What Gov. DeSantis doesn't want Florida Students to learn (First Article} (OR why we need Critical Race Theory)

 

From    Damon K. Roberts

4d  · 

“The treatment of enslaved people in the United States varied by time and place, but was generally brutal, especially on plantations. Whipping and rape were routine, but usually not in front of white outsiders, or even the plantation owner's family. ("When I whip niggers, I take them out of the sight and hearing of the house, and no one in my family knows it." An enslaved person could not be a witness against a white; enslaved people were sometimes required to whip other enslaved people, even family members. There were also businesses to which a slave owner could turn over the whipping. Families were often split up by the sale of one or more members, usually never to see or hear of each other again. There were some relatively enlightened slave owners—Nat Turner said his master was kind —but not on large plantations. Only a small minority of enslaved people received anything resembling decent treatment; one contemporary estimate was 10%, not without noting that the ones well treated desired freedom just as much as those poorly treated. Good treatment could vanish upon the death of an owner. As put by William T. Allan, a slaveowner's abolitionist son who could not safely return to Alabama, "cruelty was the rule, and kindness the exception.”

There is no known instance in which an enslaved person, having escaped to freedom, returned happily to slavery, or even stated that they were sorry they had fled, because they had been better off enslaved. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, seeking to find a "faithful slave" to erect a monument to, could find no one better than Heyward Shepherd, who was not born enslaved, may never have been enslaved, and certainly showed no commitment to or support of slavery.

According to Angelina Grimké, who could not endure the treatment of the enslaved owned by other members of her wealthy family, and left Charleston, South Carolina, to become a Quaker abolitionist based in Philadelphia:

I have never seen a happy slave. I have seen him dance in his chains, it is true; but he was not happy. There is a wide difference between happiness and mirth. Man cannot enjoy the former while his manhood is destroyed, and that part of the being which is necessary to the making, and to the enjoyment of happiness, is completely blotted out. The slaves, however, may be, and sometimes are, mirthful. When hope is extinguished, they say, "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

Here is how it was put in 1834 by James Bradley, a formerly enslaved man who, after years of extra work and little sleep, was able to purchase his freedom:

“How strange it is that anybody should believe any human being could be a slave, and yet be contented! I do not believe that there ever was a slave, who did not long for liberty. I know very well that slave-owners take a great deal of pains to make the people in the free states believe that the slaves are happy; but I know, likewise, that I was never acquainted with a slave, however well he was treated, who did not long to be free. There is one thing about this, that people in the free states do not understand. When they ask slaves whether they wish for liberty, they answer, "No"; and very likely they will go as far as to say they would not leave their masters for the world. But at the same time, they desire liberty more than anything else, and have perhaps all along been laying plans to get free. The truth is, if a slave shows any discontent, he is sure to be treated worse, and worked harder for it; and every slave knows this. This is why they are careful not to show any uneasiness when white men ask them about freedom. When they are alone by themselves, all their talk is about liberty – liberty! It is the great thought and feeling that fills the minds full all the time.””

In celebration of the emancipation of slaves, “Happy Juneteenth!”