Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Dear Auntie Sue,

Have you heard of the sin manifesto that is slavery? This blood splattered “industry” is impossibly inhuman. No other publication opened my eyes so fully to this atrocity as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This story chronicles the ill-fated venture of Tom, a slave, and Eliza and George, also slaves. As the story starts Tom, who can both read and write, is a slave on the pleasant and well taken care of plantation of Shelby in Kentucky. Here he is treated with respect by its caretaker, wife and child. Of course this does not last and soon the hideous form of slavery rears its ugly head.

Apparently the owner of the Shelby plantation is in some debt and you can whiff trouble coming as soon as the slave trader shows up. That’s right Auntie Sue, I said trader, slaves are regarded as a commodity down here in Dixie. George and Eliza escaped earlier. It certainly showed the brutality of the mentality of the slave holder and bounty hunter. They were pursued by ferocious dogs and equally, if not more, ferocious bounty hunters on horseback. The bounty hunters bestowed no mercy to them; children and elderly, all fair game to those brutes. They finally shook them when they dived into a river and swam across. Before Tom is sold Christopher, the Mas’r’s son, vows to free Tom someday. Tom stays put and is put on a ferry to Mississippi to be sold. During the trip a child named Eva falls in the river. Tom rescues her and is graciously bought by Mas’r St. Clare.

Mas’r Saint Clare is kind to Tom and respects him, although his wife is cruel and spiteful. Here Tom remains with virtuous Eva living a life as a good as a slave may have. Meanwhile Gearge and Eliza are taken in by Quakers who consented to helping them. Happiness never lasts long for Tom and this new home is no exception. Little Eva grows ill and dies. Everyone grieves over her untimely death and Mas’r Saint Clare decides to set Tom free. As it happens, he is killed in a brawl before he could do so. Now with her husband six feet under the wife makes no hesitation to sell Tom.

Tom is set up at an auction treated like an animal. The bidders size him up and the auctioneer gives brief description of the “item” and the bidding commences. Tom is bought here for fourteen-hundred dollars, a handsome sum! The winner is Simon Legree, a haggard slaveholder who owns a rickety, rundown plantation.