He recasts the scene slightly by having
Simon Legree, not Sambo, hostilely confront Gassy.
As with all true melodrama the villain must account for the most horrendous action and in Uncle Tom's Cabin we have
Simon Legree, the cruel and pathological slave master.
Philip Barton Key (the prosecutor in the Drayton case) then confronted Daniel Drayton with the accusation that his actions in Stealing other men's property were worse than those of
Simon Legree (the evil slaveholder in Uncle Tom's Cabin who eventually beats the slave, Tom, to death) because Drayton broke the law referred to by Foote, whereas Legree was entitled to conduct himself in any manner he chose towards his legal property.
They aren't
Simon Legree -- they don't stand over people in the plants and say "work you dogs," and whip them.
Excuse us for mentioning the "L" word, but unless you happen to be a modern-day
Simon Legree, you probably take no pleasure in laying off an employee.
Some of its characters and scenes have still not entirely vanished from the general consciousness: the incorrigible Topsy, who `just growed', the sadistic slave-driver
Simon Legree, Eliza's escape to freedom with her baby across the ice on the Ohio River and the goodhearted, Uncle Tom himself, whose name was to become a term of contempt.
Thomas Dew, in debates before the Virginia legislature, cited 1 Corinthians 7:20-21, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, and 1 Peter 2:18-20 from the Christian New Testament to justify slavery.10 Southern use of the Bible to defend the enslavement of Africans was so widespread that Harriet Beecher Stow parodied it in Uncle Tom's Cabin when
Simon Legree taunted Tom, "Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so pious - didn't you never hear, out of yer Bible, 'Servants, obey yer masters'?"11
On one hand, we imagine a cruel
Simon Legree whipping pale children, their skinny bodies contorted with fear and overwork.