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negative effects of slavery on slaveholders
negative effects of slavery on slaveholders
negative effects of slavery on slaveholders
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Uncle Tom's Cabin Uncle Tom's Cabin follows the lives of two slaves that live on a Kentucky plantation. Tom, a black slave, and a young mulatto woman named Eliza are under the ownership of Mr. Shelby. Tom is his most trusted slave, while Eliza is Mrs. Shelby's beloved servant, whom she has raised since she was a young girl. Mr. Shelby is a kind man, but is not very good with his finances. He is indebted to a slave trader by the name of Haley. The story begins with Haley giving Shelby the option of trading a couple of his slaves to pay off his debt. Haley tells Shelby that he wants Tom, Shelby's most faithful slave. Knowing he has little choice, Shelby eventually signs over Eliza's five year old son, Harry and Tom to Mr. Haley, thus settling his debts. Eliza overhears the men talking and flees the plantation with her son. With Haley not far behind, she starts her dangerous journey to Canada, where she hopes to meet up with her husband, George, who is also a runaway. Haley is unable to catch Eliza, so he returns to the farm and collects Tom. With plans of taking Tom to be sold in the South, Haley boards a steamboat with several other slaves. On the boat Tom meets and makes a great impression on a little girl, Evangeline St. Clare, or Eva. Eva is traveling with her father Augustine St. Clare, and his cousin Ophelia. After Tom rescues Eva from drowning, she persuades her father to purchase Tom. Augustine is a kind man who treats his slaves as if they where his own children. Tom goes to work in the St. Clare stables and becomes the private driver of Augustine's selfish wife, Marie. Since Marie is so busy worry about herself, she is unable to properly 1 care for Eva. So Augustine has brought Ophelia from ... ... middle of paper ... ... I could only visualize the hardships that slave families had to endure. I was saddened by the fact that these things really did happen, and the worst part was that they happened all the time. I would have been just as devastated if my family was ripped from my arms and traded like livestock. Stowe painted a vivid picture of the lives of slaves. Stowe may have had a bias opinion on 3 slavery but in my opinion, she had every right. I believe that the reason south was so upset over this novel was because they knew that slavery was coming to an end. This was an amazing book that took me through the different lives and situations that men and women had to live through and endure. Harriet Beecher Stowe was an astounding writer who opened a door for the abolitionist to express themselves. Bibliography: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
As explained by author Carl E. Krog, “Some Northerners, if they did not disapprove of slavery, were uncomfortable with it, particularly with the slave trade and its consequent break-up of families in an age which idealized the family” (Krog, p. 253). Krog goes on to cite various examples of families being separated in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the first of which being the story of Eliza and Harry. Spurred by the fear of losing her son, Harry, Eliza flees captivity, taking refuge in the free state of Ohio. Once in Ohio, Eliza meets Senator and Mrs. Bird whom have lost a child and can understand Eliza’s pain. (Stowe 876-880). In a later scene, a slave being transported away from her family cries out in agony as white women, sitting with their own children, look on in disgust at her uncouth display of sadness. Another passenger on the ship calls out their hypocrisy, noting that if their children had been shipped away they too would be distraught. Stowe gives her characters something that swiftly taken away from real slaves, humanity. As noted in Ramesh Mallipeddi’s essay, slaves lost their identity at capture and were not trapped in a false, inhuman persona crafted by slave masters. Stowe pushes her characters out of the trope of uneducated animal allowing her readers to see slaves as they were,
Uncle Tom's Cabin tells a story of adversity in the struggle for freedom, a look into human cruelty as well as human compassion, and one man's loyalty to those he is indentured to. It is set in a period just before the Civil War; during the time when the black people of America were not citizens, but property and had no rights. In the south during this time, the blacks were forced to work hard labor on plantations and were required to live in small dorms outside of their owner's homes. However, the novel is more than just a narrative of slaves, but of human emotion rising up in the face of adversity. It is a story of the fight for freedom, and an account of the history of America. The author brings out the humanity in the slaves, and describes the great injustices that took place during the time.
I never thought that I would read a book over the summer, but over the course of these past two months, that changed. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” forever changed how I view slavery. I loved reading it. Throughout the whole novel, Stowe uses her experience and knowledge to portray the terrible hardships and struggles that slaves endured everyday. Not only does this book express the thoughts of the slaves and their faith in God, but also of the people around them. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” wanted so badly for America to give freedom and equality for all people, and that is what I enjoyed most while reading.
