You raise an interesting point.
The slaves in Haiti, who were apparently very mistreated, rose up in 1791 or
thereabouts and essentially wiped out the entire white population of the
country. Napoleon sent in troops in to put down the rebellion, and they were
essentially wiped out also by the slaves who then took control of their
country. Those Haitian slaves were serious about throwing off the shackles of
slavery and gaining their freedom apart from their masters "by any means
necessary" to quote Malcolm X.
In contrast, the slaves in the US, aside from the infrequent Nat Turner
style uprisings, seemed more compliant and complacent and more accepting of their
chosen role. I wonder if that was because their lives weren't all that bad
considering the norm for that place and time in our history. Much of the
"white trash" in the South weren't quite as well off as the better treated
slaves, as I read my history. It seems that the slaves in the US opted to rebel,
if at all, by individuals running away rather than violent group resistance
that would seem to be the natural reaction for a group of people, in Virginia
outnumbering the white population at one point by more than 4 to 1,
perceiving their lives to be so hopeless and unbearable. Or, perhaps it was the
Christianity that they were introduced to by their masters that served as the
opiate of the population.
No, I don't think I could have lived under the heal of slavery. But, I
think you would have to put me in the Haitian category of response, although
obviously I can't possibly understand all the dynamics at work that rendered
American slaves so seemingly accepting of their roles in society. However, I
suspect the truth is, after reading the slave narratives, that many of the
slaves didn't find their worlds to be all that terrible and unbearable during
slavery in the South and were content to keep on keeping on.
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