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Who Is Harriet Beecher Stowe Symbolize Slavery In America?

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The novel was successful in pushing the country further toward abolishing slavery, through showing the hypocrisy of a “Christian” country, with Christianity. Using this progressive form of Christianity into a religion of resistance, against the status quo at the time(lecture1). When the novel was released in 1852, the country already split between the southern slave states and the free states of the north. What Harriet Beecher Stowe did was bring the hypocrisy and horrors of slavery into the living rooms of the white northern citizens and all across the nation. Many other works argued the same issues as her, while others argued against her point on where Christianity stood on slavery. Stowe was able to point out the natural contradicts with …show more content…

In a conversation with a former employer of George’s, George says that to quote the bible verses that condone slavery makes someone in his position want to give up the religion all together and that he would go to God himself and ask why is it wrong to seek his freedom, in such a horrible system(UT66). Showing again that the system of slavery within America pushed, the people in the position of the oppressed, to want to get away from a religion that supported the practice.
Throughout the book, Stowe continues to reference slavery as a sin that Gods against the way of God. In the being of the story, Mrs. Shelby, the wife of Tom’s First owner says,
“This is God’s curse on slavery! A most bitter, bitter, most accursed thing! A curse to the master and a curse to the slave…It is a sin to hold a slave under laws like ours…”(UT21).
At another point, Tom is threatened with being beat and killed by his new cruel master, if he does not give information on a runaway slave. Tom tells his master that if he does what he says he will do to Tom he will leave a stain on his soul that will stay with him for eternity(UT245). These thoughts about Christianity are echoed by other abolitionist at the time, who also said slavery was a sin(217). A Quaker by the name of Angelina Grimke, went as far as to say that “Slavery is a crime against God and …show more content…

The author uses the idea of Canaanites to push across the hypocrisy of the south. During the time of this story, the myth that the African race was descended from the Ham, the son of Noah, that was cursed by his father. Ham’s descendants moved through Canaan and into Africa and would become the African people(pp). Religious organizations and slaveholders in the South used this myth in order to justify the practice of slavery(pp). In the book, it is shown that the slaves at that time believed the story and it is shown when Uncle Tom sings about returning to the shores of Canaan(UT165). Making the case that African American people are as much people of God as Caucasian Americans. During a scene in a bar, a young man talks about how the scripture says to do onto others what you would want other to do onto you, as well as the Curse of Canaan(UT74). Which also coincides with a portion of the conversation the runaway slave George was having with his former employer about escaping from slavery. During the conversation, George ask the man if Indians were to come and take him away from his family and turned him into a slave would he not try to runaway the first chance he gets(UT66). The man says nothing because it is quite obvious that he would try and

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This book became known as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. It highlighted the everyday horrors and injustices of slavery. The author Harriet Beecher Stowe took it upon herself to write this call for justice when reading a letter from her sister in Boston. Her sister had wrote of the terrible things she’d seen happen to African Americans during the time of the Fugitive Slave Act. She described “slave catchers prowling the streets, pouncing on African Americans without warning, breaking into their houses, destroying their shops and carrying them off.”

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Throughout the book, Douglass shares his experiences to show how the white slave owners abused the bible. The slave owners who participated in religious activities were the ones who treated slaves the worst. Douglass had a slave owner named Mr. Auld who possessed cruel, hypocritical characteristics. Mr. Auld was a discriminative man that did not allow his slaves to have a freedom of religion. During Douglass’s time with Mr. Auld, Douglass attended a Sabbath school which taught slaves how to read the bible.

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Slavery was bound to create conflict. The North believed that slavery was corrupt. A book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, described the cruelty that was slavery. The author’s purpose was to show its readers, the Northern free states, how truly corrupt and hypocritical the Southern slave owners were. She shows this by using the Bible, saying that only God can buy a soul, that the slave owner holds no true hold over the slave, however the slave owner disagrees.

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Allen Dwight Callahan’s The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible connects biblical stories and images to the politics, music and, religion, the book shows how important the Bible is to black culture. African Americans first came to know the Bible because of slavery and at that time the religious groups would read it to them instead of teaching them by letting them encounter it for themselves. Later the Bibles stories became the source of spirituals and songs, and after the Civil War motivation for learning to read. Allen Callahan traces the Bible culture that developed during and following enslavement. He identifies the most important biblical images for African Americans, Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel and discusses their recurrence and the relationship they have with African Americans and African American culture.