For example, Eliza was legally separated from her son, Harry, because selling the slaves was vital to paying off of debts for the Shelby family (Stowe, 1852, p. 51). This exemplifies the similarities between Uncle Tom’s Cabin and large plantations after the 1830s in that both slave owners would sell slaves for their financial benefit, which makes Uncle Tom’s Cabin a significantly accurate portrayal of large plantations after the 1830s. Along with the separation of Eliza and Harry, Uncle Tom and and Aunt Chloe were also separated due to the Shelby’s financial issues. Furthermore, Lucy’s baby was taken and sold by Haley without her knowledge. Lucy was lured away from her child, and when she returned the child was gone (Stowe, 1852, p. 208) This incident highlights the similarities of the methods in which slave traders would take to be able to conveniently sell slaves. Lastly, George Harris and Eliza Harris were separated, despite the fact that they were married (Stowe, 1852, p. 57) This instance shows how white landowners in Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not acknowledge their slaves as people and would sell their slaves like commodities for their own profit, which is also correct for large plantations after the 1830s. This commonality represents Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a significantly accurate portrayal of slaves lives on large
During a time when politicians hoped the American people would forget about slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a novel that brought it to the attention of thousands. Stowe’s ideas had a profound affect on a growing abolitionist movement not because they were original, but because they were common.
...rd. Thus putting Legree in Anger, he orders his overseers to beat him. When Tom is close to death, he forgives them. A bit too late, Shelby had finally arrived at Legree’s plantation after years of searching for his slave Tom. Shelby arrives with money to buy Tom’s freedom, but is too late. He can only watch as Tom dies as a scapegoat. As George was leaving the plantation, the two women tried to make a break for freedom, only to hitch a ride with him after they had explained their story. On a boat to freedom, Shelby and the girls meet Harris’s sister and had travel with her, where Cassy realizes that Eliza is her daughter. They decide to travel to France when Harris’s sister had claimed to be rich, from there they decided to move to Africa where many former African slaves return too. George had returned back to his farm, releasing all of the slaves in honor of Tom.
Stowe and her siblings were involved in various reform movements and even “...reformed Puritanism itself by challenging some of its harshest creeds” (Reynolds, 2011, p.6). Stowe was uninterested in the political issue created by slavery, she wanted to bring light upon the emotional and religious problems caused by it. Stowe was able to receive testimony from former slaves because of the close interaction she had with them. One of her housekeepers, Eliza Buck, was a fugitive slave and was able to tell her story. Eliza Buck, along with Stowe’s mother’s sister, were able to influence Stowe in her creation of the characters for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The immense cultural importance produced by Uncle Tom’s Cabin is created through its emotional appeal. Stowe’s book aid “...rectify
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a classic novel that some people claimed evoked the American Civil War. Stowe motivated people to take sides over the issue of slavery by discussing the issue and showing the cruel aspects of it. The main focus of the novel was to show whites that African American’s have souls and feelings like any other human; it was common for whites at the time to view blacks as cattle. Families were separated, and the white people’s reasoning was that blacks did not feel the loss the same way a white person would. Stowe’s basic argument is that it is wrong to mistreat blacks because they suffer just as much as whites.
The wide variety of characters that Stowe introduces during the novel allows a better chance that an individual will find one that they can identify with and be able to connect; for me that character was Cassy. Her life starts out just like anyone else’s might have today. She has a loving mother and father until tragedy strikes. Many people have had to overcome a setback in their childhood and have gone on to live very happy lives. Cassy is no different. Unfortunately, her happiness is not long lived and she is plunged into every mother’s nightmare. As a mother, my children are the most important aspect of my life. They are the reason that I make 90% of the decisions that I make daily. Reading Cassy’s story and putting myself into her situation makes my heart ache. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around how horrible it would have been to have decisions about my children’s welfare and happiness taken away from me. Not to mention living with a threat that they would be physically hurt or worse yet sold away from me forever. I want to think I would have been as strong as Cassy and been able to push through the anguish that she must have felt after her children were taken but I honestly feel that I would have crumbled. Slaves had to be incredibly strong to survive the abuse and terrorism that they faced on a daily basis.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, a northern abolitionist, published her best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin contracts the many different attitudes that southerners as well as northerners shared towards slavery. Generally, it shows the evils of slavery and the cruelty and inhumanity of the peculiar institution, in particular how masters treat their slaves and how families are torn apart because of slavery.
