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Slavery Exposed In Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written around the time of the Civil War in 1852, was a major turning point for the time period and caused many people to look at slavery in a new way. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s intent was to show the inhumanity of slavery and to describe the injustice that African Americans endured during the time period which she lived. She showed this through the actions of the slave owners, how they treated them, how they talked to them and how they separated them from their families. The living conditions for the slaves solely depended on the master or the slave owner to whom they belonged. On Mr. Shelby’s plantation in Kentucky the living conditions for the slaves were more humane and less violent than other plantations. Uncle Tom had …show more content…

This dehumanization of slaves was what helped otherwise Christian people treat slaves as nothing but pieces of property bought and paid for. Stowe illustrates this in dialogue between Senator Bird and Mary by saying it was considered Christian to not feed hungry and homeless slaves (91-92). She also shows the devaluation of slaves as people by describing the heartbreak of breaking up families by selling them separate from each other. When Harry was sold he would have been separated from his mother. The slave holder Haley rationalizing these separations by keeping them secret while they were happening so as not to cause a scene. He considered it is more humane if there is no screaming and crying (7-8). He avoids thinking of the aftermath math of these separations (7-8). The heartbreak of having your family torn apart. Of a wife not seeing her husband. Of a child not knowing his/her parents. Another example of how slaves were dehumanized includes a slave named Dodo and his master calling him an impudent dog. This implies that he is no better than an animal and his life has no worth. The fact that slaves had no right to marry by law shows that it was not felt they needed the same type of relationships as whites. George Harris says this at the beginning of the book to Eliza and tells her that it would of been easier if they had never met. George also wished Harry had never been born. so he would be saved from the things his father suffered from

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