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Douglass who grew up under the hand of many different Christian overseers and masters, shared that, “religious slaveholders [were] the worst.” When Douglass was abiding with Mr. Thomas Auld (Mr. Auld’s brother), He described him as a man, “incapable of managing his slaves either by force, fear, or fraud,” until his religious conversion. Mr. Thomas Auld was converted at a Methodist camp-meeting, and Douglass expressed, “I indulged in a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if it did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane.” Douglass was let down in both respects, and he said, “If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways… after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” One of his master’s justifications involved reciting religious passages and quotes from the Bible while whipping his slaves.

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Grimké’s Appeal to the Christian Women of the South is very effective in discrediting the notion that the Bible supports slavery. She highlights seven points that she feels are used to justify slavery and makes a case against each of them. In addition to refuting the Biblical reasoning for slavery, Grimké outlines her own personal four-step program. She challenges the reader to “Read then on the subject of slavery,” “Pray over this subject,” “Speak on this subject,” and “Act on this subject” (Grimké 772-774). Grimké explains each of the steps in detail and encourages research outside of the Bible, while mixing in verses from it to support her

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It was not only these images of violent acts of abuse that caused their hearts to demand the end to these practices but the clear indication of starvation that was forced upon them because of their master’s view of them being property not humans, “Added to the cruel lashings to which these slaves were subjected, they were kept nearly half‐starved” (1198). Theses clear harsh and abrupt realities that Douglass felt compelled to convey in his writings enhanced his audience’s awareness of the truth that they had allowed themselves

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Although the Bible was the same and both prayed to a God, the interpretation they gave of the teachings and the readings of the Bible were different. The curse of Canaan and his descendants was related to the issue of servility and slavery, the whites used this relationship as a justification that God was in accordance with slavery. As Callahan mentioned in The Poison Book, “Jefferson Davis defended chattel slavery and the foreign slave trade as the “importation of the race of Ham,” fulfillment of Africans’ destiny to be “servants of servants.” They used this text to defend slavery and that blacks had been destined to be slaves. The most important teaching of whites to Christianize blacks was the importance of obedience.

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Douglass refers to the Bible, to demonstrate the negative influence this sacred text had toward slavery. Alluding to the Bible, Douglass has the ability to explain how slave owners justified slavery. For example, he states that “...God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural...” (Page 4) as slave owners argument regarding from what is moral and immoral to justify their injustice towards other human beings.

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Slavery overall is harmful towards the religion of slaves and slaveholders. Religion is a main outlet for the slaves, and many times it is shown how their faith is shaken by slaveholders actions. Jacobs tells of her friend Benjamin, and how he is placed in jail for escaping his master (7). Benjamin was asked if he ever thought of the presence of God, he replied with, “No, I did not think of him. When a man is hunted like a wild beast he forgets there is a God, a heaven.

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He later goes on to say he could hear the cries of chained slaves passing through the docks in the dead of night and it having a profound affect on his psyche. He also points out that the church is not doing its job because it has the power to condemn slavery and their choosing to remain silent on the issue. He brings to light the Fugitive Slave Law, which gives blacks no due process and civil rights. Under this act freed blacks could very well be accused of being a fugitive slave and have to be transported back to the south.

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Douglass complains and states that he believes that Christianity is “used to justify slavery in the South” (Stocks) and therefore is working against the freedom of slaves. Douglass was completely against Christianity because he thought that Christians not only supported slavery, but “encouraged the expansion” (“God In America”) of slavery in the south. Many Christians reading the book were alarmed by his tone and hostility of their religion that they decided to argue against his remarks made in the book. Disagreement caused the narrative to be taken into consideration and ultimately challenged. Douglass was never afraid to say what was on his mind, therefore he was not afraid to write what he thought, even if his words did offend others and

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It is a common argument for Christian slaveholders to make “…that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right…” (5). this argument exposes their hypocrisy as it conveys how they attempt to stretch small pieces of scripture to justify the violence of the American slavery. Douglass thus asks if it is humane to use a small piece of writing to damn an entire race to hardship and subhuman treatment. This case of blasphemy is amplified by the observation that Douglass makes of one of his slave masters, Mr. Covey, in that “he seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the almighty” (61).

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