The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin 347

a “vigilance committee” hounded them through the
streets shouting “slave hunters, slave hunters,” and
forced them to return home empty-handed. The Crafts
prudently—or perhaps in disgust—decided to leave the
United States for England. Early in 1851 a Virginia
agent captured Frederick “Shadrach” Jenkins, a waiter
in a Boston coffeehouse. While Jenkins was being held
for deportation, a mob of African Americans broke
into the courthouse and hustled him off to Canada.
That October a slave named Jerry, who had escaped
from Missouri, was arrested in Syracuse, New York.
Within minutes the whole town had the news. Crowds
surged through the streets, and when night fell, a mob
smashed into the building where Jerry was being held
and spirited him away to safety in Canada.
Such incidents exacerbated sectional feelings.
White Southerners accused the North of reneging on

one of the main promises made in

the Compromise of 1850, while the

sight of harmless human beings

being hustled off to a life of slavery

disturbed many Northerners who

were not abolitionists.

However, most white Northerners

were not prepared to interfere with

the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave

Act themselves. Of the 332 blacks

put on trial under the law, about 300

were returned to slavery, most with-

out incident. Nevertheless, enforcing

the law in the northern states became

steadily more difficult.

Drew, from

Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canadaat

http://www.myhistorylab.com

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Tremendously important in increas-

ing sectional tensions and bringing

home the evils of slavery to still more

people in the North was Harriet

Beecher Stowe’s novelUncle Tom’s

Cabin(1852). Stowe was neither a

professional writer nor an abolitionist,

and she had almost no firsthand

knowledge of slavery. But her con-

science had been roused by the

Fugitive Slave Act. In gathering mate-

rial for the book, she depended heav-

ily on abolitionist writers, many of

whom she knew. She dashed it off

quickly; as she later recalled, it seemed

to write itself. Nevertheless, Uncle

Tom’s Cabin was an enormous suc-

cess: 10,000 copies were sold in a

week, and 300,000 in a year. It was translated into

dozens of languages. Dramatized versions were staged

in countries throughout the world.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was hardly a distinguished

writer; it was her approach to the subject that explains

the book’s success. Her tale of the pious, patient slave

Uncle Tom, the saintly white child Eva, and the callous

slave driver Simon Legree appealed to an audience far

wider than that reached by the abolitionists. She

avoided the self-righteous, accusatory tone of most

abolitionist tracts and did not seek to convert readers

to belief in racial equality. Many of her southern white

characters were fine, sensitive people, while the cruel

Simon Legree was a transplanted Connecticut Yankee.

There were many heart-rending scenes of pain, self-

sacrifice, and heroism. The story proved especially

effective on the stage: The slave Eliza crossing the

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CANADA

LOUISIANA

ARKANSAS

MISSOURI

IOWA

WISCONSIN

MICHIGAN

INDIANA

OHIO

ILLINOIS

MISSISSIPPI

ALABAMA

FLORIDA

GEORGIA

SOUTH

CAROLINA

NORTH

CAROLINA

VIRGINIA

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

NEW YORK

PENNSYLVANIA

N.J.

CONN.

MASS.

VERMONT

N.H.

MAINE

R.I.

M.D. DEL.

Gulf of

Mexico

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Counties with more

than 100 free blacks

Counties with more

than 2000 free blacks

Free Blacks in 1850The existence of so many free blacks caused many slaves to question
their own servitude and facilitated the attempts of others to escape from bondage.