Uncle Tom's Cabin and the History of Free People of Color in Louisiana - Prof. A. Long, Study notes of World History

Download Uncle Tom's Cabin and the History of Free People of Color in Louisiana - Prof. A. Long and more Study notes World History in PDF only on Docsity! Anti-Slavery Fiction and Free People of Color  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin o Published in novel form in 1852  Written as a group of short stories o The most influential novel of the 19th century o Inspiration  Lifelong exposure to anti-slavery sentiment  Living on the border of a slave state  On the border of Kentucky  Sees some evidence of the slave trade  Death of her son Charley in 1849  Sent her into a depression  She dealt with her depression through writing  The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 o Her Views  Even with a benevolent master, “there is no bright side to slavery…”  “What is peculiar to slavery, and distinguishes it from free servitude, is evil.” o Her Technique  My vocation is simply that of a painter…To hold up in the most lifelike and graphic manner possible Slavery…  There is no arguing with pictures and everybody is impressed by them, whether they mean to be or not… o Why was it so successful?  Rising abolitionist/anti-slavery sentiment  Throughout the nation  Compromise of 1850/Fugitive Slave Act  All of the compromises are designed to try to settle the issues between slave and non-slave states  Trying to bring in territories as states in the southwest o California would be a free state  Balance of free and slave states  Increase the enforcement of the catching of slaves in the north and them being sent back to the south o Becomes a very easy matter o Required the people in the north to report seeing a fleeing slave and put them back into slavery  They got very angry about it because they were anti-slavery and were being forced to continue slavery  Biblically-inspired themes  Very often people learned how to read from reading the Bible o Only outsold by the Bible in the 19th century  For every person who read the book, about 5 other people knew the story through another way o Novel transformed into stage shows and (later) films  Hundreds of versions o Sympathetic “Uncle Tom”  First sympathetic African American role in an American novel o In Minstrel show versions “Uncle tom” becomes a joke  Becomes an insult  More common to see the Minstrel show versions in the south o Multiple film versions  Very popular movies in the early 20th century o Antebellum Impact  “Had there been no Uncle Tom’s Cabin there would have been no Lincoln in the White House.” – Senator Charles Sumner  “Is this the little woman who made the (this) great war?” – quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, 1862  So What? o Vast success in many forms – “legible” & “fungible”  Could take on many different meanings with different people or groups of people  People were able to read it because of the biblical influence o Generated widespread sympathy for an enslaved male protagonist o Located the worst experiences of slavery in Louisiana Free People of Color (FPC) in Louisiana  Free people of color in the Colonial Period o Population grew rapidly during the Spanish colonial period (coartacion) o Increasing focus on free women of color (the majority of the population)  1786 Miro’s Bando & the Tignon o Free women of color were required to wear scarves around their head rather than hats or nice fabrics o Marks them as a separate class o Turns them into an art form  In the American Period o 1809 entry of Haitian refugees o 9000 refugees total  3000 free people  3000 free people of color  3000 enslaved people (technically illegal for them to enter)  Other traditions also arise