| I think you are mistaken about the questioning of the humanity of blacks at that particular time. Most people thought that they ought to be baptized, by that time: one does not baptize a monkey. Rather, they were considered to be incompetent, and in need of tutelage. That is why I mention the growing numbers of freedmen, whose very existence belied that argument. When it came down to it, it was hard to see how a common white laborer, uneducated and coarse, was superior to the average slave. This was especially true when some slaves, serving in the house, lived in positions of intimacy with the family. It was not at all unusual for men to be sentimental about their mammies, or for girls to have had a black playmate before adolescence. The emotional relations must have been quite tricky....... |
