Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Summary

Uncle Tom's Cabin starts out with Arthur Shelby "a man who is flooded with debt" who makes a deal with man named Haley "a course slave trader." Arthur agrees to sells two of his slaves, Tom and Harry. Of course he is reluctant in doing so because he and his wife have a good relationship with their slaves. Later when he tells his wife about the deal he made she is utterly shocked for not only did he promise Harry's mother
,Eliza, that he would not be sold but that he also promised Tom that he was going to set him free after he had passed away. No matter how much she plead he said that this was how he had to be. While Arthur and Emily are discussing the situation Eliza eavesdrops on them and decides to do
something that sets off a whole new side of this story. Eliza takes her child and she decides to run away to Canada. The next day when everyone knows she is gone, Haley decides to go after her. Thanks to two of the slaves ,Andy and Sam, Eliza is given the opportunity to make some distance between them, because they did everything in there power to stall Haley from finding her. They do catch up however at a town called
T____. Sam is able to alert Eliza of their presence and she does something only a mother would be able to do. She takes Harry and jumps on the ice that is floating on the river. She then proceeds to hop from a piece of ice to another until she is able to cross over the Kentucky line.
Before Haley returns disappointed he hires a slave hunter named Loker to go after Eliza and Harry. Afterwards Eliza takes Harry to a nearby Quaker settlement where she meets up with her husband George and they plan on going to Canada together. A few days later Haley comes to collect
Tom. As Tom's says goodbye he says something that is truly honorable.
As his wife protests about how wrong and unjustified it is to take a man away from his home and kids just because the individual is black. He simply said that he is glad that it was him and not somebody else. Haley then takes him and brings him on a boat heading down the Mississippi to

be transported to a slave market. While he is on the boat he meets a really kind girl named Eva. Eva falls in the river but Tom jumps in and saves her, she then persuades her father into buying Tom, he agrees. He then travels with Eva and St.Clare to their home in New Orleans to start his new life.
He is instantly beloved and valued in the St.Clare household, he also becomes really close friends with Eva. At this time we see George and Eliza on a constant run from Loker and his men. One night Loker caught up to them, so George shot him in his side, the other slave hunters retreated. Being the nice person Eliza is however she decided to have him healed up at the next settlement. Now we return to St.Clare who is talking about slavery with his cousin Ophelia. She opposed slavery but has deep prejudices against blacks while St.Clare feels no hostility towards blacks but tolerates slavery because he believes that he can not do anything about it. In an attempt to help Ophelia overcome her intolerance he buys Topsy, a young black girl who was abused by her previous owner and sets it up so Ophelia is supposed to educate her.
Ophelia greatly despises Topsy because of her ignorance towards learning or behaving. Two years after Tom has arrived at the St.Clare household and Eva begins to grow very ill. She cut off all her hair and gathered all the slaves together, she said her goodbyes and have everyone one of her curls, not long after she dies. Eva's death affects a
lot of characters. Ophelia learns to love the slaves, Topsy learns to trust and have feelings for others, and St.Clare decides that he is going to free
Tom.
Tragically before he could act on his decision, he was stabbed to death during a brawl between two drunken men. After his death his cruel wife Marie sends Tom to a horrible plantation owner named Simon
Legree. Tom is then taken to Rural Louisiana with a group of new slaves.
One of the slaves is named Emmeline who Legree bought to be his new sex slave. Legree starts to loathe Tom after he refused to whip another slave when ordered. He is then severely beaten, Legree decides his goal is to crush Tom's faith in God. A girl name Cassie comes to his aid after
Legree left. She then explains to him her tale of woe. When she was younger her children were taken away and sold so the next time she was

pregnant she killed the child in fear of losing that one as well. Around the same time George, Eliza, and Harry make the last cross over to Canada and they at last have obtained their freedom, Loker was also with them because he became a changed man after being healed by Quackers and not left to die. Back in Louisiana though, things weren't going so well, Tom was beginning to lose his faith. Except one night he had a vision, God
and
Eva were both in there. He started believing again and his new reborn faith gave him the courage to put up with Legree's merciless beatings. He tells Casey that she should escape, so she and Emmeline run away after she makes a plan where she and Emmeline pretend to be ghosts. After
Tom refuses to tell Legree where Casey and Emmeline went, he has his overseers beat him savagely. George Shelby arrives with money so he can but Tom's freedom, but he was too late so all he could do was watch
Tom die. On the boat towards their freedom, Casey and Emmeline meet
George Harris's sister and they go together to Canada, where Casey realizes that Eliza is her long lost daughter. Then the newly reunited family moves to France, then to Libya where they are never heard from again. George Shelby returns back to his family's farm in Kentucky and
,after his father dies, he sets all the slaves free in Tom's honor. They refuse to leave so he keeps them and pays them.He tells them all to remember Tom's sacrifice every time they looked at uncle Tom's cabin.
He also tells them to lead a pious christian life, just like he did.