You're right about that. The treatment of other indigenous people by Great Britian and others was just as bad. The same type of ugly, and in many cases worse continued in the US toward the Native Americans and Orientals. We often hear and read of others in the world thinking the US has always been the pushy, bossy nation that doesn't think twice about using it's military bag of tricks to get its point across. That would be correct at times. What many forget is the reason the Sun never set on the British Empire. It wasn't because people on the other side of the planet said come on in and start telling us what to do. It was because the Brits, Spanish, Dutch, and French believed they could just move in and take over the major income maker for where ever they parked their hind ends. Just think about how long it took China, India and a few others to shed their keepers. Long after the American war for Southern Independence. What the Southern states did was no different than the revolutionaries who took this land from England. The only difference is --the Southern States lost. But who did England, France, Spain or the Dutch take this land from?
Slavery was on its way out in the US. It was also something that needed to be addressed in a more civil fashion because, as you said, the slaves to be freed were not in another location. It really was unfair to them to just open a door and say "Go".
Didn't Mamie Eisenhower have a 'houseboy' during their time in the White House. That was waaaaay after the slavery thing was over in the US and I'm pretty sure he was given wages. I don't know how much though.
It's passing strange that such fear could come from real reports on an actual event such as a slave uprising would be the entire reason no one would agree to emancipate their slaves but on the PC side in that era it was fine to equate Soldiers in areas = Indian attack and the Indians were the bad guys. It was assumed all Indians were the bad guys, even the women and children. Even with that information, it was ok to just go ahead and settle on land the Indian was 'silly' enough to think was theirs.
"America!! What a country!!"
Pam