In Douglas's narrative, if the masters of the slaves were such religious ones then why did they find slavery O.K, and not giving them enough food, or by beating them. Why was this O.K? Was there religion so much diffrent than it is now! Or was slavery just the way to go for the masters?

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2000

Answers

The slave owners could say they were religious and not feel guilty because they thought that slavery was not wrong. Many saw their slaves as livestock. There are some slave owners that weren't totally cruel, but the vast majority saw the slaves as a way to keep their income. Much like a rancher sees cattle as his income. There is nothing in the Bible that says it is bad to make a living....that may have been their justification in owning slaves and treating them as poorly as they did.

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2000

Well, back then slaves weren't seen as a person. They were more like a possession. And the owner of the slave didn't have feelings for them. If one died they could just go out and buy a new one. If one got to old or didn't work as hard as he liked him to he would sell them or beat them so he could get the work out of them that he wanted. Religion has nothing to do with the treatment of the slaves. True they are seen and treated as equals now, but then since they were a possession, not people, the master will have no conscience problems beating and starving them.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

During slavery,

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

During slavery, issues were seen very different then what they are seen today! Slavery was very harsh, but to the people then it was just an everyday thing. Religion was a very important part of these peoples lives, but they still thought it ok to have slavery. Maybe church and God was just a way to feel ok about the way they were treating these other human beings, but evenso, it was still very important and evident in their lives.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

Religion as a whole has come a long way since then. I think that the main difference was back then religion was based more on the Old Testement, then today which focuses more on New Testament. Since they focused on Old Testement they read about the slavery in Eygpt, and thought that it was also o.k. for them to have slaves. Unfortunatly they missed the whole point of Moses, to free the slaves. Anyway back then owners recieved religous sancation, and support from their church. What is sad is many owners actually thought that they were doing Gods will. When they beat the slaves, they told themselves that they were doing them a favor by beating the evil out of them. The only evil that was apparent to me was the people behind the whip.

-- Anonymous, February 11, 2000

A lot of it is just the fact that the slaves were not thought of as being actual people. There was a belief of inferiority that slave owners could not get past. I think they just misinterpreted or skipped that part of the bible. I guess they were just treating their slaves as they would their animals or such a matter.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2000

The slave owners' thought that they were doing God's work by punishing the slaves. The fact that these masters' were giving the slaves some food and work was good in the owners' minds. They believed that the only good that could come from a black man was too get as much as they could out of him, and any cost, even his life.

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2000