[Salon] Slavery Was Bad and Must Be Remembered


Friday, August 29, 2025 Newsletter


Slavery Was Bad and Must Be Remembered

President Trump declared “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL,” but what’s awry, writes a constitutional scholar, is forgetting American history.
by Paul Finkelman August 28, 2025
https://www.nga.gov/artworks/216280-scourged-backPeter, also known as Gordon, showing the wounds on his back after being whipped by his enslaver. He was the subject of photographs documenting the extensive scarring of his back from whippings received in slavery. The "scourged back" photo became one of the most widely circulated photos of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War and remains one of the most notable photos of the 19th-century United States. Credit: National Gallery of Art

President Donald Trump recently declared that “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been . . . .”

From the 1660s, when Virginia (the largest colony) first passed laws regulating slavery, until the end of the Civil War, slavery was a central institution of American life, with about ten million people held as slaves. When the Civil War began, the South had four million slaves, constituting about 12.5 per cent of the entire population of the United States. The slaves were worth about two billion dollars in 1860. About one-third of all white families in the South owned slaves, and in some states, more than half of all white families owned slaves.

So, how “bad” was slavery?

Slaves were considered property. If a slave escaped, the United States government would send U.S. Marshals, the Army, the Coast Guard, and federalized state militias to drag them in chains back to their owners, who could punish them as they saw fit. 

Slaves, who received no salary for their labor, built the house that Donald Trump lives in—the White House.

How brutal was slavery? Slaves endured violence. The whip was the symbol of slaveholding. After the American Revolution, most states outlawed the killing of slaves. However, Blacks—whether enslaved or free—were still barred from testifying against whites. So, if an owner killed a slave and no white witnesses were willing to testify, there could be no trial.

Lilburne and Isham Lewis show how “bad” slavery was. The Lewis brothers were Thomas Jefferson’s nephews and his cousins. Their mother was the president’s sister, while their father was Jefferson’s first cousin. In December 1811, the Lewis brothers, in an alcohol fueled rage, tied up a 17-year-old slave named George and brought their other slaves into their Kentucky house to watch them punish George, who had accidentally broken a water pitcher. Using an axe, the Lewis brothers chopped up George until he died, first cutting off his hands and feet, and then his arms and parts of his legs, and then his head.

The slaves were then ordered to clean up George’s remains and burn them in a fireplace. The local community found out about the killing when dogs in the area were found gnawing on human bones. The slaves who witnessed the murder told officials what had happened, but since a slave could not testify in court against a white person, the Lewis brothers were never punished.

In September 1849, Simeon Souther, a Virginia slaveowner, tortured a slave named Sam until he died. Virginia’s highest court described the event:

The negro was tied to a tree and whipped with switches. When Souther became fatigued with the labour of whipping, he called upon a negro man of his and made him cob Sam with a shingle. He also made a negro woman of his help to cob him. And after cobbing and whipping, he applied fire to the body of the slave, about his back, belly, and private parts. He then caused him to be washed down with hot water, in which pods of red pepper had been steeped. The negro was also tied to a log and to the bedpost with ropes, which choked him, and he was kicked and stamped by Souther. This sort of punishment was continued and repeated until the negro died.

Souther was convicted of manslaughter because the jury did not believe he meant to kill George. He received a five-year sentence, and when he was released, he still owned other slaves.

Whipping, torture, and cruel treatment were the keys to maintaining control over slaves. During the Civil War, Gordon, a slave in Louisiana, escaped to join the United States Army. When he enlisted, the Army took a picture of his back. It shocked America because people knew slaves were whipped, but the photographic evidence was new.

Some modern economists claim that slaveowners would not mistreat their slaves because it was foolish to harm their property. But all slaveowners understood that controlling slaves required violence, savage punishments, and cruelty. In addition, the absolute power of the owner, combined with anger, alcohol, or the inherent cruelty of some people, meant that almost all slaves were whipped, beaten, or punished across the American South. George and Sam, who were murdered, and Gordon, who was permanently scarred, provided living—and dying—proof that modern economic theory is irrelevant when it comes to understanding how slaveowners punished, brutalized, and sometimes murdered their slaves.

How bad was slavery? Physical pain was only part of the cruelty. As property, slaves were bought and sold at the whim of the owner, the order of a court, or the acts of the executor of an estate. When slaves were sold, families were destroyed. Slaves had husbands and wives, but they were never legally married. Slaves could not be legally married, because they could not sign a marriage contract or take marriage vows that the law recognized. When they informally took a marriage vow, they often said, “until death or sale do us part.”

