I read this one probably six months ago. This novel really affected me. It was really hard to read. The language was hard to conquor and the sheer brutality of the way the slaves were treated makes this novel a hard read. It was written in the 1850s before the civil war. She wrote the book to shed some light on what was happening to the slaves. Although the slave owners that we first meet in the book are fair and kind it is still apparent that above all the people that worked their farms were also their property. That was probably one of the hardest things to get over. Uncle Tom was fairly treated by his owner but when his owner ran into financial trouble he sold Tom just like he would a bull or a horse. But Tom was worth more than the horse so he had to go. When Tom was saying goodbye for the last time to his one year old child along with his other children and friends it just seemed unbelievably cruel. This book is a book that you should read.