In order to appreciate the sufferings of the negroes sold south, it must be remembered that all the instinctive affections of that race are peculiarly strong. Their local attachments are very abiding. They are not naturally daring and enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate. Add to all the terrors with which ignorance invest the unknown, and add to this, again, that selling to the south is set before the  negroes from childhood as the last severity of punishment. The threat that terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind is the threat of being sent down the river … which to them is

             “That undiscovered country, from whose bourn

            No traveller returns.”  

From “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Writers are taught to show what is going on rather than tell, but Harriet Beecher Stowe breaks this rule in a magnificent paragraph to inform the reader about people of color’s state of mind at the time slavery raged in the US. She combined the power of storytelling with that of journalistic accounts to move the public into abolishing slavery. She succeeded. There is nothing more powerful than an idea that is brought to light in a well-written story. The influence of this book rippled throughout the entire country and  became one of the major triggers of the American Civil War.