The treatment of slaves in the United States varied by time and place, but was generally brutal and degrading, especially on plantations. Whipping and rape were routine; there were businesses to which a slave owner could turn over the whipping. Families were often split up by the sale of one or more members. There were certainly some kind and relatively enlightened slave owners,
but not on large plantations. Only a small minority of slaves received anything resembling decent treatment, and even that could vanish on such occasion as an owner’s death.
There is no known instance in which a slave, having escaped to freedom, returned voluntarily to slavery, or even stated that he was sorry he had fled, because he or she had been better off as a slave.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, seeking to find a “faithful slave” to erect a monument to, could find no one better than Heyward Shepherd, who was not a slave,
may never have been a slave, and certainly showed no commitment to or support of slavery.What is well documented is the eagerness of former slaves to take up arms against their former owners,
first in the British Corps of Colonial Marines, then in the United States Colored Troops, even though the Confederacy announced that the latter were traitors and would be immediately shot if captured.
There is no instance in which any of these soldiers, having obtained arms, used them against Union troops, rather they performed well as Union soldiers.
