Uncle Tom's Cabin: Christianity Supported Slavery

871 Words2 Pages

Since the 17th century when African slaves were brought over by Dutch slavers, Christianity has been used to justify the act of enslavment. Missionaries sailed with slavers and tried to convert the Africans sold into slavery many times. During the 19th century Christianity was a great factor in helping institutionalize and even justify the suffering of the slaves. Slaves were made to believe through verses of the Bible that if they suffered in their current lives, they would have a better existence after they passed on. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, puts forth the lives of many different slaves and their masters in a way that was one of the contributing factors to igniting the civil war. The book focuses on the tension between the morality of religion and how religion was used to institutionalize slavery, particularly for the main character, Tom. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin presents the interpretative tension between religion and how it was used by the white slaveholders to rationalize Tom’s bondage and servitude for him and themselves. The white institution of Christianity has been forced upon Tom since childhood to make him believe in the Puritanical tenet that individual suffering in life, guarantees a good tidings in death. Tom has been taught to read the Bible and believes that God will be with him everywhere he goes, even after he has been sold and separated from Aunt Chloe and the rest of his family. “I’m in the Lord’s hands,” said Tom; “nothin’ can go no furder than he lets it;--and thar’s one thing I can thank him for. It’s me that’s sold and going down, and you nur the chil’en. Here you’re safe; ---what comes will come only on me; and the Lord, he’ll help me,--I know he will,” (Stowe 81)... ... middle of paper ... ... is invoking language of the Christ’s crucifixion on the cross by the Romans. Stowe makes an analogous statement to this in describing the daily plight of black slaves. Most whites view the system of slavery as natural; they see black as inferior to them and therefore designed to serve them based on the color of their skin. Blacks however see bondage through the forced biblical paradigm that has been imposed upon them. Stowe makes the analogy that African Americans suffer daily in bondage like Christ suffered on the cross. Overall Uncle Tom’s Cabin is filled with religious overtones of martyrdom, imposed religion, and genuine piety of the slaves in bondage. Harriet Beecher Stowe shows the divide between how the slaveholders see religion as a whip to keep slaves in line and how slaves see the same religion as a balm for the wounds inflicted on them by the whites.

Show More
Related

  • The Use Of Slavery In Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl?

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, personal accounts that detail the ins-and-outs of the system of slavery show readers truly how monstrous and oppressive slavery is. Families are torn apart, lives are ruined, and slaves are tortured both physically and mentally. The white slaveholders of the South manipulate and take advantage of their slaves on every possible occasion. Nothing is left untouched by the gnarled claws of slavery; even God and religion become tainted. As Jacobs’ account reveals, whites control the religious institutions of the South, and in doing so, forge religion as a tool used to perpetuate slavery, the very system it ought to condemn.

    Read More

  • Uncle S Cabin And Olaudah Equiano's Narrative Essay

    1588 Words  | 4 Pages

    Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative of his Life both endeavor to stir antislavery sentiment in predominantly white, proslavery readers. Each author uses a variety of literary tactics to persuade audiences that slavery is inhumane. Equiano uses vivid imagery and inserts personal experience to appeal to audiences, believing that a first-hand account of the varying traumas slaves encounter would affect change. Stowe relies on emotional connection between the readers and characters in her novel. By forcing her audience to have empathy for characters, thus forcing readers to confront the harsh realities of slavery, Stowe has the more effective approach to encouraging abolitionist sentiment in white readers.

    Read More

  • Relationship Between Christianity and Slavery in America

    692 Words  | 2 Pages

    It can be assumed that Christianity shaped slave culture in several ways such as developing a common bond among slaves. At the some time, it could also be argued that slavery altered Christianity in various ways including the formation of Methodist and Baptist denominations. However, these were not the only manners in which both cultures had an effect on each other. Black converts dramatically increased the number of Christians in the New World. The ideas instilled in slaves by Christianity gave some slaves thoughts of rebellion and influenced African-American music and dance. Not to mention the church was a major supporter of the proslavery argument which conveyed slavery as a positive thing during the antebellum period of the United States.

