On May 10, 2012, at 12:24 PM, Paul Heinegg wrote:

> 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.
I don't think historians ignore the most basic fact, but rather, as historians, delve directly into the issues of a then-existing historical epoch. But, that said, dispassionate discussion of an evil desensitizes to a certain extent as the human element is left out of it. And there's always the sub rosa context of justifying one view or another.

> 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.
Thank Wade Hampton for that one. Broadbrushing it, that was how to win the recently lost war by other means. While slavery was bad enough, to me what followed was far worse. Going from ownership of human beings to total disregard, for the most part, for their welfare put paid to any notions of paternalistic feelings that proponents of slavery professed.

Lyle Browning
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