The short answer to your question is yes. The 11th-grade public school textbook, “Cavalier Commonwealth: History and Government of Virginia” taught that being enslaved had its advantages and proceeded to list what those advantages were and summed it up by saying "the slave enjoyed what we might call comprehensive social security."

LVA posted a blog on this topic about the origins of how slavery was taught in 20th century Virginia history text books.

https://uncommonwealth.virginiamemory.com/blog/2022/09/14/the-measuring-rod-for-southern-history/

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________________________________
From: Meyers, Terry L <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 9:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [VA-HIST] The "Bright Side" of Slavery?

ChatGPT on the Florida controversy:

https://chat.openai.com/share/455d6d14-43b7-48f2-9736-8e8f8b526909

John Lesslie Hall, one of my predecessors at W&M, explored what he called “the bright side of slavery”(without even ChatGPT’s attempts at contextualizing):

 No agricultural laborer has ever had food so nutritious and so plentiful as the plantation negro. He had, as a rule, a kind and considerate master, self-interest and humanity combining to make his master feed him plentifully, clothe him comfortably, see that he was not overworked, and look after him in sickness. His working days were from two to four hours shorter than those of European laborers.  (p. 131)

from: Half-Hours in Southern History (1907):

https://ia800207.us.archive.org/13/items/halfhoursinsouth01hall/halfhoursinsouth01hall.pdf

Hall goes on to quote an English historian, Percy Greg, to the effect that “the Southern negro was the happiest agricultural labor in the world,” benefiting from "the vigilant supervision of Anglo-Saxon intelligence, methods, and science” (pp. 133,134).

Were the history textbooks in Virginia schools this extreme?

My recollection of the presentation of slavery in 7th grade in a Chicago suburb and then in high school (late 50’s, early 60s) in a Maryland suburb of D.C. is that it was perfunctory at best, with a dry focus on the triangular trade.  In music class alone I got a vague sense of suffering as we learned and sang spirituals, but overall slavery didn’t figure much in the school lessons.

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Terry L. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, Emeritus, The College of William and Mary, in Virginia, Williamsburg  23187

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