I took a course in Economic History of the U.S. many, many years ago. It was filled with statistics, surveys and old census results. I remember vividly that during the 1850's and 1860's that the average slave holder in the South had less than 2 slaves.
Say, about 1.8 slaves was the average. The cost per slave had been going up steadily. Recall it may have been between $ 300 and $ 800. Slaves were expensive, especially when the average family in the whole country was living on less than $ 500 a year.
Of course, there were large plantations. Some plantation owners owned many slaves. And mistreatment and beatings could be severe. Sure, some slaves were badly treated. Some slaves were tortured and branded and suffered broken limbs from severe beatings.
But the average family with their 1.8 slaves were simply not in any position to severely beat, or torture and even harass their slaves. Common sense tells you that common decency would prevail in most cases. Sometimes the owners sat down at night and taught their slaves to read. Some Southerners believed they had a Christian duty to teach their slaves to know and understand the Bible. And they risked severe consequences in doing so.
Oh, well ... The truth doesn't seem to matter much these days.
Actually the truth is that some states had Laws against teaching slaves to read. And the truth is that the South was completely under the thumb of the large slave holders who could care less about the "white trash" soon to be dying ignomeneously and stupidly to preserve the aristocrats' power.
While it is also true that the typical owner did not mistreat his slaves (how dumb is that when they were worth a couple of grand each?) but the slaves escaped at every opportunity. Why would they have run away from such wonderful massas?
The truth doesn't matter to the Defenders of Slaverocracy (D.S.) but to the rest of us it matters a great deal. You won't find much of it coming from those who still insist that treason was justifiable and twist and turn to make Lincoln a monster rather than the greatest American after George. George would have totally condemned the actions of the South's leaders as would Madison, and Jefferson. THAT is the Truth.