Talk:Treatment of slaves in the United States

Content fork from Slavery in the United States

See Talk page discussion at Talk:Slavery_in_the_United_States#Content_fork:_.22Treatment.22_section. --Noleander (talk) 19:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Sources

Given the extensive writing about slave conditions, there seems to be an over-reliance on one article by Moon related to sexual conditions for slaves. Other sources would also be useful.Parkwells (talk) 19:25, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Just skimming the book, not only are there no virtually no sources in the article, it's also written by persons who make their sole living from

victim hood. I'm not sure if this would qualify as original research or not, but it is certainly biased. I'm not personally going to look into

the Wikipedia rules or make an edit myself. Wikipedia is a lost cause.

Democracy: Where any two idiots can outvote a genius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.3.251.71 (talk) 01:06, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for sources

While copyediting the lead, I added two requests for citations. The claim regarding medical knowledge of slaves appears to be sourced elsewhere in the article, but I was unable to verify as the source is unavailable online. Also, I'm not sure if there's a policy to avoid citations in the lead. If that is the case, please let me know (preferably on my talk page.) ʝunglejill 23:02, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

What's the deal with this article?

I am confused by the contrast between this article's low level of prose and wikifying and the apparent effort that went into its creation. The low level of prose leads me to believe that it is not copyrighted - I also did not find the text online. If anyone can shed some light on this and answer the few requests for citations, that would be great. ʝunglejill 20:23, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Objectivity of this article

This article is titled "Treatment of slaves in the United States". It seems to me that it should be titled something along the lines of "Slavery abuse in the U.S". I will obviously have to clarify that I am anti-slavery, but it seems obvious to me that no honest effort was committed to an actually objective take on slavery.

I haven't seen a single mention in this article of those occasions on which slaves were treated humanely, and in which they were actually happy with their living conditions. From what I understand, such situations were not as rare as people think. Maybe not common, but still worth covering.

I realize that this may be difficult to write, since the entire idea of slavery is putrid to us (as it should be), but since this website is supposed to be objective, I think that it should be done.

For example, there is at least one collection of quotations on the web taken from interviews with ex-slaves at the beginning of the 20th century. Like this one, by Patsy Mitchner:

"Before two years had passed after the surrender, there was two out of every three slaves who wished they was back with their marsters. The marsters' kindness to the black after the war is the cause of the black having things today. There was a lot of love between marster and slave, and there is few of us that don't love the white folks today. . . . Slavery was better for us than things is now, in some cases. blacks then didn't have no responsibility; just work, obey, and eat."

Again, I am very much anti-slavery - I'm not some neo-nazi or historical revisionist, but maybe we could add a small section dedicated to these cases. 50.142.171.110 (talk) 04:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)Greemo

Agreed. An attempt at changing the word "mistreatment" to "treatment" - after all, look at the title of the article - was met with a swift claim of vandalism.

Neutrality Dispute

I logged in and noticed that there hasn't been any discussion taking place about my comments, so I have placed a POV tag on the page, and will further explain my reasons of doing so.

I believe that the neutrality of this article should be called into question for the following reason: The article only accurately represents a single dimension of slaves’ treatment - specifically, the negative kind. And while no educated individual would call such treatment rare, it was not exclusive. The title of this article is "Treatment of slaves in the United States", not "Abuse of slaves in the United States". There were a large amount of slaves that were actually treated with comparative humaneness, and were happy with the status quo.

Now, before anyone objects, please understand that when I say a "large amount of slaves" that were treated well, I do not mean to say that there was a large percentage of them. I admit that it was a low one - but it is a fact of history, and one that needs to be covered properly here. As evidence of this history, I have provided at least one quotation from a slave about her sentiment towards her life as one. There are plenty more – there is one such collection located at this link, though I doubt it can be considered a valid enough source to cite, and it has since gone offline.

On Wikipedia, we dedicate space to discuss the Good Samaritan Germans during the holocaust, who took in Jews and protected them from the Nazi regime. We also clarify that these cases were infrequent, but we do not leave them out. I think the same subject matter needs to be addressed here, and as far as I can see, it is not covered at all.

