Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s popularity revived the American colonization movement

Evidence

In the novel’s “concluding remarks,” Stowe called for northerners to teach Blacks until they reached “moral and intellectual maturity, and then assist them in their passage” to Africa, “where they may put into practice the lessons they have learned in America.” Her call was a godsend to the vanishing American Colonization Society. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Blacks fed up with the United States revitalized the colonization movement in the 1850s. President Fillmore intended to endorse colonization in his 1852 Message to Congress. “There can be no well-grounded hope,” he was going to say, “for the improvement of either [Blacks’] moral or social condition, until they are removed from a humiliating sense of inferiority in the presence of a superior race.” Although they were omitted in the speech itself, these remarks found their way into newspapers. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 518

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘flattering racist idea precedes policy’ link here — Stowe’s novel (an idea artifact) directly revitalized colonization policy in the 1850s, a case where the idea seems to precede the policy, useful for stress-testing Kendi’s inversion.
• QUESTION: This is a strong counterexample candidate for the reader’s stated test of Kendi’s policy-first claim — Stowe’s racist idea (Black spiritual/moral inferiority) seems to have directly driven the colonization policy revival. Worth chasing whether Kendi treats this as an exception.