in
the country at the time and Harriet Beecher
Stowe again was from this abolitionist family. She was really deeply effected
by the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act,
and also by slave auctions. So this video will get
a little bit more into the heart of the plot
of the novel which does have to do with the
family being torn apart. - [Voiceover] So what was Uncle
Tom's Cabin actually about? Uncle Tom's Cabin was set
on a plantation in Kentucky and it starts out with this
kind of group of slaves that are about to be sold
to other plantation owners. So Eliza and her son actually run away. They run up North, so Eliza goes up North and Uncle Toms is sold down the river. - [Voiceover] So, Eliza
is trying to make sure that she and her son are
not separated by being sold. So she decides that she is going to escape and take her son with her up to Canada. But Uncle Tom, he's not actually related, he is sold in the opposite direction. He's getting farther away from freedom by heading down the Mississippi. When you think about
the geography of slavery it's a much more urban
environment than some of the more coastal areas. So you might be in
Charleston, or you might even be in Baltimore as an enslaved person. You might have a pretty
high degree of freedom and also a possibility of escape either by crossing the border or by boat. When you're sold into the
deep South area you are deep in plantation country
and there might not be another soul that you could
rely on to help you escape for 100, 200 miles. - [Voiceover] And I think
this is really something that Harriet Beecher Stowe
wants to help point out in the book, that there
was this sense of doom for Uncle Tom. However, his Christian
faith was the only thing that really kept him going. He bonded with this young
white woman that he met, Eva, just about their Christian faith. And really, reading
his Bible was the thing that got him up in the morning. So where were those feelings
about religion coming from? - [Voiceover] You can definitely see that Harriet Beecher Stowe is influenced by her own family's
faith which is influenced by the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening
was this flowering of religious belief in
the 1830s and 1840s. It was kind of a reaction
against the Era of Enlightenment which was what had inspired the founders of the United States to think
of a more humanist world, a more rational, scientific world. People start going to camp meetings, they have religious revivals. They experience religious conversions. And in this time period
there's a shift in thinking about God in the United States. If you think back to
the puritans they have this incredibly punitive
sort of Old Testament destroyer God, right? One of the most famous early
sermons in the United States is sinners in the hands of an angry God, that at any moment God might
release you into the flames. Well there's a new emphasis
on Christ-like love in the early 1830s, 1840s. New interpretation of
God as being forgiving and gentle, family oriented,
it's very Victorian. Where God was seen as this punisher who condemned most people to hell, in the Second Great Awakening
there's a new emphasis on a forgiving, kind family-oriented Jesus who will save everyone. That's very incompatible
with the ideas of slavery. - [Voiceover] Exactly, and I
think that Uncle Tom's Cabin can really be considered a part of the Second Great Awakening because of the way that it
points out these fundamental inconsistencies and contradictions
between Christian faith and human bondage. How could a religion that
says treat thy neighbor as thyself actually sanction slavery? - [Voiceover] So Uncle Tom is
this martyr character, right? He is a devout believer in Christianity and the forgiveness of God right up until his very end. So how does Uncle Tom's
Cabin actually end? - [Voiceover] Uncle Tom's
Cabin ends with Uncle Tom is beaten by his overseers. He's sold through this chain
of different slave families in the deep South and he
ends up with just a terrible, terrible slave holder
who requests his death, actually partially because he was reading all of this religious text. [Voiceover] And this slave
owner was named Simon Legree. And this name, Simon Legree,
has actually stuck with us in popular culture to
mean a really evil, cruel, punitive master. - [Voiceover] The rest of the
family actually meets back up. Eliza is reunited with
a bunch of other people that were on the original
plantation and they really think about Uncle Tom as this
martyr, the hero's death. He's looked at as this sacrifice
for the cause of freedom. - [Voiceover] Right, also
Uncle Tom, he dies never having renounced his Christian faith. His example of martyrdom
actually leads everyone who witnesses his death,
including Simon Legree, to convert to Christianity
and to vow never to hold slaves again. - [Voiceover] But I think
the ending of the book really points out this main theme within a lot of Second Great
Awakening texts which was that if you just paid attention
to how you are falling away from your Christian
commitments then you could get back on track and maybe
bring people together by utilizing Christian
faith in a productive and public way. - [Voiceover] The book
is published in 1852, then what happens? How do people receive this book? - [Voiceover] We'll talk about
this Tom-mania that ensues in the next video.