For any neo-confederate acquaintance who may wonder aloud if slavery was so bad after all....

[kpete]

“There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones – there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not – may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance – discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the pleasures of slave life; but let them toil with him in the field – sleep with him in the cabin – feed with him on husks; let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths.”

-Solomon Northup
http://cwmemory.com/2013/12/14/solomon-northup-on-humane-masters/

[Skidmore]

1. Further educational material.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASpunishments.htm

[Dawson Leery]

2. k/r

[Bigmack]

3. I used to tell my students...

... that the slaveholders would hire Irishmen to do the really dangerous stuff. No big loss. Slaves were worth money. Irishmen weren't.

Smart masters didn't abuse their slaves. Well, too badly, anyway, since it reduced their value.

I made sure to point out that the obvious mistreatment of slaves was the worst part, but the most insidious part of slavery was it's measurement of human beings on an economic scale. A field hand was worth so much, but a house slave was worth more. Money, that is.

... and the psychological damage...? No money involved, so according to the monetary value system, no harm done. Right?

... and the damage to families...? Since they were only cattle... and cattle don't have families...no harm done. Right?

My students got the full picture.

[hlthe2b]

4. Most of us were convinced as very very young children... How is it we create deniers of history--

whether it be holocaust deniers, those who deny the truth of slavery or any other well documented shameful event in history?

[Hoyt]

5. I still gasp for air when I think of Howard Zinn's description of how many slaves

we're transported to this country in tiny containers. It got worse from there. Slavery is why I roll my eyes when some right winger talks about how great our "founding fathers" supposedly were.