In his will, Thomas Jefferson freed his blacksmith, Joseph Fossett, and said he and his family could live at Monticello for the rest of his life. But Jefferson did not free Fossett’s wife, Edith, and their children. They were auctioned off to different purchasers. Fossett spent the rest of his life working to purchase and free his family. He saved enough to rescue Edith and some, but not all, of their children.

How bad was slavery? Slaves could own “nothing”—not even their clothes. The president complained that the Smithsonian did not recognize the accomplishments of the downtrodden. This is, in fact, not true. The achievements of slaves, free Blacks, and poor immigrants are displayed throughout the Smithsonian, although the venerable institution’s exhibits do not talk about slaves gaining wealth or property, because they could not do so. Slaves could not own property, because they were property.

Some slaveowners allowed slaves to raise small farm animals to sell, or to work on Sundays to earn money, some of which they’d be allowed to keep. Some slaves saved in hopes of buying their freedom. But the owner could—and did—take that money and then, rather than free the slave, sell the person, and get more money. Courts always ruled that slaves never owned the money they earned.

How bad was slavery? Two years ago, President Trump profited from the publication of a new printing of the Bible—the God Bless the USA Bible. He has often expressed his religious devotion. As such, he should understand how “bad” slavery was.

Slaves could not own Bibles or openly read them. Some slaves learned to read and write, but the overwhelming majority were illiterate. In virtually all slave states, it was illegal to operate a school for Blacks, whether slave or free. No one could teach a slave to read without the owner’s permission. In 1860, there were more than 22,000 free Black children in Virginia (there were more than 473,000 slaves in the state), and only 41 of these free Black children were in any sort of school.

In 1853, authorities in Norfolk, Virginia, arrested a white woman named Margaret Douglass for running a school for free Blacks, where she taught them to read the Bible. Occasionally, a few slaves attended her classes. Douglass was not an abolitionist; she supported slavery but believed everyone should be able to read the Bible, and she was sentenced to jail. Some white ministers in the South were jailed for preaching Christian values that their neighbors thought challenged slavery. Slavery was harmful to people of faith, both Black and white.

How bad was slavery? The history of American slavery is deeply tied to sexual exploitation. A 1662 Virginia law provided that “all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.” If a white man had a child with a slave woman, the child would be a slave for life. This rejected English law, where a child followed the father’s status. Virginia and other slave colonies and states also prohibited Blacks, slave or free, from testifying against whites. Tied together, this meant that any white man could have sex with a Black woman, whether consensual or not, without any legal consequences.

Any slaveowner could demand sex from his slave, and she (or he) could not refuse. Over the centuries, girls and women were exploited by slaveowners, their families, and other whites. Harriet Jacobs’ North Carolina owner raped her as a teenager. Eventually, she avoided the abuse by hiding in the crawl space of her grandmother’s attic for seven years, until she successfully escaped to the North. In 1858, Thomas R.R. Cobb, a southern legal theorist and a co-founder of what became the University of Georgia School of Law, argued that states ought to make rape of a female slave a crime for the “honor of the statute-book.” He argued that if a slaveowner raped a slave, the owner should be forced to sell the slave to someone else. This, of course, was not much of a punishment since the rapist gained value from the sale of the woman he abused, while her new owner could also sexually abuse her.

So, how “bad” was slavery? It denied slaves the “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It allowed slaves to be beaten, tortured, or even killed at the whim of the owner. Slaves could not raise their children or maintain their families as they wished, and millions of slaves were separated from family members. Slaves were vulnerable, always, to the sexual desires of their owners, their family members, and other whites. Slaves could not turn to scripture for solace because they were almost universally prohibited from being taught to read, and nearly none ever owned a Bible. Their labor was stolen from them, providing billions of dollars of value to their owners, while they received inadequate food and housing, no education, and constant physical and emotional pain.

Slavery was very, very bad.

It was also a major aspect of American history, which our national museums must continue to explain, if we are to understand our real past.

Tagged: slavery, Smithsonian, Trump slavery, Trump Smithsonian

Paul Finkelman, PhD, teaches at the University of Toledo College of Law and is the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy, Emeritus, at Albany Law School. More by Paul Finkelman


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