The popularization of the term "Uncle Tom" came out of this conflict between the house slaves and field slaves. House slaves were often deluded into thinking that they could gain better positions for themselves within the house if they informed on the activities of the field slaves. This also fostered a distrust between house slaves and field slaves which, of course, worked to the advantage of the master.
I'm not sure if this is because of the distrust between house and field slaves or whether it has to do with the relative distance from the house that most field slaves had but field slaves were viewed by the master as more prone to violence and uprising. This is played out historically by the more severe punishments doled out to slaves in the field. House slave rebellion could be quelled by threatening to send those slaves out into the field where they would presumably be killed or beaten by the other slaves.