Anti-slavery and pro-slavery positions competed through minstrel adaptations of Stowe’s novel.

Evidence

Minstrel productions of Stowe’s book went on until the end of the Civil War in 1865, doubling as a proxy for the debates raging throughout the country about the institution of slavery itself. The Tom shows were enormously popular and so ubiquitous that they were more commonly known as “U.T.C.s.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1116

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ pattern: a contested moral/political issue playing out via popular entertainments rather than direct argument.