"Huckleberry Finn" nitpick

[BrainGlutton]

If Jim wanted to escape from Missouri to free territory, why did he plan to raft on the Mississippi all the way down to Cairo and then proceed up the Ohio River? Why not just cross the Mississippi to the bank opposite his home town? That would put him in Illinois, which was free territory.

[WhyNot]

Fugitive Slave Law would have gotten him a ticket back to Missouri. Presumably, the further into the Free States he could get, the less likely anyone would bother dragging him back home. Just across the river, and it’s more likely someone would take the trouble.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

You’re not alone in wondering, BrainGlutton. Michael Patrick Hearn, in The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, comments (Note 25, Chapter 8) (consistent with what WhyNot already mentioned):

Several critics have complained with De Vote in Mark Twain at Work about Twain’s “lordly disregard of the fact that Jim … could have reached free soil by simply paddling to the Illinois shore from Jackson’s Island.” However, others have defended Jim’s (and Twain’s) reasoning. Although Illinois was technically a free state, it did not automatically recognize a runaway [as] a free man: it was separated from slave states only by the Mississippi and Ohio rivers; and in support of the Fugitive Slave Law, Illinois legislation considered any Negro without freedom papers as subject to arrest and, upon conviction, to a system of indentured labor. “Rewards were offered for runaways,” DeLancey Ferguson retored in The Explicator (No. 42, April 1946); “capturing and returning them was a profitable business. Jim would have had a much better chance of staying free had he entered free soil at a remote point, instead of right opposite the place where the alarm had already been raised.”

Hearn also points out that Jim gives some plausible explanations why he didn’t just paddle across. In Chapter 8 as Jim is telling Huck his story, he says that they would track him with dogs, and if he stole a skiff, they would find it missing and trace him; and he attempted to swim across but “didn’ have no luck.”

[aceplace57]

The local law would be very aware that crossing the river would gain runaway slaves freedom. They’d be watching for that and as Jim pointed out, tracking dogs would help in recovery.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

Same question from 2006: Why did Huck Finn & Jim make for Cairo?

[Sampiro]

The same reason that Mexicans coming into the United States illegally might go hundreds of miles to cross at a place on the New Mexico border when they live within a few miles of Tijuana. Tijuana is going to be a whole lot harder to get past the authorities.

[kaylasdad99]

Why did they make for Cairo? Did the Egyptians have particularly forward-thinking views on the subject of human bondage?

And for that matter, did they really think their raft was going to make it down the Mississippi River Delta, through the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic, past Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean, and down the Nile River Delta?

[ftg]

My problem with the plan is how were they going to go up the Ohio river in a raft?

[drastic_quench]

@ftg

My problem with the plan is how were they going to go up the Ohio river in a raft?

It’s in the book. They planned to sell the raft and buy passage on a steamer to go up the Ohio.

[Crotalus]

@kaylasdad99

Why did they make for Cairo? Did the Egyptians have particularly forward-thinking views on the subject of human bondage?

Well, the pharaoh did free the Jews.

[kaylasdad99]

@kaylasdad99

Why did they make for Cairo? Did the Egyptians have particularly forward-thinking views on the subject of human bondage?

And for that matter, did they really think their raft was going to make it down the Mississippi River Delta, through the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic, past Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean, and down the Nile River Delta?

@Crotalus

Well, the pharaoh did free the Jews.

I guess that’s a pretty good point. So, the chapter about “Moses and the Bullrushers,” was that foreshadowing, or was that just where they got the idea to try for Cairo?