We were sold, loaned, taken, and ran away, but gifting was the strangest. Gifts sound nice, but slave moving was always ugly. It didn’t seem right to call it gifting.
-- Homer (Chapter 4)

Importance: Homer thinks these thoughts when he considers how Old Joe was given as a wedding gift to Mr. Crumb. This quote is notable first of all because it provides foreshadowing as Mr. Crumb attempts to gift Rose, Homer's mom, to his daughter as a wedding gift. Second, it shows how slaves were seen as merely commodities to the slave owners. Finally, Homer's confusion about a slave being gifted occurs because a gift is supposed to be something to benefit another person, and it is usually a tangible object. Gifts are meant to bring joy. While a slave is tangible, they most clearly are not objects and while they make the lives easier of those who own them, the institution...