"Uncle Tom’s Cabin" is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist masterpiece. The titular Uncle Tom is the slave of Mr. Shelby, the proprietor of a certain estate in Kentucky, which has fallen into disorder in consequence of the speculative habits of its owner, who, at the opening of the tale, is forced to part not only with Uncle Tom, but with a young quadroom woman named Eliza, the servant of Mrs. Shelby, and wife of George Harris, a slave upon a neighboring estate. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist and her book is a vehement and unrestrained argument in favor of her creed.