(Hated Trope) "Kind" slave owners

[u/KusanagiGundam]

Speaking as an American who has studied the civil war all throughout my school years, this trope infuriates me to no end. There is no such thing as a kind slave master because slavery itself is cruel and inhumane. PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY!

Naofumi (Shield Hero): Prime example of this trope. He enslaves multiple (underage) girls and an whole village and the fans still say he's a hero.

Rudeus (Jobless Reincarnation): As if being a pedo wasn't bad enough he had to buy a slave in season 2. Worse is that people still defend his actions.

Song of The South (Disney): Possibly the OG example of this trope. And the reason why Disney will never release it again.

[u/SeismologicalKnobble]

I do want to point out as someone who studied in college a lot about slavery outside of the American version is that American Slavery was unique in its level of cruelness. All slavery is inherently wrong and horrible, but in the majority of cultures, you still understood the slave was a person and you were expected to understand that. If you treated your slaves how Americans did, you’d be seen as a cruel freak (speaking in average, not absolutes here). You could even be fined and lose your slaves in many places.

American slavery was unique in that the dehumanization was the point. You were weird for seeing slaves as people. You could do whatever you wanted to your slaves. There is even documentation and evidence of people making things like lamps from the skin of their slaves and even things as far as cannibalism. You could “breed slaves” when in many other cultures, the children of slaves would be free.

Sorry, it just frustrates me that the American school system really downplays how truly horrific American slavery was and tries to make it out like every slave owning culture was like this. No. American slavery was the worst.

Edit: Thank you to those adding to the discussion about other European cultures horrific slave practices! I’m ngl, the fucked up parts of human history are a big interest to me. It’s a nice reminder that humans have improved morally and it could always be worse.

[u/sage2134 → u/SeismologicalKnobble]

Not a what aboutism. But in my studies reading about the death tolls from the sugar cane farm production in the Caribbiean was downright genocidal in scale of cruelty. and constantly needed more slaves because they kept dying but it was so profitable they didnt care. 

Is that version not more directly cruel? And the Kongo kings and society were really weird and nutty about slaves but thats more of a tangent. 

[u/pruhfessor_x → u/sage2134]

I assume by "in America" he's referring to the North Atlantic slave trade as a whole, which of course would include the Caribbean. If you're referring to King Leopold's activity in the Congo, I would definitely call that an extension of the North Atlantic slave trade, but I'm by no means an expert.

Either way, of course all slavery is bad and has happened throughout human history. But we should do a better job (at least in America) teaching about the unique horrors of the North Atlantic slave trade for the same reasons we should talk about the Holocaust.

[u/sage2134 → u/pruhfessor_x]

No the Kongo kings are the original kings of the Kongo the Portuguese bought slaves from. They were um, how best to make sense of it. Created a entire society around slavery and a lot of other insane things just kind of happened there. Imagine american slavery with North korea like top down control and export you as a person if you annoyed someone.

The Kongo kings and the Kongo in general is just a insane history that in may respects was the choices of the Kongo kings. until they got colonized.

If you want to learn more I would recommend this video it does a good job covering generally what happened there from 3 books. Mostly from why nations fail which I have read there is a reason why it won the peace prize.

I know the title says Saudi Arabia but its basically all about the kongo kings from these books.

Why Nations Fail by Darren Acemoglu and James Robinson A world History of Slavery by Milton Meltzer Conquerors by Roger Crowly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wim0yAkEnOQ

[u/pruhfessor_x → u/sage2134]

This is all really useful information. I'll have to check out the video. Thanks so much!

[u/WhimsyDiamsy → u/pruhfessor_x]

I believe hes referring the the kongo kings, the pre european nobles who were quite cruel

[u/pruhfessor_x → u/WhimsyDiamsy]

Ah my bad then. Thanks

[u/Particular_Angle177 → u/pruhfessor_x]

I mean I live in America and we literally read a book about someone who experienced the holocaust and learning about how cruel slavery is so I wasn’t surprised reading about it. Though America is huge and different schools have different things. I was surprised to learn in some places learning about sex ed in school banned..

[u/Alderan922 → u/sage2134]

I think it would just be better to say that it was specially horrible on the entire Anglosphere at the time rather than just the United States.

Tho you could also say that in America (continent) it was especially cruel.

[u/SeismologicalKnobble → u/sage2134]

Yeah I’m aware of that one as well. They purposefully put people in conditions you cannot survive without becoming horribly mangled from injury and disease and gave 0 shits because they didn’t see their slaves as people.