...spiritual growth. When Stowe wrote her most famous publication, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she used those emotional experiences to relate to the feelings of the slaves she was writing about. Upon reading the book, one is almost drawn into it because the emotional aspects of the characters seem so real. The main reason for this is that Stowe was in a somewhat fragile emotional state and her emotions were very real and very strong when she was writing the book. The things Stowe went through were tough enough to break anyone down, but through her family and her faith she was able to make it through and make an impact on many people through her writing. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life experiences- discrimination, exhaustion, and loss- gave her the ability to relate emotionally to slaves which allowed her to write a book that effected public opinion by tugging at people’s emotions.
...nd stay in their barn thinking that Simon would never find out, which he did not. Knowing that bad things will happen to the slaves, Uncle Tom encourages them to runaway. Saying "God helps those, who help themselves." The slaves flee and they break the damn that is holding water back from the cotton fields. This destroys all of the cotton that was on the plantations. Simon and his crew find the slaves in a religious compound and try to fight. Cassy takes Eliza and her son to the compound and is then shot by Simon. But Eliza is finally reunited with her husband who is now freed. After finding out what happened with the cotton fields Simon and his crew leave to try to salvage the cotton. Tom on the other hand is left in the now burning house to die. Mr. Shelby's son George who had grown up with Tom finds him and spends his last dying moments with him.
Shelby proceeds to bury Tom and give him a respectable burial that any man would deserve. This shows that yet again another white person realizes that maybe these slaves do deserve the same rights and privileges as whites. Similarly, we must pay close attention to the fact that this novel is called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Though the cabin itself only has a fleeting moment of fame within the story, it does, however, symbolize the freedom of the future slaves. From it, we acquire a calming sense of domestic tranquility and religious piety that lies inside the cabin. So whenever the circumstances permitted, future slaves could marvel at the cabin and see a perfect representation of a hardworking, principled household that they may achieve—given that they are now viewed a human beings worthy of a home to call their own. George Shelby then takes this a step further. He takes the slaves to the cabin and shows them this symbol of freedom by telling them to look around and remember the sacrifices that Uncle Tom made: the sacrifices that indirectly bought them their freedom. So as a result of Tom’s selfless and meaningful character, he ultimately seeped into the white man’s heart, which reflected how his integrity affected people in that time period. It was more to Tom than his fleeting life on earth,
Rarely is one work of literature so significant that it has the ability to change a society or cascade it down a path of ruinous conflict. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is a work that provided such a catalytic occurrence. To this day, this work of fiction brilliance is considered one of the most instrumental American works to ever be published. Selling over a million copies in its first two years and being the second bestselling book next to the Bible, what makes this accomplishment even more incredible is the fact that a woman wrote this book during a period in history when women were not granted the ability to have roles of influence or leadership, in any society1. In 1852, when the book was published, women were nonetheless confined to domestic obligations. With the help of the books, Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice written by Joe Holland, one is able to understand how much of an impact Stowe had on America’s history with the way people viewed slavery. The percussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin caused much conflict between the abolitionists and the antislavery citizens. This work is important to history because it created the idea of finding a place for religion in society, shone a light on how African American slaves were treated, pushed the United States to a realization with the idea of whether slavery could continue to be a cornerstone of American life and how it contributed to the beginning of the Civil War. As Abe Lincoln said of Stowe, “the little woman who started the Great War1.”
This presents a topic that was rather uncomfortable during the time period of slavery, that slaves were capable of being good and displaying more humanity than their owners. While Mr. Shelby is a good man he ends up selling Tom and one of his child slaves, Harry. The loyalty that Tom has shown him does not outweigh the debt that Mr. Shelby has to pay, nor does Mr. Shelby seem to have much difficulty in separating a mother and her child. To protect her son, just as any mother would regardless of race, Eliza takes Harry and runs away with him. Tom however, decides to go without a fight and throughout the play is able to stay strong. When he is sold to Mr. Legree Tom tries to help out the other slaves on the plantation and is whipped for doing so. When Cassy and Emmeline devise a plan to escape Tom does not reveal their plan despite the cruel beatings he receives from Mr. Legree. This speaks great volumes of Tom’s humanity and strength more so than those who owned him and claimed they were