It tells the tragic experience of a black slave named Tom. Uncle Tom was originally a slave owner named Shelby in Kentucky. He is the most loyal and capable, and has worked hard with his master faithfully for many years. But Shelby was in debt, so he sold Tom and Jim, the son of Eliza, a slave girl, to pay his debts. Eliza met her husband on the way to escape with her son, and the family fled to Canada. Later, Tom was sold several times and finally to a plantation in the south. During this period, because he refused to tell the whereabouts of two runaway slave girls, he was whipped to death by his vicious master.