I understand that this matter is sensitive. We hate slavery, as well we should. We want to paint it in evil light, because that’s what it is: evil. Our first inclination is to say that it is bad, and that the conditions were bad. It is, and they were – but we must also be objective, and describe what else happened, even though it may have been the exception.

50.142.171.110 (talk) 06:30, 21 November 2012 (UTC)Greemo

II think your objections can be safely ignored, considering that you have sited a source that came from American Renaissance, a noted white nationalist/white supremacist organization. I think the idea that slavery wasn't bad for everyone is repellant in the extreme. Further, the first line of this article "The treatment of slaves in the United States varied by time and place, but was generally brutal and degrading. Whipping, execution and rape were common." implies that not all slaves were mistreated (beyond of course the fundamental mistreatment of treating humans as property). Citing specific examples of slaves that weren't mistreated is pointless. protohiro (talk) 01:00, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I knew people would find this objection repulsive, so I tried very hard to show that my intention here is only factuality, and that I really do not want to give the wrong picture here. Emotions must not come into play. However, I was not aware that this "American Renaissance" publication had the history you just cited. In that case, I absolutely agree that any references from it are clearly inappropriate on this site.

However, I still maintain that if a historical basis may be found for some exceptions, they ought to be mentioned. But I clearly have not demonstrated that historical basis, and unless I do, I therefore concur with you that the neutrality of this article is not currently compromised. 68.52.172.145 (talk) 02:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Greemo

George Washinton's mixed race slaves

Just added a short paragraph under the Mixed Race Children heading on one possible reason why Washington may have manumitted his slaves in his will. Comments welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MKStuckey (talk • contribs) 02:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Incendiary

I read the first few sentences of this Wiki and had to stop: it is so perversely opinionated.

Perhaps a few foolish slave holders were brutal, certainly not the majority.

My grandmother related to me with tears in her eyes, seeing her mother raped by the Yankees after they had burned everything because the family property in Maryland had been used to breed slaves to send to the Deep South. Slaves were valuable, and certainly nothing to beat or wantonly destroy. Then, cabins full of slaves would be like having a lot full of cars for sale today: would you destroy the cars you owned? Breeding was encouraged; that and six other plantations did nothing but provide, train, and educate slaves for sale to Deep South places where they were required.

I cannot believe Wikipedia allows this terribly slanted article, admittedly on a precarious subject, be published.

Whoever follows this up TalcottFactors@GMail.com or +63-2-239-82-05 Wm. Talcott May (a Cuba Atkinson, we redeployed our slaves to sugar planting in Cuba and Brasil) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.28.127.230 (talk) 11:00, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I am also extremely taken back by how this article is written. It is for the most part improperly sourced, and is totally misleading. It focuses on only one aspect of slavery, when in fact slaves were like family in many southern homes. I am aware that this may make people uncomfortable in a generation when hating one's history is considered a good thing, but facts are facts.Samuel Rosenbalm (talk) 22:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Samuel, they were slaves. Bought, sold, whipped, worked, abused. Not family. Not friends. Slaves. The Kippumjo aren't girlfriends; the Joy Divisions weren't joyous. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Feminism?

There is a comment about 'patriarchy' about men seeing all woman as property. One doesnt need to be a sociologist to know its blatant feminist propaganda. That if there is evidence of misogyny in this topic (Im sure there was far more misogyny 100 years ago, Im sure there was during slavery), that it should be presented in an UNBIASED way, not in feminist terms. We shouldnt describe events in history as to associate them with contemporary parties, that is, that whether you are democratic or republican right now, you dont feel a connection with democrats and republicans back then. I dont think we should promote our agendas on abortion, feminism, gay rights or any other topic on a slavery article. If there is mention of rape, homophobia, or anything else in the bibliography, it should be described as ambiguous actions and verbs ("killed"),not as in judgemental, interpretative way ("were sick dogmatic conservatives"). Use the word 'irreligious' instead of 'neoliberal godless', etc. The patriarchy comment is crude... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.229.77.86 (talk) 05:38, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Numbers? Statistics?

The lack of estimates on the frequency of the various abuses makes this page almost useless as is. Needs work. 86.26.236.107 (talk) 21:45, 16 December 2013 (UTC)