By the outbreak of the Civil War, the image of the “bloodhound” had become an explicit representation of the domination of slaveowners over the enslaved and implicit emblem of the power of the “slavocracy” over the country as a whole. The use of the term “bloodhound” as it was used by anti-slavery forces in the United States traces its roots not to a particular breed of dog, but to their occupation and perceived origin. Beginning in 1796, the term came into vogue as the critic’s term for the dogs imported to British Jamaica from Cuba for the purpose of putting down a rebellion of runaway slaves and their descendants by means of the animals’ prowess as a means of both pursuit and intimidation. The use of these animals was condemned by parliament
…show more content…
This action had been advocated for by military authorities for several years based upon their perceived success in Jamaica and across Spanish America. It was harshly condemned by the emerging abolitionist movement who saw the dogs as inhumane weapons, sympathized with the Seminoles, and saw the entire conflict which some now proclaimed to be the “Bloodhound War” as an insidious attempt to expand slavery. More importantly however, the bloodhound controversy was seized upon by President Martin Van Buren’s Whig opponents for use in the ensuing presidential election. Though the dogs proved ineffective in the conflict and seized being used in military operations by the spring of the same, abolitionists had found an issue which reverberated with average Americans. So too did the affair imbue the use of scent dogs in the United States with an unshakable association with martial …show more content…
Northerners could now imagine bloodhounds and the slave catchers which employed them encroaching upon their neighborhoods. Imagery of bloodhounds savagely assaulting enslaved people became to expand beyond the pages of abolitionist newspapers, like North Star and The Liberator, and slave narratives to Congressional debates over slavery’s expansion and the most widely read novel of the decade. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the character of Simon Legree, the epitomy of a cruel slaveowner, is fond of his “ferocious-looking dogs”. In one scene, while “caressing them with grim satisfaction,” Legree menacingly tells Tom, “Ye see what ye 'd get, if ye try to run off. These yer dogs has been raised to track niggers; and they 'd jest as soon chaw one on ye up as eat their
This action had been advocated for by military authorities for several years based upon their perceived success in Jamaica and across Spanish America. It was harshly condemned by the emerging abolitionist movement who saw the dogs as inhumane weapons, sympathized with the Seminoles, and saw the entire conflict which some now proclaimed to be the “Bloodhound War” as an insidious attempt to expand slavery. More importantly however, the bloodhound controversy was seized upon by President Martin Van Buren’s Whig opponents for use in the ensuing presidential election. Though the dogs proved ineffective in the conflict and seized being used in military operations by the spring of the same, abolitionists had found an issue which reverberated with average Americans. So too did the affair imbue the use of scent dogs in the United States with an unshakable association with martial …show more content…
Northerners could now imagine bloodhounds and the slave catchers which employed them encroaching upon their neighborhoods. Imagery of bloodhounds savagely assaulting enslaved people became to expand beyond the pages of abolitionist newspapers, like North Star and The Liberator, and slave narratives to Congressional debates over slavery’s expansion and the most widely read novel of the decade. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the character of Simon Legree, the epitomy of a cruel slaveowner, is fond of his “ferocious-looking dogs”. In one scene, while “caressing them with grim satisfaction,” Legree menacingly tells Tom, “Ye see what ye 'd get, if ye try to run off. These yer dogs has been raised to track niggers; and they 'd jest as soon chaw one on ye up as eat their