Many historians discuss slavery in terms of  "Free food, a place to stay, 
etc.,"  good or bad diet, good or bad physical treatment, rape, whether they 
were treated as family members, etc. This ignores the most basic fact about 
slavery. Slaves were their owners' property--like a chair, table, horse or 
cow, an implement with which to farm. Not just the lowest stratum of human 
society--not part of human society at all. Acknowledgement of this fact 
enables us to understand why Emancipation was followed by Jim Crow, and even 
today some in this country still have trouble accepting African Americans as 
equals.
Paul

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