    Read More

  • Religion's Influence on the Slavery Debates

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery was a dominant part of the political and social arenas of 1800’s America. However, it was not homogenous as it divided America into two distinct groups: those who supported it and those who did not. Traditionally, the states in the north had been anti-slavery while the states in the south had been pro-slavery. Southern life and economy depended on slavery and therefore staunchly supported the continued legal status of slavery. The northern states on the other hand recognized the inhumane nature of slavery and campaigned to establish equality for all citizens. In order to establish solid reasoning for their stance, both pro-slave and anti-slave groups turned to theological inspiration for their actions. The Bible inspired both pro-slavery advocates and anti-slavery abolitionists alike. Religion was used in order to justify slavery and also to condemn it.

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    Uncle Tom’s cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852. It is an anti-slavery book that shows the reader the many sufferings endured by slaves in the period before the civil war. To the people of the modern day generation, these acts of slavery are unbelievable but the reader has to realize the fact that in those years, people suffered, to the point where they were just treated as property, where owners can do whatever they like and be disposed of or traded as if they were just material possessions and not even human. The book talks about the relationship between slaves and their masters as well as the role of women. As slavery was practiced during such times, Stowe tries to expose the difficult life people had in the past and how their faith in God helped them to endure all there hardships.

    Read More

  • Christianity in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin

    1494 Words  | 3 Pages

    While lying on her death bed, in Chapter 26 of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, little Eva says to the servants in her house who have gathered around her, "You must remember that each one of you can become angels" (418). In this chapter and the one before it, Eva has actively worked to make the people surrounding her into "angels," taken here to mean one who is saved by God. In chapters 33 and 34 of Stowe's book, Tom similarly works, though more quietly, to turn the other slaves at Simon Legree's plantation into "angels." Both of these scenes, and particularly the evangelical characters within them, reveal Stowe's Methodist theology, a theology that rejects the predestination of earlier American Christianity. In Stowe's theology "each one" of the people can be saved; God's love is universal. Original sin still exists, but now an individual is given control to escape this sin by embracing God's love. At the heart of the theology and the resultant morality that Tom and Eva evince, is a warm, knowable God, who is knowable through love, and the heart.

    Read More

  • Struggle Between Slavery and Christanity

    987 Words  | 2 Pages

    How can the particularly monstrous slave owners who possess such a despicable stance towards slaves portray themselves to be fully devoted Christians? In this interpretation, Frederick Douglass attempts to address the issues between slavery and Christianity that he had to undergo during his era as a slave. He reveals how the slaveholders during that time span aimed to make a connection by linking the two in order to justify their misbehavior and wickedness towards slaves. Their behavior was undeniable to him and he was repulsed by the way they had no courtesy for the truth of religion. This made him interrogate his faith and judgment in Christianity an insufficient number of times.

    Read More

  • Christianity in the Midst of Slavery

    1282 Words  | 3 Pages

    Christianity in the context of American slavery took on many faces and characteristics. As a religion, it was used as a tool of manipulation for slave masters to further justify the institution, and particularly assert authority over their slaves. In the slave community, Christianity was adapted in the slave community as a means to shape an identity and create a sense of dignity for an oppressed people. Christianity in the context of the slave community was a means to uplift and encourage the slaves, a way in which to advance the interests of slave-holders, and in some cases, a means used to justify freedom.

    Read More

  • And Contrast The Devil And Tom Walker And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    The devil tempted Tom to become a “slave trader,” but he would not accepted this offer so his other option was “open a broker’s shop” where he would “drive merchants to bankruptcy” (Irving). Tom fell into a trap, and from that moment hope was vanished and he was drawing close to his desire that would never come true. The ingenious blend of “seriocomic pathos” helps highlight the increase corruption of money distribution and reitterates the importance of Tom’s new life that was graciously given to him (Mintz). Tom “starved the horses” and the “ungreased wheels” squealed and growned it is as if you could hear “the souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing” (Irving). This is parallel to the first depression where people were in chaos and felt disconnected to the government and world. Through Irving’s simile, he comapres the “ungreased wheels” to “the souls of the poor he was squeezing” (Irving) which helps create a “vein of humor” (Mintz). Tom alwasy carried a Bible in his coat picket and desk, but one day he frogot his Bibles which were under his pocket and buried “under the mortage” he was soon to close. Th black man “whicked him like a child into the saddle” and they gaolloped away in the midst of a thunder storm (Irving). His minor sin of not carrying his Bible lead to his death where his hope for Kidd’s treasure was lost. It also shows how minor government spending could lead to a great amount of trouble like an economic depression. Irving’s ideal readers should make fun “at the fictional audience” who think that Tom was carried away to his “fate” in a “carriage driven by a black horse” (Piedmont-Marton). His “seriocomic pathos” makes this incident ironic because he sets it up in a serious tone, but has a dark sensor of humar that the reader should pick

