Did slave owners really think they were good people?

Answer 1

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They probably thought they were just like everyone else because at the time that was happening it was normal to them.  They didn't think good or bad.  Just "it's life and this is the way everyone lives it"

Answer 2

It doesn't matter what did they think. In any case, they were the worst people. 

Answer 3

Possibly. And they might have been if they treated their slaves well  and if they also treated other people well. Slave owner was just one out of many identities they had, like we all have our different identities now. And please do not forget that slavery was regarded as normal then since it has existed for thousands of years worldwide.

Answer 4

Absolutely.  As Jefferson Davis explained in his memoir, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, slavery took unprofitable savages and turned them into efficient laborers, content within their own sphere.  Also, without slavery, the "inferior" race never would have been exposed to Christianity.  The slave owners also thought they bore a heavy burden, because God had placed the Africans in their charge, and it was the white man's duty to uplift, civilize, and Christianize them, to make them contributors to society, and to feed, clothe, and shelter them, and take care of them in sickness and old age.

Answer 5

In their minds they were probably doing them a good turn by taking the slaves from their heathen lands and converting them to Christianity.

Answer 6

you watch to many movies , whats to stop the slave  from fleeing in mass to the north or to mexico ..they had a choice , work on the farms or starve , simple isnt it , no government hand outs then.

Answer 7

They probably did

Answer 8

Mostly.  They didn't see themselves as evil.  At best, they might have seen themselves as locked in a system which was bad but which they saw no good way out of.  Getting rid of slavery would have devastated the finances of these families and it would have, in their view, unleashed social chaos on the world by creating a free class of people who were racially unsuited to freedom and incompatible with white society.  In the 18th century, this kind of view was somewhat common in British North America.  People like Jefferson or Washington regarded slavery as immoral, at least in theory, but didn't see any way they could easily abandon it.  As time went on, ideas about slavery hardened and most slave owners came to argue that it was a "positive good" and not something that was in any way wrong.  This coincided with a hardening of ideas about race, and an increasing feeling among whites that black people were congenitally and unchangeably inferior to, and incompatible with, whites.

Answer 9

They didn't think at all.  It was standard practice (all over the world) in those years to have slaves working for you.  Roofs over their heads, food in their tummy's and a job.  Although some were treated badly others had reasonable lives.  Do some research.

Peace.

Answer 10

Yes. Christianity promoted slavery because it is in the Bible so it's OK because God said it's OK to have slaves in the Bible.

Answer 11

Yes, they provided full employment for slaves.