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Just curious about something. How many slaves have you known and talked to about their slavery? I knew one and became friends with him. He used to tell me stories about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, but what I thought most interesting is that he told me he was treated much worse by black people than white people. He even told me that his "owner" treated him like family.

During the 1930's there was a WPA program to collect the interview living former slaves and record their memories of life under slavery. There are over 300 of them, most are available on the web, and I've read most of them at one time or another. In the vast majority of the cases the former slave didn't report any sort of abuse. Many of them even had fond memories of their former owners and weren't shy about saying so. Some said they were treated like family. All reported that life after slavery had been pretty hard, in many cases harder than life under slavery. But in all the inverviews I've read I cannot remember a single interviewee every saying that they wished they were still a slave. Doesn't that say something about the institution and it's effect on the slaves themselves?

"All reported that life after slavery had been pretty hard, in many cases harder than life under slavery. But in all the inverviews I've read I cannot remember a single interviewee every saying that they wished they were still a slave. Doesn't that say something about the institution and it's effect on the slaves themselves?"

I agree, however, my question was posted as a result of the south being compared to the Nazis.

FReegards,
DocRock

There are over 300 of them...

Closer to 2,300.

But in all the inverviews I've read I cannot remember a single interviewee every saying that they wished they were still a slave.

Alzheimers? A former slave 'wishing' for the good ol days was posted to you previously here.

And again here.

Doesn't that say something about the institution and it's effect on the slaves themselves?

Sure, that life under the Confederates was better than that under yankee reconstruction.

But in all the inverviews I've read I cannot remember a single interviewee every saying that they wished they were still a slave. Doesn't that say something about the institution and it's effect on the slaves themselves?

Don't remember a slew of kind words about the invasion force either, during or after the War. What does that say about them?