Uncle Tom's Cabin

By: Harriet Beecher Stowe

It looks like the rest of today's material is focused on the issue of slavery and the Civil War. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published on June 5, 1851. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a runaway best seller. As I recall, it is the best selling work of American fiction to this day and had a profound influence on this country. It had an influence on this country. It had an influence on the south because they resented it, and on the north who resented the slavery of the south. This helps to turn the mood of the country against slavery. when President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe something into the war he said, "so this is the little lady who started this great conflict." Now that's over simplified, but this book did have a strong role to play in the solidifying of national mood outside of the slave areas against slavery.

We find that Eliza had overheard that they are going to sell her son. At its heart, slavery has its problems that you're dealing with people that they are people, but they're also property. There has some very devastating impact on the home life. Naturally, if you sell off somebody's child ripping that person away from his or her mother that's going to have a profound influence on them. Also, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters just broken up on the whim of the owner. You were always at the mercy of the owner.

Between Christmas and early January, a couple of weeks every year the slaves were allowed sort of a reunion for some of them who could walk to who's relative who lives within walking distance would walk. So, every year you might get to go see your mother for two weeks. It was a time of great joy, but also great sadness only getting to see your family for a couple of weeks. Now one thing that Stowe does a lot of is try to get us to identify with the situation of the slave. What if you were a slave? What would your reaction to this be? So she's trying to focus on the humanity of the slave. Whereas for those who wanted slavery, they had to focus on the dehumanizing the slave. They're somehow less human than we are. That was one of the reasons for saying that slavery would be limited to people who were not officially white because people who are not white would not react the same as us. Well, I guess that we're all parents, and how do parents react when their sons or daughters are being threatened? An excerpt from page 738 reads:

"If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader tomorrow morning - if you had seen this man and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape, how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom the little sleepy head on your shoulder - the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?"

Well, if it were my kids that were threatened, I would be moving them out about as fast as I could. I don't want anything bad happening to my children, and she felt that this was a great disaster, so she left. She ran away and escaped across the Ohio River.

There's a comparison on page 740 of the Ohio River and the river Jordan, which is of course the river that the Israelites crossed over to make it into the Promised Land. What is that when we take something from the Bible and compare it to our situation now? What was that term? It's called topology. It's finding a connection between what was and what is. The whole labeling of the Christian Bible into old testament and new testament is topological.

That period of the new testament repeated and itself became a part of the past. Then there becomes a third wave and that is "us" today. For those who opposed slavery, what was the part of the Bible that they saw most applicable? It was leaving Egypt and leaving slavery. Moses, go down Moses and let my people go. Slavery is wrong and we want freedom. This material from Exodus through Deuteronomy was a powerful symbol of fighting against slavery. The Jordan River was the end of the goal. This is where we not only get out of Egypt, but into the Promised Land. This is the Jordan between her and the Canaan of liberty and the other side. Most Americans who have any religious background at all would immediately recognize the significance of the Jordan River.

In literature, there are various forms of heroism. One type of hero is your Achilles, John Wayne, or Sylvester Stallone who goes out to face the bad guys and beats them up through raw physical strength. For the most part, slaves did not have that option because they would wind up dead. What they would do is resort to out witting the enemy. This is what we see in Bugs Bunny and Bur Rabbit. Bur Rabbit says "please don't throw me in the briar patch." Well, what did he want him to do? He wanted him to throw him in the briar patch. This is sort of a briar patch incident where Sam the slave is trying to help her escape. What is the best way to help her escape? Point to the right trail or point to the wrong trail? If I point to the right trail, they won’t believe me and they'll go down the wrong trail. So, it's like a game of chess. You have to figure out what your opponent moves are going to be and then counteract in advance. You outsmart the white men that are hunting her.

"She would naturally go a lonesome way, " said Haley, thinking aloud, and not minding Sam's remark. "Dar ain't no saying!", said Sam; "gals is pecular; they never does nothin yer thinks they will; mose gen'lly the contrar."

"Now, my private 'pinion is, Lizy took der dirt road, so I think we'd better take der straight one. This profound generic view of the female sex did not seem to dispose Haley particularly to the straight road, and he announced decidedly that he should go the other, and asked Sam when they should come to it."

"A little piece ahead, said Sam, giving a wink to Andy with the eye which was on Andy's side of the head; and he added, gravely, "but I've studded on der matter, and I'm quite clar we ought not to do dat ar way. I nebber been over it no way. It's despit lonesome, and we might lose our way -- whar we'd come to, de Lord only knows."

I don't know where that road goes. We shouldn't go down it. Oh, please don't throw me in the briar patch! The more that he tells them not go that way, the more they say we are going. They wind up losing out on it, then they get mad at him. Page 745;

"It was evident that their journey in that direction had reached a decided finale."

"Want dat ar what I telled mas'r," said Sam, with an air of injured innocence. "How does strange gentlemen spect to know more about a country dan der natives born and raised!"

"You rascal," said Haley, "you knew all about this."

"Didn't I tell yer I knowed, and yer wouldn't believe me. I telled masse'r 'twas all shet up, and fenced up, and I didn't spec we could get thro-Andy heard me."

"It was all too true to be disputed, and the unlucky man had to pocket his wrath--with the best grace he was able."

He missed out because they had not parted. They can't even get him in trouble for having lied to him. Sam comes out well, and so does Eliza. At the bottom of page 745, we see her jumping over to the ice to try to cross over the river. One of the really famous scenes from the movie wasn't on silence film, but was on an old black and white film. You see Eliza on the ice float.

"It is for heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been enlightened on his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner."

He does not turn her in. Whereas, Americans were suppose to, by law, return fugitive slaves. Eliza goes on her way and gets away from home.