Underground Railroad - Original Writing

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe uses the character of Augustine St. Clare to play a very important role in expressing her views of abolition to the reader throughout the novel. St. Clare is, in himself, a huge contradiction of a character, as his way of life is supported by the same system that he despises, slavery. St. Clare professes multiple times in the book that slavery is wrong, yet he holds slaves and refuses to release them, making him a hypocrite whose morals are right, mainly because of his mother, but he is unwilling to do the right thing. St. Clare symbolizes some of the southern slave owners at the time who knew that slavery was a sin and an act against God, but refused to stand up and stop it. St. Clare is such an essential character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and he is an important part of the overall message of the novel and Stowe’s interjection of her abolitionist views that are throughout the novel.

The Underground Railroad was one of the most remarkable protests against slavery in United States history. It was a fight for personal survival, which many slaves lost in trying to attain their freedom. Slaves fought for their own existence in trying to keep with the traditions of their homeland, their homes in which they were so brutally taken away from. In all of this turmoil however they managed to preserve the customs and traditions of their native land. These slaves fought for their existence and for their cultural heritage with the help of many people and places along the path we now call the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad is a figurative railroad involving hundreds of thousands of people such as slaves, free Blacks, and White abolitionists. The Underground Railroad began in the late 1700s to 1865, with the height of the railroad happening in 1850 to the 1860s, where a thousand or more slaves were able to escape per year. The name of the Underground Railroad comes from the use of railroad code and the railroad being a form of resistance to slavery at the time (Wikipedia). Following the Compromise of 1850 that strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, slave catchers were allowed to work in free states and claim free Blacks as slaves and put them back into slavery. The specifics of the railroad are unknown to keep out infiltrators, everything relied on word of mouth, and many who helped only knew their part of the trip (Wikipedia).

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin may never be seen as a great literary work, because of its didactic nature, but it will always be known as great literature because of the reflection of the past and the impact on the present. Harriet Beecher Stowe seemed destined to write great protest novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin: her father was Lyman Beecher, a prominent evangelical preacher, and her siblings were preachers and social reformers. Born in 1811 in Litchfeild, Connecticut, Stowe moved with her family at the age of twenty-one to Cincinnati. During the eighteen years she lived there she was exposed to slavery. Although her only personal contact with the south was a brief trip to

Tam Do Mrs. Meador English I Pre-IP – Period 2 9/10/2015   HISTORY Event: the Underground Railroad Date: 1800s Description: The Underground Railroad was a network of people working together to free slaves from the South during the 1800s. They would go into the South, get as many slaves as they can, and risk their life to get them to a safe house.

The Underground Railroad might sound deceiving, but it actually never went underground and it wasn’t a railroad. The Underground Railroad did get its name due to the fact that it had to be kept a secret and a lot of the terms that were used throughout the slave escape route in order to describe how it worked was railroad terms. Routes would be called lines, stopping places along the way such as safe houses would be called stations, those who would aid along the way would be called conductors and their charges were known as freight. The various routes extended all the way through 14 Northern States and through the “Promise Land” of Canada, which was far beyond the reach of slave hunters. Those who would assist people on the railroad were member

Underground railroads were a network of secret routes and safe houses used during the 19th century slaves from African descent that were in the United States, and wanted escape to the free states and Canada. The safe houses located on these routes were run by abolitionists and people that were sympathetic towards slaves. The Underground Railroad reached its height during the 1850s and 1860s. It’s difficult to determine how many people actually traveled the routes and made it to freedom, but it is estimated that somewhere around 100,000 slaves journeyed along these paths. It is unfortunate however, that not many people of this 100,000 made it to freedom. There were just around 5,000 recorded cases of runaway slaves, and only about 1,000 a year made it to safety during the peak of this time. The lives of many slaves were horrendous during the early America’s, so many of them sought refuge in the Underground Railroad where they dealt with even dirtier, more dangerous conditions. However, this helped thousands of slaves successfully reach freedom and helped create one of the biggest slave movements of the 1800s.

