Tom's new owner is Simon Legree, a plantation owner, who also buys two women, one intended as the sexual slave of Legree's black overseer Sambo, the other (a 15-year-old named Emmeline) for Legree himself. They are taken to the man's run-down plantation among the swamps. Tom is set to picking cotton, and he tries to make the best of his position by prayer and hope. He meets Cassy, Legree's black concubine, and learns her horrifying story. Tom is whipped mercilessly for attempting to help his fellow slaves, and Legree vows to break his spirit or kill him. Cassy does her best to use her influence to save Tom.
Back in the Midwest, Tom Loker has warned the Quakers that Eliza and her family are being sought at the Lake Erie port where they expect to cross into Canada, so Eliza disguises herself and is not recognized. She, George, and Harry cross into freedom.
But Tom, in the months that follow his beating, loses heart and nearly his faith, until at the lowest ebb of his life he is given the grace to prevail in spirit against Legree's torture. He brings his own spiritual strength to the other slaves, and Cassy devises a way for her and Emmeline to escape. The two women hide in Legree's own garret while the man searches the swamps for them. Legree questions Tom, who knows their plan but refuses to tell. Legree has Sambo and the other overseer whip Tom until he is near death; finally Legree gives up, and the dying Tom forgives him and the two men who whipped him.
George Shelby, arrived to buy Tom's freedom, is in time only to hear his last words. But Cassy and Emmeline have made good their escape, and they meet George on the riverboat going north. Another lady on the boat reveals that she is George Harris's sister, and Cassy recognizes that George's wife Eliza is her own daughter. The two, with Emmeline, go to Canada and find George, Eliza, and their children; they all eventually go to France, return, and plan to emigrate to Liberia. Meanwhile George Shelby returns to his farm, where his father has died, breaks the news to Chloe of Tom's death, and frees all his slaves, telling them to remember that they owe their freedom to the influence of Uncle Tom.
