Simon Legree

[li-gree]

noun

1. the brutal plantation owner in the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin who abuses and murders several enslaved people.

2. any harsh, merciless master.

   Our math teacher is a Simon Legree.

Legree, Simon

1. The cruel overseer and owner of slaves in Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Though the book describes conditions in the slaveholding states of the South, Legree, the most vicious character in it, is from New England.