There is a myth of happy slaves. It is said that slaves were happy in their work and that the white man was the savior of black. I need to debunk this, my ancestors were not happy.
“We are told by their masters that they are the happiest people in the world, because they are ‘merry.’ – Mirth and a heavy heart, I believe, often meet together, and hence the propriety of Solomon’s observation, ‘In the midst of laughter the heart is sad.’ Instead of considering the songs and dances as marks of their happiness, I have long considered them as physical symptoms of melancholy, and as certain proofs of their misery.”
– Am. Museum, vol. 4. p. 81
I'll start this by saying, SLAVES WERE NOT HAPPY. It's white christian guilt. White "Christians" felt so guilty about their actions that they justified it by saying that our slaves are happy, that they saved the slaves from the motherland (Africa). But can I break down this theory? Why did white Christians feel guilty in the first place? Maybe because slavery was wrong? Did it ever occur to them that maybe, just maybe, they were wrong and there was no justification. How can you look someone in the face and justify slavery? To justify slavery they saw a smile on a black person's face, does this mean that white people wanted them to look and assumed that they would look miserable at all time? They saw a smile, heard a song and said that slaves are happy.
Slaves were optimist but not my choice. They had to look at the bright side even though it was not that bright. If slaves chose to be pessimist, as I have, they would not have been able to live in their life situation. I imagine they would be "happy" that they were not beaten that day. Slaves were thought to be happy and to enjoy their work because they would sing hymns but this was mental and spiritual dependence. This was slaves calling out to God for help and praying to help them get through this treatment. White people saw this and assumed they were happy, this is where the children's books came out with smiling black kids making a cake for George Washington. THEY WERE NOT HAPPY. White slave owners used this "justification" to make themselves feel better about the treatment of their slaves and the quote below is why...
"Specifically, if the victim is happy or accepting of their treatment, then their abuser can be cast as the savior rather than the victimizer. Hence, many slave myths abound which attest to the horrid conditions that the slave was taken out of."
Something I read at ..... "https://www.quora.com/Were-there-any-slaveowners-that-treated-their-slaves-morally-and-considerately" was that white people like to find a happy medium with the fact that that they think their ancestors are moral people yet they think that slavery immoral? How though? I found on this site that "moral ancestors" after their death would free their slaves rather than pass them on to the next generation, this was a fault because the next generation still would not let them free.
I think maybe you're too generous. There's plenty of "white christian guilt" behind the absurd claim that anyone could be happily enslaved, but there's also a large residue of racism - institutional and personal. I remember hearing children repeat this when I was a kid, having heard it from their parents. "Nice" people, they imagined themselves... with a huge moral blindspot.
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