If the slaves had slaughtered whites in self defense, it would not have been an atrocity.
From my perspective, raping slaves, a frequent practice in the antebellum south, was an atrocity.
If slaves had revolted and defended their freedom with lethal force against those attempting to re-enslave them, it would not have been an atrocity.
If they had revolted during the War, and slaughtered all the whites they could get at, who would mostly have been women, children and old men, since most young men were off fighting the War, those would most certainly have been atrocities, as similar actions by anyone else at any time are.
The Haitian Revolution was characterized throughout by horrible atrocities committed by all sides, and that is what white southerners expected if their black slaves got the chance. Well, during the War they certainly got the chance, and they did no such thing. For which I believe they get way too little credit, since they most certainly had provocation.
From my perspective, raping slaves, a frequent practice in the antebellum south, was an atrocity.
Absolutely agree. Though it is probable that physical force (rape-rape) was not usually required.
Feminists today, with some validity, obsess about how true sexual consent is not possible in a condition of extreme power differential. And of course chattel slavery is the ultimate power differential. It is fairly obvious that in many cases enthusiastic pleasuring of the master could get an attractive young female slave better treatment. A lot of the time they probably competed with each other for his attentions.
All of this, the sexual use of those within his power by the master, and the catering to his lusts by the slaves, are just examples of "human nature" in the biological sense. There was nothing at all to stop him from having his own harem, except his conscience, which in many men is not well developed. This is how masters and slaves behaved, for the most part, in the ancient world and the Muslim world, and indeed anywhere and anywhen slavery existed.
The difference is that the Christian worldview showed clearly that this was evil, and that it constituted atrocity. That slavery inevitably leads to such things shows clearly why it itself is an atrocity and very nearly the ultimate evil.