Yeah, it's just weird that for as long as slavery was a thing in North America, a tremendous amount of resources were put into making sure slaves couldn't escape or were punished if they did. Also weird how the fears of a slave revolt dominated so much policy and discussion around slavery. I mean, the slaves in Haiti won their independence and the US was openly hostile to the new country for decades, lest that spirit spread here. Yeah yeah the slavers had no idea what they were doing was bad, they just spent their waking hours thinking of how to prevent slaves escaping and worrying about slave revolts...
I get (but don't excuse) how people turn a blind eye towards exploitation in the present day. So much of that exploitation goes relatively unseen - even if it's more like people don't want to see it. But you can't say the same about slavery. Slave owners saw their slaves get brutally beaten. They saw mothers cry as they were separated forever from their kids. They saw the cruelty right in front of them. Of course they did and of course they knew how truly cruel and horrible it all was, otherwise they wouldn't worry so much about slave revolts as they did.
Edit: forgot to add, the scale and severity of slavery in the western hemisphere in the 17th-19th centuries was perhaps historically unique, despite reactionaries saying "SlAvEry aLWaYs ExIsTeD!!!" Yes, many societies had slavery. However, not many had slavery as the economic bedrock of their society, deeply fundamental to how the society operated. There's a historian (can't remember his name) who even though his theories have been somewhat superseded he is largely regarded as correct. He said only 5 true "slave societies" like I described have existed: Ancient Greece and Rome, then the US South, the Carribean, and Brazil in the modern era. And on top of that, the chattel slavery as experienced in North America was also unique in that other societies gave a lot more rights to slaves. In Rome slaves could actually get fairly wealthy. And often there were rules about treatment. But the way in which ownership was so total as well as a lack of any significant protections for the slaves themselves in the US is pretty historically unique.
Anywhere I can read more about this? I know slaves have had different existence in history and that American Chattel is one of the worst but Im curious about the greeks and romans.
"No one at the time thought slavery was wrong"
Yeah, it's just weird that for as long as slavery was a thing in North America, a tremendous amount of resources were put into making sure slaves couldn't escape or were punished if they did. Also weird how the fears of a slave revolt dominated so much policy and discussion around slavery. I mean, the slaves in Haiti won their independence and the US was openly hostile to the new country for decades, lest that spirit spread here. Yeah yeah the slavers had no idea what they were doing was bad, they just spent their waking hours thinking of how to prevent slaves escaping and worrying about slave revolts...
I get (but don't excuse) how people turn a blind eye towards exploitation in the present day. So much of that exploitation goes relatively unseen - even if it's more like people don't want to see it. But you can't say the same about slavery. Slave owners saw their slaves get brutally beaten. They saw mothers cry as they were separated forever from their kids. They saw the cruelty right in front of them. Of course they did and of course they knew how truly cruel and horrible it all was, otherwise they wouldn't worry so much about slave revolts as they did.
Edit: forgot to add, the scale and severity of slavery in the western hemisphere in the 17th-19th centuries was perhaps historically unique, despite reactionaries saying "SlAvEry aLWaYs ExIsTeD!!!" Yes, many societies had slavery. However, not many had slavery as the economic bedrock of their society, deeply fundamental to how the society operated. There's a historian (can't remember his name) who even though his theories have been somewhat superseded he is largely regarded as correct. He said only 5 true "slave societies" like I described have existed: Ancient Greece and Rome, then the US South, the Carribean, and Brazil in the modern era. And on top of that, the chattel slavery as experienced in North America was also unique in that other societies gave a lot more rights to slaves. In Rome slaves could actually get fairly wealthy. And often there were rules about treatment. But the way in which ownership was so total as well as a lack of any significant protections for the slaves themselves in the US is pretty historically unique.
Also weird how abolitionists existed basically since slavery started
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Anywhere I can read more about this? I know slaves have had different existence in history and that American Chattel is one of the worst but Im curious about the greeks and romans.
I know Dan Carlin covers the history of slavery in one of his older "Hardcore History" podcasts, that's where I remember hearing about it.
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