    Read More

  • The Role Of Christianity In Uncle Tom's Cabin

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    His master wants to take him away from Eliza and is forcing him to marry within the plantation. George is a hardworking slave and his master does not seem to like the praises he would get. His master likes to torment him and make his life not worth living because George is a slave. When George expresses his feelings to Eliza, she tells him to believe in God and pray. George, however, concludes that his “heart’s full of bitterness; [he] can’t trust in God” (Stowe III). George’s master’s son is also like his father. The son, Tom, is a cruel little boy because he beats the horses and he beats George. The readers can infer that Tom will be like his father when he grows up because he is already starting his training to become a slave master with cruelty and callousness like his

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Abolishing Slavery

    336 Words  | 1 Pages

    Douglass continues to describe the severity of the manipulation of Christianity. Slave owners use generations of slavery and mental control to convert slaves to the belief God sanctions and supports slavery. They teach that, “ man may properly be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained by God” (Douglass 13). In order to justify their own wrongdoings, slaveowners convert the slaves themselves to Christianity, either by force or gentle coercion over generations. The slaves are therefore under the impression that slavery is a necessary evil. With no other source of information other than their slave owners, and no other supernatural explanation for the horrors they face other than the ones provided by Christianity, generations of slaves cannot escape from under the canopy of Christianity. Christianity molded so deeply to the ideals of slavery that it becomes a postmark of America and a shield of steel for American slave owners. Douglass exposes the blatant misuse of the religion. By using Christianity as a vessel of exploitation, they forever modify the connotations of Christianity to that of tyrannical rule and

    Read More

  • The Role Of Religion In Uncle Tom's Cabin

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Arthur Ward once said, "Real religion is a way of life, not a white cloak to be wrapped around us on the Sabbath and then cast aside into the six-day closet of unconcern." Religion is the one thing that people can usually tolerate but never agree upon. Each faith seems to have an ordained assumption that they have the correct thoughts on how to life one's life or how to think about things or the way to act in certain situations. Still, each religion has its own "sub-religions." If someone refers to Christianity, there are several different religions that are blanketed under that umbrella: Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian are just a handful. The inconsistencies that are associated with everyone's belief about religion run into deeper ruts of confusion. This confusion leads people to have distorted views as to what they believe and what their religion is all about. This is no different from the feelings about slavery by Christians in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Throughout the novel, Christianity presents itself in a few different lights; as a twisted and deformed glimmer of what religion is supposed to be with undertones of bigotry and prejudice, an innocent yet naive child that brings joy to everyone he or she meets, and as Uncle Tom himself, the standard for what a Christian is supposed to be. These different portrayals of Christian living come from Stowe's own beliefs about Christians and brings them into the light.

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin Religion

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, one of the main themes is religious faith; specifically Christian faith. Stowe’s characterization of this was that Christian faith is a strong force of love that has the ability to invalidate slavery. This was shown in many characters like Uncle Tom and Eliza. As a result of their strong Christian faith and values, Uncle Tom and Eliza were able to

    Read More

  • Slavery and Christianity in Harriet A. Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

    1695 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...e that chattel slavery was a cruel, perverse institution that no human should ever have to endure. Most people realize today how hypocritical it was to call oneself a Christian, while treating slaves so horribly. Throughout her book, Harriet Jacobs, in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, revealed Americans everywhere that slave owners were hypocrites, and calling themselves Christians was perhaps the greatest sin of all.

    Read More

  • The Strength of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has had a tremendous impact on American culture, both then and now.  It is still considered a controversial novel, and many secondary schools have banned it from their libraries.  What makes it such a controversial novel?  One reason would have been that the novel is full of melodrama, and many people considered it a caricature of the truth.  Others said that she did not show the horror of slavery enough, that she showed the softer side of it throughout most of her novel.  Regardless of the varying opinions of its readers, it is obvious that its impact was large.

    Read More

More about Uncle Tom's Cabin: Christianity Supported Slavery

Open Document