Benevolent Slaveholder?

Question

Do you think it is possible to be a benevolent slaveholder? why or why not?

Answer 1

It's an oxymoron. How can you be beneveolent by definition (giving) when you are in fact taking from someone, their freedom, their culture, their sense of family, their labor. I suppose some slaveholders were less egregious than others but the term benevolent cannot apply. Even with the economy of the times, slaveholding was a personal and moral decision each owner chose to make in exchange for profiting off the degradation of other human beings.

Answer 2

Subjectively yes. Not all slaveholders were gratuitously cruel. Many in fact genuinely felt that the system of slavery was a positive good and that it was good for the slaves. They felt paternalistic towards the slaves and, within the limits of what was economically rational and socially tolerable, treated them as well as a slave can get treated. We know that many slaveholders were truly shocked when, after Emancipation, their slaves left them. An excellent source for this is the historian Eugene Genovese's book "Roll, Jordon, Roll".

Good question.