It is undeniable that some slave-owners owned slaves in order to keep them as workers, and they weren't necessarily "mistreated" more like they were safer as slaves and couldn't be released anyway.
It is undeniable that some slave-owners owned slaves in order to keep them as workers, and they weren't necessarily "mistreated" more like they were safer as slaves and couldn't be released anyway.
And what were slave-owners trying to protect slaves from? If slaves had it so good under slavery, why did thousands and thousands attempt to flee at great risk to their own life? Why did they overwhelmingly vote for the Republican Party after reconstruction, again at great cost to their own lives? Why did so many who did flee write about the evils of slavery, and campaign against it, and no free black wrote for it? All slaves were owned to extract economic value of them, they were huge capital investments.
[1]http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/celia/celiaacc...
I think it's good that some slaves were treated well, but I'm not sure how that's relevant here. They were still slaves.