- [Voiceover] So Becca and I have been talking about
Uncle Tom's Cabin which is this book from the 1850s
that Abraham Lincoln actually said started the Civil War.
So how did this book start a war?
So in this video we'll tell you more about the plot.
But in the previous video we kind of discussed
what was going on in the country at the time
and Harriet Beecher Stowe again was from this
abolitionist family.
She was really deeply effected by the Compromise of 1850
and the Fugitive Slave Act, and also by slave auctions.
So this video will get a little bit more into
the heart of the plot of the novel which does
have to do with the family being torn apart.
- [Voiceover] So what was Uncle Tom's Cabin actually about?
Uncle Tom's Cabin was set on a plantation in Kentucky
and it starts out with this kind of group of slaves
that are about to be sold to other plantation owners.
So Eliza and her son actually run away.
They run up North, so Eliza goes up North
and Uncle Toms is sold down the river.
- [Voiceover] So, Eliza is trying to make sure
that she and her son are not separated by being sold.
So she decides that she is going to escape
and take her son with her up to Canada.
But Uncle Tom, he's not actually related,
he is sold in the opposite direction.
He's getting farther away from freedom
by heading down the Mississippi.
When you think about the geography of slavery
it's a much more urban environment than some of
the more coastal areas.
So you might be in Charleston, or you might even
be in Baltimore as an enslaved person.
You might have a pretty high degree of freedom
and also a possibility of escape either
by crossing the border or by boat.
When you're sold into the deep South area you are deep
in plantation country and there might not be
another soul that you could rely on to help you escape
for 100, 200 miles.
- [Voiceover] And I think this is really something
that Harriet Beecher Stowe wants to help point out
in the book, that there was this sense of doom
for Uncle Tom.
However, his Christian faith was the only thing
that really kept him going.
He bonded with this young white woman that he met, Eva,
just about their Christian faith.
And really, reading his Bible was the thing
that got him up in the morning.
So where were those feelings about religion coming from?
- [Voiceover] You can definitely see
that Harriet Beecher Stowe is influenced
by her own family's faith which is influenced
by the Second Great Awakening.
The Second Great Awakening was this flowering
of religious belief in the 1830s and 1840s.
It was kind of a reaction against the Era of Enlightenment
which was what had inspired the founders
of the United States to think of a more humanist world,
a more rational, scientific world.
People start going to camp meetings,
they have religious revivals.
They experience religious conversions.
And in this time period there's a shift in thinking
about God in the United States.
If you think back to the puritans they have
this incredibly punitive sort of Old Testament
destroyer God, right?
One of the most famous early sermons in the United States
is sinners in the hands of an angry God,
that at any moment God might release you into the flames.
Well there's a new emphasis on Christ-like love
in the early 1830s, 1840s.
New interpretation of God as being forgiving
and gentle, family oriented, it's very Victorian.
Where God was seen as this punisher
who condemned most people to hell,
in the Second Great Awakening there's a new emphasis
on a forgiving, kind family-oriented Jesus
who will save everyone.
That's very incompatible with the ideas of slavery.
- [Voiceover] Exactly, and I think that Uncle Tom's Cabin
can really be considered a part
of the Second Great Awakening
because of the way that it points out these fundamental
inconsistencies and contradictions between Christian faith
and human bondage.
How could a religion that says treat thy neighbor
as thyself actually sanction slavery?
- [Voiceover] So Uncle Tom is this martyr character, right?
He is a devout believer in Christianity
and the forgiveness of God right up until
his very end.
So how does Uncle Tom's Cabin actually end?
- [Voiceover] Uncle Tom's Cabin ends with Uncle Tom
is beaten by his overseers.
He's sold through this chain of different slave families
in the deep South and he ends up with just a terrible,
terrible slave holder who requests his death,
actually partially because he was reading
all of this religious text.
[Voiceover] And this slave owner was named Simon Legree.
And this name, Simon Legree, has actually stuck with us
in popular culture to mean a really evil, cruel,
punitive master.
- [Voiceover] The rest of the family actually meets back up.
Eliza is reunited with a bunch of other people
that were on the original plantation and they really
think about Uncle Tom as this martyr, the hero's death.
He's looked at as this sacrifice for the cause of freedom.
- [Voiceover] Right, also Uncle Tom, he dies never having
renounced his Christian faith.
His example of martyrdom actually leads everyone
who witnesses his death, including Simon Legree,
to convert to Christianity and to vow never
to hold slaves again.
- [Voiceover] But I think the ending of the book
really points out this main theme within
a lot of Second Great Awakening texts which was that
if you just paid attention to how you are falling away
from your Christian commitments then you could get
back on track and maybe bring people together
by utilizing Christian faith in a productive
and public way.
- [Voiceover] The book is published in 1852,
then what happens?
How do people receive this book?
- [Voiceover] We'll talk about this Tom-mania that ensues
in the next video.