Book Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Although slavery has always been one of the most influential things in shaping what is America today, it was not always like how people picture it in the modern day, aka: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. In early seventeenth century Chesapeake region, slaves were kind of treated like indentured servants. They were granted freedom at a certain point in time, whereas slaves in the nineteenth-century were almost never granted freedom by their owners and were treated as property rather than humans due to things like rebellions (such as Shay’s Rebellion or Bacon’s Rebellion). In the early 17th century, slavery was not yet established. Whites would treat slaves and indentured servants almost equally and they weren’t as cruel with them. Slaves in the Chesapeake region were tied to their master just like slaves in the south during the 19th century, but there were certain distinctions between them concerning working conditions and African American culture. In the 17th century, slaves were not put under absolutely terrible working conditions; they were tolerable. A few of the earliest African immigrants gained their freedom and some even became slaveowners themselves. Also, blacks in the tobacco-growing Chesapeake had a somewhat easier lot. Tobacco was a less physically demanding crop than those of the deeper south. However, African Americans in the 19th century had far worse working conditions. Cotton picking before Eli Whitney’s cotton gin was torture and an extreme hazard for the men, women, and even children working in cotton fields. Slaves in the 17th and 19th century also had distinctions in their culture. In the 17th century Chesapeake region, African Americans contributed to the stable growth of a slave culture including: speech, religion, and folkways. They developed a new language called Gullah which used words we still use today like goober, gumbo, and voodoo. They also introduced the ringshot, a West African religious dance and eventually contributed to the development of