Residents of the Antebellum South provided various arguments for proclaiming slavery a humane and effective institution. From the humanist perspective, proponents of slavery depicted it as a cultural exchange beneficial for African Americans. For instance, John C. Calhoun, an ardent defender of slavery, claimed that slavery improved the Black race of Central Africa physically, morally, and intellectually.1 From his perspective, the peculiar institution of the South brought the superior White race and the inferior Black race together, helping Black people become more civilized. In addition, Calhoun stated that White masters attended to the needs of their slaves, while White paupers in Europe had to live in significantly worse conditions despite being inherently superior to the Blacks.2 Therefore, slavery was portrayed as a humane institution that provided enslaved Black people with comfort unimaginable for many White Europeans.
Furthermore, proponents of slavery pointed to the economic success and political stability of the South compared to the American North. In particular, Geroge Fitzhugh, a prominent Southern writer of the era, claimed that the South was peaceful and quiet due to the institution of slavery.3 In Fitzhugh’s understanding, slavery removed the premises of such negative phenomena as crime, trade union strikes, and poverty. As such, slavery directly contributed to the peace and prosperity of the American South.
However, an opposite perception of slavery as an inhuman, violent, and hypocritical institution existed at the same time. Criticism of slavery derived from legislation of slaveholding states and eyewitness accounts of cruelty toward the enslaved. For example, the 1824 Louisiana Slave Laws relegated slaves to the status of the property. All children born to a mother in a state of slavery were considered slaves from birth. Moreover, slave owners were not allowed to emancipate slaves unless they reached the age of thirty and behaved well for at least four years before emancipation.4 Given these facts, one can only call slavery hypocritical since it effectively dehumanized slaves while defenders of slavery depicted it as a humane institution.
In addition, the cruelty of slavery was well-documented in the testimonies of reliable witnesses. In his investigation based on the eyewitness accounts of former slave owners and visitors of the Antebellum South, Theodore Welt presented a long selection of damning evidence against slavery. In particular, slaves were often branded with a hot iron, hunted with dogs, and barbarically mutilated, as masters cut their ears off, knocked their eyes out, and beat them with bludgeons.5 In this regard, Welt’s investigation uncovered the dark side of slavery that its proponents tried to hide.
I believe that factual evidence from Welt’s investigation serves as the most convincing argument. One cannot dismiss numerous reports of cruelty by people from various regions of the Antebellum South. For example, J. A. Brown, a jailor from Charleston, South Carolina, remembered committing to a jail “a negro man” who had “no toes on his left foot”.6 From Welt’s investigation, it is evident that many slave owners marked their slaves to punish them or track them down in case of escape attempts. Multiple newspaper advertisements left by the masters included descriptions of “ranaway negroes” with scars, broken bones, and gunshot wounds.7 This evidence indicates that slavery was so inhumane that desperate African Americans tried to run away despite the threat of new cruel punishments.
In the end, one can conclude with confidence that the benevolence of slavery was a myth created and sustained by its only beneficiaries — wealthy planters of the South. Slave owners regarded African Americans as tools and property rather than humans. Black slaves had a considerably worse life than medieval serfs, who at least had a certain degree of personal freedom and were allowed to own meager property, such as agricultural tools. Overall, eyewitness accounts, newspaper advertisements, and slave codes of the Antebellum South destroy the false narrative of slavery being a just and benevolent institution.
Bibliography
Young, William, Sanford, Greg, and Gibson, Lyle. We Are the American People: Our Nation’s History Through its Documents, Volume 1. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2005
Footnotes
- William Young, Greg Sanford and Lyle Gibson, We Are the American People: Our Nation’s History Through its Documents, Volume 1 (Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2005), 308.
- Young, Sanford and Gibson, “We Are the American People,” 308.
- Young, Sanford and Gibson, 309.
- Young, Sanford and Gibson, “We Are the American People,” 318.
- Young, Sanford and Gibson, 321.
- Young, Sanford and Gibson, 322.
- Young, Sanford and Gibson, 323.