Fugitive Slave Act (1850)......Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
Normally in the past sectional disputes, the South would feel wounded or upset by Northern actions, but with the Compromise of 1850, Northerners were the wounded party.
Northerners were insulted and angered by the Fugitive Slave Act because this law would require them to help slave catchers return accused fugitive slaves back to the South. If they did not help then they could be fined or jailed.
This law put more fear into African Americans in the North, both free and runaway. Slave catchers were free to roam the North for runaways slaves under this new law. As a result slave catchers sometimes just grabbed any African-American whether they had proof of freedom (emancipate) or not and kidnapped them back to the South.
These acts enraged abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison- white (The Liberator), Frederick Douglass- former slave/orator (The North Star), Sojourner Truth- former slave/orator ("Ain't I A Woman?"), Harriet Tubman- former slave (Underground Railroad), and Harriet Beecher Stowe-white (Uncle Tom's Cabin). Stowe authored Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 in response to the Fugitive Slave Act. This novel told of the plight and atrocities (terrible) of slavery in the South. The book became widely popular in the North and in Europe. Stowe used the money that she had earned from the sale of the book to help fund the abolitionists cause and help slaves to freedom.
Southerners said that the novel gave a false depiction of plantation life. Some argued that slave owners treated slaves well because they clothed, housed, and fed them. They also said that they had converted the African slaves to Christianity. And they argued that African Americans were supposed to be enslaved because of the racist belief that whites were superior to blacks!
Northerners may have been angry, but it was nothing compared to what was going on in Kansas.........
Next: Bloody Kansas
Northerners were insulted and angered by the Fugitive Slave Act because this law would require them to help slave catchers return accused fugitive slaves back to the South. If they did not help then they could be fined or jailed.
This law put more fear into African Americans in the North, both free and runaway. Slave catchers were free to roam the North for runaways slaves under this new law. As a result slave catchers sometimes just grabbed any African-American whether they had proof of freedom (emancipate) or not and kidnapped them back to the South.
These acts enraged abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison- white (The Liberator), Frederick Douglass- former slave/orator (The North Star), Sojourner Truth- former slave/orator ("Ain't I A Woman?"), Harriet Tubman- former slave (Underground Railroad), and Harriet Beecher Stowe-white (Uncle Tom's Cabin). Stowe authored Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 in response to the Fugitive Slave Act. This novel told of the plight and atrocities (terrible) of slavery in the South. The book became widely popular in the North and in Europe. Stowe used the money that she had earned from the sale of the book to help fund the abolitionists cause and help slaves to freedom.
Southerners said that the novel gave a false depiction of plantation life. Some argued that slave owners treated slaves well because they clothed, housed, and fed them. They also said that they had converted the African slaves to Christianity. And they argued that African Americans were supposed to be enslaved because of the racist belief that whites were superior to blacks!
Northerners may have been angry, but it was nothing compared to what was going on in Kansas.........
Next: Bloody Kansas