In school right now I am reading literature about the Civil War era and just before then. Of course, with that comes the study and critique of American slavery. It is something that has been talked about in my curriculums to the point of just being annoying. It was terrible, yeah, but it is over. Can we talk about something else, maybe?
Well in further studying that time I am reading more about the other side of it. Everyone seems to look back at it and think "I would never do that", or "that kind of cruelty would make me sick no matter how many of my friends supported it", and that may be true-who can know?-but what about if we had been one of the people enslaved? In Uncle Tom's Cabin, (A work of fiction? Yes. Truth? Mostly, I believe.) the "slaves" blow my mind with their calm, submission, and strength. They sang, and they wept, and they supported one another.
I love to think that the many Africans who were Christians were more free than their "masters", because they were free from eternal bondage, to sin. I am amazed by how backwards things can appear on this earth, and hope that had I been a slave, I would have had that same graceful perseverance.