[DeplorablePaul]

I read a very interesting history of South Carolina before the civil war. The upper class feared two things: fires - Charleston burned to the ground twice- and slave revolts.

Controlling a large number of slaves was becoming untenable. Plantation owners were in the process of switching from slavery to a tenant farming model

While there were some cruel masters, the majority of the owners treated blacks decently and like members of the family.

[DiogenesLamp]

I read a very interesting history of South Carolina before the civil war. The upper class feared two things: fires - Charleston burned to the ground twice- and slave revolts.

I have read that one of their overriding fears was of slave revolts, and John Brown's attempts to start a massive slave revolt scared the crap out of them. (John Brown was a Wool Merchant who tried to organize Massachusetts Wool merchants. Completely bankrupted twice, Cotton was his nemesis.)

I think it was his raid that convinced them they needed to get out of the Union.

Controlling a large number of slaves was becoming untenable.

Yup

Plantation owners were in the process of switching from slavery to a tenant farming model

I was not aware of that. That is interesting.

While there were some cruel masters, the majority of the owners treated blacks decently and like members of the family.

For years I thought slaves were constantly mistreated and whipped and made to wear chains and such. I believed this because that's all I ever heard of when the subject of slavery was mentioned, and of course they show all the pictures of whip marks on former slaves, so it's reasonable to believe slaves were mistreated if you don't think about it much.

In the last few years, I came to realize that the abolitionists were trying to convince people to support abolition, so they went to a lot of trouble looking for examples of mistreatment so they could parade them in front of the public and thereby win support.

This is not much different from Feminists parading around with coat hangers and bloody signs trying to convince people that if abortion is overturned, women will be subjected to horrific self induced abortions and possibly die.

It's histrionics designed to sway people with emotion, and I now think that is what was happening in the 1850s as well. It's all about manipulating people to gain their support.