Friendship of Huck Finn and Jim

In Mark Twain's, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we read about the development of a relationship between a white boy and a runaway slave, something that in the 1800s one would've been punished for. Throughout Huck and Jim's story struggles, fallbacks, and advances within their friendship are witnessed by readers. The choice to do what one feels is right and what society teaches us is not always an easy one to make. Even for just a coming of age novel the powerful message of unconditional love and following instinct proves to have better endings than doing as society demands. How exactly did a white boy and a slave start to connect? The journey on the raft, island, and river were all examples of pure freedom from all aspects and pressures of society. Huck was able to believe in what he wished and associate with who he wished to associate with. This gave him the first opportunity to trust in Jim and see him as a human being. The island I believe was the first major building block within the story. There was no one but Jim and Huck, no one who could influence how Jim was treated by Huck.
Back in the days of slavery the slaves were believed to be stupid and have no knowledge, this is proved otherwise in chapter IX. "Well, you wouldn't ‘a' ben here ‘f it hadn't ‘a' ben for Jim. You'd ‘a' ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, an gittin' mos' drownded, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile." (Twain 55) This is what Jim said to Huck during the rainstorm when he had made a comment about not wanting to be anywhere else at that moment. This quote illustrates the first realizations that slaves are not as stupid as they have been made out to be by whites.
Another typical stereotype among slaves that was overruled in the story is that a black man or woman cannot feel as whites or ‘humans' do. At one point during the voyage Jim was crying because of an incident where he beat his daughter only to find out she