> > > Perhaps there is reasoning that helps place the fictional events that > early (pre-1850), if so I would like to learn more of it. SLC himself would > have been 13 in 1848; the events in Adv. of Tom Sawyer take place roughly a > year before those of Adv, of HF. Before 1850, fugitive slaves laws - those that Jim stood at risk from -- are said to have been largely ineffective: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts Jim believes he has to go a long way around IL -- he could have gotten across the river and been standing in IL in a single day -- to get up the Ohio river -- Ohio (the state) was considered (relatively speaking) a hotbed of abolitionist thinking. Huck and Jim each use the term "abolitionist" but neither is very specific about it and I don't believe they ever meet any such persons during the time span of the plot.