Enslavement and Freedom #3 Huck Finn Chapters 23-30

 In the end of Chapter 23 I feel proud for Huck,  because I felt that he was finally learning a lesson.  He learns that that it does not matter if you are white or black, you are still capable of human emotions such as love, which  is the situation he finds Jim in (who is sobbing over his family).  Huck is starting to see that whites and blacks posses the same characteristics in this character.  In the next few chapters  there really isn't much talk of slavery and freedom until we get to Chapter 26.  This Chapter really angered me because it showed man's ugly side (being that of greed and false accusations).  The King and Duke's greed has bonded them to so much money that they can't even go off with.  To me they are "enslaved" to money and anything they do tightens that grip, making them less "free".  At first one might not think that the King and Duke are racist due to the fact that they previously helped Jim when he wanted to walk around the town freely (they dress him up in a costume so he can be comfortable instead of tied up like a slave in Chapter 24).  Fast-forward, In Chapter 26 the King and Duke feel like they need to hide "their" money someplace else before a slave finds it and "steals" some of it (like they weren't the ones stealing).  "and first you know the nigger that does up in the rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run cross money and not borrow some of it" (Twain 204).   It was racist for them to think that a black person will be the one stealing money that didn't belong them, but in fact that is what they are doing. Their conceived judgment on black people is just wrong.  Huck who is hearing all of this probably doesn't think this way because the only two stealing con artist that have approached him so far in this novel have been the Duke and the King, who are white.
 Like I stated earlier Huck has learned that humans no matter what race you are (white or black) we are all capable of emotions.  His knowledge of this was shown again in chapter 27.  Black people have feelings too, and Huck saw the cruel act which the King and Duke did by separating a family when selling them apart.  Though Huck lies to get back at the cons artists for what they did I felt as if it was appropriate.  Though one may look at it as being a racist lie, I think that he was only thinking of the reaction of the two men, when they knew that they couldn't do anything, while helping the slaves too.  All the King and Dukes assumption in a sense happens to be "true".  It was brilliant of Huck to tell the King and Duke that he was not in their room, but that he did see a few slaves pass that way a couple of times (the slaves were sold).  By telling this fib, Huck is not only protecting himself, but the other slaves which he knows will return back but will not be harmed by the King or Duke, who will probably be long gone by then.  The way I see it, Huck is a protectorate of not only himself, but of innocent humans that society has wronged (in this case- the slaves).  "and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all off onto the niggers and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it" (Twain 212).