THE TREATMENT OF SLAVES BY JEWS
How did these Jewish slave-owners treat their Negroes? What did they feel towards them as human beings? Were they inclined to be lenient masters, motivated by tender sympathy, or were they, like other Southerners, sometimes kindly, sometimes harsh — but always masters?
It is obviously hard to secure answers to these questions. But some indication of the feelings of Jews towards their slaves may be derived from a detailed study of the wills to which we have alluded.
Apologists for the slave system have often contended that the cruel master was an exception, and that most slave-owners were considerate, kindly, and thoughtful. Much depends on the definition of a word like consideration. However kindly a man might be as a master, what of the future of his slaves after his death? In nineteen of these thirty-three wills, more than half, slaves were merely bequeathed to relatives or friends without specific instructions; in five, the executors were instructed to sell them. In the majority of these wills, then, slaves were treated like other property, to be retained if convenient and expedient, to be sold if that seemed the judicious course. The word kindness surely cannot encompass any relationship where a faithful servant could be torn away from familiar moorings and sold to a stranger who might or might not be a "good" master. It was probably typical that the executor of the estate of Emanuel Stern, who died in New Orleans in 1828, sold off his twelveyear old slave, Mathilda, at auction, for $400. This was a profitable transaction, for in the inventory, Mathilda was valued at $250. 14
On the other hand, although the kindly feelings of some slaveowners cannot possibly be regarded as justification for the slave system, it is