ge, Eliza's "husband," puts the matter succinctly when she notes that the master is kind and so would treat harry well:
Yes, but who knows?--he may die--and then he may be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and bright? (Stowe 15).
The master does indeed sell the child to "nobody knows who," and Uncle Tom is also subject to ill treatment once he is separated from the place he has known and eventually sold to Legree. George later remembers what has happened to his family: "Kind families get in debt, and the laws of our country allow them to sell the child out of its mother bosom to pay its master's debts" (Stowe 98).
The fate of Tom serves as a warning to Shelby, and once he has traveled to find Tom and discovers his death, the plantation owner returns home and frees his slaves. He fulfills the promise that Tom's second owner, St. Clare, never did. Clearly, Stowe intends for her novel to encourage other plantation owners to carry out the same beneficent deed and to free their slaves, and barring this, she wants the count
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