The story opens in Kentucky, where the kind-hearted Mr. Shelby, overwhelmed by financial debts, is forced to sell his most trusted servant, Uncle Tom, and the small child of a quadroon woman named Eliza. Hearing of the transaction, Eliza flees through the frosty night with her son, performing a desperate, miraculous crossing over the floating ice of the Ohio River to reach freedom. Meanwhile, her husband George Harris, a brilliant mechanic whose talents have only provoked his cruel master's tyranny, also escapes from his plantation with the resolve to buy his family or die.
Eliza finds shelter in a compassionate Quaker settlement, where she is eventually reunited with George as they prepare for the arduous journey to Canada. In stark contrast, Uncle Tom accepts his fate with noble resignation, refusing to run away because he wishes to save his master's estate from total ruin. Shipped down the Mississippi River, Tom passes through various hands, bearing witness to the immense cruelty and heartbreak of the internal slave trade. He is ultimately purchased by the brutal Simon Legree on a remote cotton plantation, where Tom's steadfast faith and refusal to betray the whereabouts of two fugitive women lead to his tragic martyrdom. Before he dies, however, young Master George Shelby arrives too late to buy him back, vowing never to support the institution of slavery again.
