Loretta,
You are right.  It is intriguing to read all the messages on this subject and fascinatingly revealing.
The problem is, there were too many cruel, even sadistic, slave holders; and they-- when the horrible facts become known-- are held up as the evil people they were.  Many who owned slaves worked as hard as those they "owned" and treated them well.  Also, for some of those first-generation Africans who were brought to America
the situation they found themselves in as slaves to a reasonable (and sometimes kind) master may have been an improvement over what they had been through since their initial capture and resulting transport.  It is all so relative to individuals, and we cannot assume every European was satanic or that every African slave was mistreated.  That being said, there is no question that slavery in any form by any people is wrong, cruel and-- even taking the "times" into consideration-- many slave holders knew that in their hearts.  They were too desperate for labor and/or too cowardly to buck the established social set-up.  It is as wrong for people to say that slavery was not so bad as it is to say that every slave was badly treated.  There is evidence for both sides of the story; and, if you only take one side, that is not honest history.
My 2 cents, as I travel to Nova Scotia (and found a handy wi-fi).
--
Melinda C. P. Skinner
Richmond, VA


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Loretta Kelldorf <[log in to unmask]>
> List Readers: 
> 
> I find it very interesting that people today are having difficulty believing 
> that it was possible  for some slave owners to love their slaves as fellow human 
> beings!  They weren't pets. The love I have read about was nothing like loving 
> one's pet.  The capacity to love is very different in every individual.  Some 
> people have a much greater capacity for loving than do others.   When you read 
> about mean slave owners mistreating their slaves, you have no context for that 
> slave-owner's relationship to other people...black or white. You might consider 
> that.  The man that is mean  is likely to be mean to everyone. He/she may 
> practice it a little differently depending on how they view the intelligence and 
> reprisal capacity of the other person; but, they will spread their meanness 
> around to everyone in one way or another.   Kind people spread their kindness 
> the same way. 
> 
> Life was hard; it was rugged in earlier times.  Many people hardened their 
> feelings and sensitivities in order to make life bearable because they 
> anticipated many losses and hurts in a lifetime.  Whatever level of 
> insensitivity they cultivated, it touched all of their relationships, not just 
> the relationships with their  slaves.  
> 
> I have in my file the will of a lady in Sumner Co. TN who stated in the will 
> that she was old; her sons were grown and already gifted with land when they 
> married. Therefore she was willing that her total  considerable assets, both 
> real and personal, be sold and the money used to relocate all her black family 
> to Illinois or Ohio where they could be free. The money was to be used to buy 
> them land and farm animals to furnish them a home and a means of livelihood.   
> 
> When I visited (within the past six years)  the family home of this lady, which 
> was built in 1808,  and talked to the present owner, he told me of several 
> carloads of black people who arrived one day the summer before my visit.  He 
> said they told him they had come to visit and pay respects to the estate of the  
> lady  who had been responsible for re-locating their families to free states and 
> gifting them with land and  a means of establishing and maintaining themselves.   
> Respect, love and appreciation was part of the heritage of these black people 
> who continued to think of the white family as their kinsmen. 
> 
> Kinsmen.  While many of you are reading wills of demeaning  relationships, I 
> have found numerous wills where the deceased has called his slaves his "black 
> family".   That is evidence of a kind relationship to one's fellow man. 
> 
> There is another story in TN, of a soldier kin to the lady who left her estate 
> to re-locate the black families,  that went to fight in the Civil War as a 
> Confederate.  Every day that he was gone, his black "Mammy" sat on the front 
> porch watching for him to return.  She kept the vigil every day until he finally 
> did return.  She died soon after he came home.  This is genuine love of one 
> human  for another human, not as pets, but as equal and worthy human beings.
> 
> There is in the Bedford County TN Heritage History book published within the 
> last five years a story of a black man who followed his white slave owner into 
> war. The soldier was a Confederate.  When he was wounded his black servant cared 
> for him until he could travel and took him home to recuperate.  The black 
> servant then went to fight in the Civil War for the Union! Fought with the Union 
> Army for two years.  When the war was over, the black soldier then had a 
> pension.  The white family for whom he had been a slave was left landless and 
> penniless by the war. The BLACK MAN TOOK THE WHITE FAMILY IN AND CARED FOR THEM 
> AND PROVIDED FOR THEM.   Love is in the heart; not in the law.  Sensitivity is a 
> form of love. 
> 
> In my own family, my great grandmother's brother and his wife in TN   had in 
> their probate files lists of the expenses  encountered during their illness.  We 
> are talking now about 1880.  When I read the lists of expenses hoping to get a 
> clue to their last illness I was impressed by how many entries there were for 
> items for "the black family".  While no specific names were given, how much 
> better name can you have than to be called FAMILY?  There were no other names in 
> the list, white or black.  The mention of the black family was to differentiate 
> the expenses from their own personal expenses for whatever reason they may have 
> needed to do that. I was touched that they gave equal concern and equal 
> provision to their black family. 
> 
> To be sure, the world is full of meanness. But it is also full of kindness. 
> Where do you intend to put your focus?  If you want to change the way the world 
> thinks, then inspect your own thinking. So many of you are full of anger over 
> things past; you cannot do anything today to change what was.  Your inspection 
> of meanness and speculation about how people may have felt a hundred or two 
> hundred years ago is neither  productive nor constructive.  It is a given that 
> Slavery is wrong in any time and in any place.  No thinking and feeling person  
> argues the rightness of slavery in this enlightened time in which we live today. 
> What people thought then is gone.  You need to deal with today.  Focus on 
> positive education, positive instruction, positive goals.  That is what changes 
> things in positive ways.   Of course black people have struggled.  Many 
> minorities of all colors have struggled. Pioneers struggled.  Struggle is a  
> part of existence.   History is important and getting history correct is 
> important.  But, be careful where you place your emphasis.  Who is to say you 
> have the right call on what is exactly right in history or the exactly right way 
> to record it?  You are a filter the same as any other person.  Check your 
> filters.  Concern yourselves with those things about which you can do something 
> constructive.   Intellectual conversation can be constructive but it shouldn't 
> beat the same dead horse to death again and again. What are you trying to prove?  
> Some discussions can be concluded. 
> 
> Frankly, I am very tired of reading about your soapbox on slavery. It is not the 
> only wrong thing that took place  in history!   Thinking of the affection of one 
> white human being for a black human being  as being comparable to the way we 
> feel about our pets is the last offense for me.   You are trying to 
> intellectualize emotions in the most cruelly unemotional way.  Where is your 
> personal sensitivity? Let the real psychologist ponder the emotions of affection 
> between  people.  Are there no  other subjects to intellectually inspect and 
> enlarge upon  than slavery?  
> 
> Loretta Kelldorf 
> NOT a Historian but a fair genealogist  
> Education : Speech and Hearing Pathology 
>                  Psychology 
>                  Special Education w/ emotionally disturbed, mentally retarded, 
> language-learning 
>                  disabled. 
> Lifetime pet owner  of many wonderful companions.