It was my understanding that slaves in America could buy their freedom too, depending on who their master was.

Most abusive.... well, I don't know. I don't recall that anyone in America chained their slaves together and put them in a coliseum to fight off lions...

My understanding of the facts is that some people were good, and some people were not. So I don't think it's correct to say "all slaves were happy" or "all slaves were not happy." I have read a few personal accounts that seemed to indicate that at least a few people held their slaves in rather high regard.

Tee Edmonds, who lived at Belle Grove in Paris, VA, wrote about the day Aunt Letty left to go live with her son at another plantation. The Edmonds family had come on financial troubles because of the Civil War, and had to sell some of their slaves. Aunt Letty had been around for Tee's entire life, and the day she left, they all wept. Including Aunt Letty.

A couple of years ago, for Black History Month, the Tennessean newspaper ran a story about a former slave who became famous as a horse trainer. He had gone to war as a body servant with his master's sons, who were in the Confederate army. Years after the war, a newspaper reporter asked him why he had gone. He said he went because he loved those boys, and didn't want them to be out there with no one to take care of them.

Mister and I watched a video series called Echoes of Blue and Gray, that's a compendium of old newsreels from the early 1900s. One of them shows a group of elderly black men at a Confederate soldiers reunion. They said they had been to every reunion, and were treated just the same as the other soldiers. Maybe they were just mugging for the camera, I don't know.

Another old black man said that if the white man hadn't brought his people to America they'd still be in Africa living like wild beasts. Those were his words. Again, maybe he was just mugging for the camera.

Anyway.... I think there are true statements for both sides. It is a terrible part of world history, and shouldn't be ignored. It should, however, be presented factually and fairly, with supporting documentation.

One thing that has always bugged me... we're always told that it was illegal for a slave to read or write. But we also know that many of them did. However I have not come across any accounts of anyone actually being prosecuted for teaching a slave to read or write. Has anyone else?