| Lesson
Plans: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Objectives:
1. To understand public attitudes towards African
Americans and towards slavery at the time of Uncle
Tom's Cabin.
2. To understand how abolitionist Harriet Beecher
Stowe used Uncle Tom's Cabin to sway public
opinion.
3. To understand why the Fugitive Slave Act became
one of the turning points in the relations between
the North and the South that ultimately led to war.
Introduction:
Uncle Tom's Cabin was first published March
20, 1852. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote it in response
to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required
the citizens in Northern states to return escaped
slaves to the South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was
not the first anti-slavery novel, but it was by far
the most successful. The novel sold 10,000 copies
in the first week and 300,000 by the end of the first
year. Within two years it had sold 2,000,000 copies
worldwide. Stowe's main argument had little to do
with racial equality. Her arguments centered on religion
and the sanctity of motherhood and family. These,
she felt, were the arguments most likely to affect
public opinion in the North.
Lesson Activities:
Read the novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin or discuss
the plot with your students.
Activity 1
Read the following paragraph to your students and
discuss the questions that follow:
[Harriet Beecher Stowe explains in the last chapter
why she wrote the book (she calls herself "the author".)]
"For many years of her life, the author avoided all
reading upon or allusion to the subject of slavery,
considering it as too painful to be inquired into,
and one which advancing light and civilization would
certainly live down. But, since the legislative act
of 1850, when she heard, with perfect surprise and
consternation, Christian and humane people actually
recommending the remanding escaped fugitives into
slavery, as a duty binding on good citizens,--when
she heard, on all hands, from kind, compassionate
and estimable people, in the free states of the North,
deliberations and discussions as to what Christian
duty could be on this head,--she could only think,
These men and Christians cannot know what slavery
is; if they did, such a question could never be open
for discussion. And from this arose a desire to exhibit
it in a living dramatic reality."
Why does Stowe say she wrote the book? What was
she trying to accomplish?
Why did she choose to write a novel instead of publishing
newspaper articles, making speeches, or performing
some other action?
The legislative act of 1850 was also called "the
Fugitive Slave Act." From this paragraph, what do
you think "the Fugitive Slave Act" did?
Activity 2
Remind your students that Stowe said she ignored slavery
because it was too painful to think about and she
thought it would go away by itself. Because slavery
was illegal in the Northern states, many Northerners
ignored it until the Fugitive Slave Act made it their
business to become involved.
Discuss other examples in history, such as the rise
of Nazi Germany, where Americans ignored something
because "it's not any of our business."
Ask your students to bring in headlines from current
newspapers of issues worldwide that Americans are
ignoring.
Have the students present their headlines to the
class and tell how these issues compare to slavery.
Ask the class to decide what would make us take action
on these issues.
Activity 3
Have the students pretend to be Stowe and write a
paragraph about the evils of slavery.
Then have them read the following excerpt from the
conclusion to Uncle Tom's Cabin where Stowe
is doing the same thing:
Excerpt from Harriet Beecher Stowe's concluding
words:
"The writer has given only a faint shadow, a dim
picture, of the anguish and despair that are, at this
very moment, riving thousands of hearts, shattering
thousands of families, and driving a helpless and
sensitive race to frenzy and despair. There are those
living who know the mothers whom this accursed traffic
has driven to the murder of their children; and themselves
seeking in death a shelter from woes more dreaded
than death …
"And you, mothers of America … I beseech you, pity
the mother who has all your affections, and not one
legal right to protect, guide, or educate, the child
of her bosom! … I beseech you, pity those mothers
that are constantly made childless by the American
slave-trade! And say, mothers of America, is this
a thing to be defended, sympathized with, passed over
in silence? Do you say that the people of the free
state have nothing to do with it, and can do nothing?
Would to God this were true! But it is not true. The
people of the free states have defended, encouraged,
and participated; and are more guilty for it, before
God, than the South, in that they have not the apology
of education or custom.
"If the mothers of the free states had all felt
as they should, in times past, the sons of the free
states would not have been the holders, and, proverbially,
the hardest masters of slaves …
"… You pray for the heathen abroad; pray also for
the heathen at home. And pray for those distressed
Christians whose whole chance of religious improvement
is an accident of trade and sale; from whom any adherence
to the morals of Christianity is, in many cases, an
impossibility, unless they have given them, from above,
the courage and grace of martyrdom."
Discuss the following questions with the class:
What arguments did Stowe put forth against slavery?
Did she use the same arguments you used?
What audience was she trying to reach with her message
Women in the nineteenth century could not vote,
so why did Stowe make a point of addressing mothers?
Activity 4
Have the students look at the illustration of The
Auction Sale that appeared in the 1852 edition
of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Click on the photo to see
a larger image.
Ask them to compare the ways that Caucasians and
African Americans are portrayed. What are they wearing?
Are they standing or sitting? What expressions are
on their faces?
