African American History: Uncle Tom's Cabin (Essay Sample)

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11 December 2014
African American History; Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The book "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" played a big role in the start of the civil war and abolition of slavery. The author, Harriet Stowe had been raised in a religious and conservative family in Connecticut. From her earlier years in life, she did things that portrayed her as nonconformist. She had enrolled for a course that was preserved only for young men in the then gender-biased society. She started to take a slave-abolitionist stance after the 1896 Cincinnati race riots. This eventually propelled her to write the book that greatly influenced the American history (Robson 172).
Effect of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the South
The main theme in the book was the abolition of slavery. This did not resonate with the cultural norms in the south where many considered slavery as a normal way of life. The book was therefore denounced and the writer was accused of spreading lies. Some of the states where slavery was rife went ahead to legislate laws to ban the book by making its ownership illegal (Robson 173). This negative reaction was fuelled by the fear that the slaves would gain freedom thereby draining the work force that was extensively used in the cotton plantations. This stance put the region at great odds with the northerners and eventually the two sides ended up fighting in the American civil war.
Effect of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the North
The most memorable quote about the reception was from the then president of the US Abraham Lincoln. He was quite perplexed by the effect the book had in changing the opinions of the northerners. After meeting with the author of the book, he told her "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War." This was because the northerners had a more positive outlook and were determined on freeing the slaves in the southern cotton fields. Such opinion resonated with her ideas and was greatly pleased by the reception in the northern states. The varied reactions of the book would later come to cost her dearly. She lost her son to a mortar attack but this did not dampen her spirit because she had already achieved whatever she intended in writing the book: abolition of slavery. Together with her husband, Calvin Stowe, they were able to plant the seeds of the civil rights movements in the American history.
Resources that Harriet Beecher Stowe used to write the book
Harriet Beecher Stowe was a literature enthusiast together with her husband. Her enthusiasm and career provided the required resources for the writing of the book. Furthermore, the book sold over three hundred thousand copies in the US during its first year of publication. Such huge demand was able to provide enough resources to print even more books.
Why the North began to lose interest in blacks and the South in the 1870s
After the American civil war, the southerners were defeated effectively making the northerners the rulers of all the states in the US. The southern regions were so devastated by the war that they had to depend on the north for restoration of economic vibrancy that had existed before the war (Robson 173). To the run-up of the war, the northerners intended to free the slaves and thereby gain a large pool of workforce that was willing to work and develop the country as opposed to the free labor that had been championed by the southerners. However, such dreams started fading during the 1870’s. By the end of the 19th century, the northerners had completely lost interest in reconstruction due to some factors.
First, the economic depression of the 1870’s is the most significant event that led to the northerners losing interest in reconstruction of the devastated south. The northern economy was based on a political economic ideology that was...