Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe on April 20th, 1852; the book was written to portray Stowe's perspective and opinion on the southern way of life. This book was to lay down the kindling for the American Civil War. In the twentieth century the book was made into a movie twice, for the first time in 1927 in which it was a silent movie. The second time was in 1987 almost sixty years later. The descriptions I am giving are based off of the cinema from 1987.
In this era slaves were a popular thing to own in the South, some border states would own slaves both household and field. The household slaves typically women or young children. In the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet bestows us with the dilemma of originally two slaves being traded off to pay their owners debt off. In the beginning of the book, as payment a well educated, religious, hard working slave is traded along with a young boy. When word gets around the hard working slave; Tom, accepts this fate; but the young boy's mother finds out and the two escape. This portion of the book shows that slave traders treat the slaves in different ways. While Tom was accepting and allowed himself to be taken he was treated with less severity. The Slave Trader met with two men who were to hunt down the slaves and capture them alive or dead to set an example. in, including the situation the runaway slaves were in.
To start out with in the beginning it explains Tom and the runaway slaves lives, how they live the life of a slave with no worries of a lack of food, with easy work and caring masters. while yes this may be partially true not all is in plain sight for the beholder. While the author described how the slaves lived, I feel she did not have a firsthand experience with the true treatment of slaves, thus the movie may not accurately be depicted; but gives the basic idea of how the slaves were treated. In the movie, I feel they properly displayed how easily slaves were given away, given that Tom was a well refined slave his status and worth was able to properly pay off the debt along with the child, which was not received.