Ask the students if this illustration shows what
a real slave auction was like. Ask them to pick one
of the people in the illustration and write a paragraph
about why he or she is at the auction sale, what his
or her feelings are, and what it is like to be there.
Activity 5
Have the students read the following scene aloud with
one student as Eliza, one student as Mr. Symmes, and
one as the narrator. Then discuss the questions that
follow.
Narrator: Eliza, a slave, has run away from
her master with her son Harry. Her master had sold
Harry away from her, but Eliza fled before they could
be separated. After a long journey, Eliza finally
managed to cross the Ohio River by leaping across
the floating blocks of ice. At the far bank of the
river, a man helps her to shore:
Mr. Symmes: "Yer a brave gal, now, whoever
ye ar!"
Narrator: Eliza recognized the voice and
face of a man who owned a farm not far from her old
home.
Eliza: "O, Mr. Symmes!--save me--do save
me--do hide me!"
Mr. Symmes: "Why, what's this? Why, if 'tan't
Shelby's gal!"
Eliza: "My child!--this boy!--he'd sold him!
O, Mr. Symmes, you've got a little boy!"
Mr. Symmes: "So I have. Besides, you're a
right brave gal. I like grit, wherever I see it. I'd
be glad to do something for ye but then there's nowhar
I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to
go thar."
Narrator: Mr. Symmes pointed to a large white
house which stood by itself, off the main street of
the village.
Mr. Symmes: "Go thar; they're kind folks.
Thar's no kind o' danger but they'll help you,--they're
up to all that sort o' thing."
Eliza: "The Lord bless you!"
Mr. Symmes: "No 'casion, no 'casion in the
world. What I've done's of no 'count."
Eliza: "And, oh, surely, sir, you won't tell
any one!"
Mr. Symmes: "Go to thunder, gal! What do
you take a feller for? Of course not. Come, now, go
along like a likely, sensible gal, as you are. You've
arnt your liberty, and you shall have it, for all
of me."
Narrator: The woman folded her child to her
bosom, and walked firmly and swiftly away. The man
stood and looked after her.
Mr. Symmes: "Shelby, now, mebbe won't think
this yer the most neighborly thing in the world; but
what's a feller to do? If he catches one of my gals
in the same fix, he's welcome to pay back. Somehow
I never could see no kind o' critter a strivin' and
pantin', and trying to clar theirselves, with the
dogs arter 'em and go agin 'em. Besides, I don't see
no kind of 'casion for me to be hunter and catcher
for other folks, neither."
Narrator: So spoke this poor, heathenish
Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional
relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting
in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had
been better situated and more enlightened, he would
not have been left to do.
What reasons does Mr. Symmes give for not returning
Eliza and Harry to their masters?
What is the narrator saying about the Fugitive Slave
Act in the last sentence?
How does this narrative compare with Stowe's arguments
against slavery in the book's conclusion? Is it more
convincing? More compelling? Why or why not?
Have the students read the following excerpt from
the novel and answer the discussion questions at the
end:
Two slaves, Cassy and Emmeline, are hiding from
their cruel master, Simon Legree. Simon threatens
to beat Tom if he will not tell where Cassy and Emmeline
are hiding. Tom, a Christian who has always been a
loyal, hard-working slave, refuses and Simon swears
that he'll conquer Tom or kill him:
"Tom looked up to his master, and answered, "Mas'r,
if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could
save ye, I'd give ye my heart's blood; and, if taking
every drop of blood in this poor old body would save
your precious soul, I'd give 'em freely, as the Lord
gave his for me. O, Mas'r! don't bring this great
sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than 't will
me! Do the worst you can, my troubles'll be over soon;
but, if ye don't repent, yours won't never end!"
"Like a strange snatch of heavenly music, heard
in the lull of a tempest, this burst of feeling made
a moment's blank pause. Legree stood aghast, and looked
at Tom; and there was such a silence, that the tick
of the old clock could be heard, measuring, with silent
touch, the last moments of mercy and probation to
that hardened heart. It was but a moment. There was
one hesitating pause,--one irresolute, relenting thrill,--and
the spirit of evil came back, with seven-fold vehemence;
and Legree, foaming with rage, smote his victim to
the ground.
"Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our
ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not
nerve to hear. What brother-man and brother-Christian
must suffer, cannot be told us, even in our secret
chamber, it so harrows the soul! And yet, oh my country!
these things are done under the shadow of thy laws!
O, Christ! thy church sees them, almost in silence!"
How does Stowe portray slaveholders in this scene?
How does she portray slaves?
How do you think white Southerners felt when they
read of Simon Legree's cruelty in Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Optional Activity:
Watch the clip from the musical, The King and I,
where the King of Siam's wives and children act out
the scene of Eliza and Harry crossing the Ohio River.
Discuss why this scene appears in the musical and
what meaning the play might have had to the king's
wives.
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