Question

What were the stereotypes created by the actions of people like John Brown and characters in popular readings like Uncle Tom's Cabin helped promote the coming of war.?

Answer 1

John Brown gave Southerners the feeling that all Northerners would resort to violent, murderous actions to end slavery whereas in truth many were just as appalled by Brown's raid as the South was. Uncle Tom's Cabin and its characters helped to humanize slavery all over the world, particularly in the North of the USA and Great Britain. Without characters like that slavery would've still been seen as a "faceless" problem with just the testaments of Frederick Douglass and others to attest to the atrocities of slavery. 

Answer 2

All of these stereotypes contributed to the coming of the war by highlighting the tensions that already existed between Northerners and Southerners. The actions of people like John Brown were seen as extreme, and were taken badly by the South. The South began to believe that Northerners were serious about destroying their institutions, which made them more defensive.

In the case of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the depiction of slavery was very controversial. On the one hand, Southerners believed that slavery was depicted in very negative and cruel terms which did not reflect reality. On the other hand, many Northerners were shocked to find out about this problem in detail, which allowed the abolitionist movement to gain more force, and the problems between North and South to increase.