Violence is a part of everyday life, especially in the book The Underground Railroad, written by Colson Whitehead. In The Underground Railroad, Cora, the heroine, encounters so much violence and brutality on her journey to freedom. The violence Whitehead uses in his book helps develop the characters and helps evolve the plot. During Cora's journey, she sees individuals being hung, hears how Ridgeway tortured her friends, and even endured obstacles herself such as rape. Even though this book is a work of fiction; this novel shows that life during this time was not simple and certainly very brutal for Cora and for real-life slaves.

     The Underground Railroad, the pathway to freedom which led a numerous amount of African Americans to escape beginning as early as the 1700‘s, it still remains a mystery to many as to exactly when it started and why. (Carrasco). The Underground Railroad is known by many as one of the earliest parts of the antislavery movement. Although the system was neither underground nor a railroad, it was a huge success that will never be forgotten.

(1) Toni Morrison’s Beloved takes place after the Civil War during the Reconstruction era, when the violent oppression of the black race continued, with flashbacks to the horrific trauma of the early 19th century slavery period. In Margaret Atwood’s review of Beloved in

The Underground Railroad was what many slaves used to escape slavery. It was not an actual railroad, although it could easily be compared to one. It was a route, with safe houses and many other hiding spots for the slaves to use. The paths had conductors telling you where to go and people who would drive you to the next safe house. You had to be quick, you had to be strong, and you had to be very courageous. The Underground Railroad led all the way to Canada. There were many people helping the slaves, and even more people that were opposing them. It was no easy task. Many slaves died of sickness or natural causes, gave up and returned back to the plantation, or were caught and either killed or brought back. It was a rough journey but a

As many people say history was written by the victors, we need to remember there would be no victors without the struggle and turmoil of those that lost. This is what Harriet Beecher Stowe’s compelling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin has taught us in regards to the war on slavery. In the midst of the 1800’s, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to address the various issues regarding race during this century. Throughout her novel, readers learn the lives of slaves, slave masters, and their families, which leads to the understanding of a unique lifestyle among the characters. As her novel is important in today’s society, it made an even greater impact during the nineteenth century as it portrays the ideology of the Civil War and the abolitionists.

They were on their morning walk through the endless trails and old dirt paths that twisted and turned until you saw no end. The trails were covered with fresh snow stacked upon autumn’s forgotten leaves that were never bothered to be picked up. Walking into the woods, holding his gun with an old torn red flannel tee on, Jason has doubts that this might be his last season. Charlie was already climbing down the hillside, straying off the trails, and hoping of making the first kill to prove his worthiness to his owner. Jason calls back to Charlie, “Come ‘mere ol’ boy, don’t start without me!” and they begin their way quietly trudging through the dense woods to their special spot. They continue down the beaten path until Jason and Charlie come to a clearing in the woods where the only drops of sun come down through the dead leaves that have yet to fall. Here Jason pulls out a decaying tarp and sets up base camp. From camp, you can see all the rolling hillsides slope down into one large snake like river flowing through the mountains until it is lost in the distance. The Tennessee mountains are a treacherous terrain filled with steep drop offs and deadly trails. One can easily become lost and lose all sense of direction. Clutching his compass in one hand, Jason is prepared to stay the whole winter.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a novel written in times of unrest where slavery was a controversial topic and women 's rights were still suffering. Uncle Tom’s Cabin showed the grim reality of slavery and showed the importance for women to gain a societal role beyond the domestic domain. The reading contains a number of major characters throughout the novel. The two most notable characters we will discuss is Mrs. Shelby and Marie St. Clare. Throughout this paper we will compare and contrast these two characters and give specific examples to illustrate the similarities and differences between these two unique individuals.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is arguably the most influential novel in American History. Stowe’s sentimental writing style seized the imagination of her readers and Uncle Tom’s Cabin became the standard of the abolition movement. Uncle Tom, one of the protagonists, spreads Christianity and dies for his faith, like Christ. By equating Uncle Tom with Jesus Christ, Harriet Beecher Stowe deliberately provokes her audience to social change and abolition.