"Enslaved people were generally happy and well taken care of"

Someone said, "Enslaved people were generally happy and well taken care of."

Where This Comes Up

If a speaker believes that war was unjustified, he will sometimes list this as a reason why. It's also used by people who feel the need to apologize for the South or for their Confederate ancestors.

When This Started

This is a tricky one. The belief that Black people needed white people to enslave them for their own protection is an antebellum concept. This paternalistic model sometimes included a practice of treating your slaves like children in need of protection from his own recklessness; in doing so, the enslaved people would respond with love and devotion. That practice led to the public assumption that slaves were happy and jovial. The "Happy Slave" trope became a part of blackface minstrel shows, via which it became a part of American pop culture. 

What Part Is True

Acting like all of the10 million people enslaved over 250 years in the United Sates had the same experience is silly. Some enslaved people were happy and well taken care of. Some really felt like members of the family. Many who chose to stay with their enslavers during the War took care of the women and children out of love and devotion. Some stayed with their enslavers after the War and little changed in their day-to-day life. More than one of the WPA slave narratives includes someone saying they missed their old life.

Why It's Complicated

• It's hard to imagine that having no right to your own property, labor, or family is compatible with happiness. 
• The biggest piece of evidence to refute the idea that enslaved people were content is the vast quantity of runaways. Some newspapers dedicated entire pages to runaway notices. 
• If enslaved people were content and wanted to remain enslaved, there would have been no need for any of the Fugitive Slave Laws in the first place.
• The infant mortality rate of enslaved babies was twice that of white babies.
• The overall life expectancy of enslaved people was lower than their white counterparts.
• Many enslavers knew their slaves were discontented and feared uprisings.
• If mistreatment were the exception and not the rule, laws would have existed protecting enslaved people as people and not property, as the law typically saw them.

Who Talked About It

“Mrs. Davis was good to me, but I don’t want to be her slave, for all that.”

Ellen Barnes (formerly enslaved by the family of Jefferson Davis), 1865

Click Here to read the narrative of Alice Davis, who was almost killed as a baby for looking like a white man's daughter. She also speaks fondly of her time with the mistress who saved her.

Click Here to read the narrative of Mama Duck, who was abandoned as a baby for being too dark. She gives a description of enslavers and whipping men picking favorites. 

Click Here to visit the Texas Runaway Slave Project at the East Texas Digital Archives.