I think you are at the root of it all. Slave owners did not see their slaves as people but as farm animals (equipment). No one suggests that someone is paying their tractor when they put gas in it and change the oil. I think dehumanization is the essential sin of slavery and indeed of all racism.

@schmiedeskamp "Dehumanization is the essential sin of slavery and indeed of all racism"

-seriously a great quote-

That's quite a rationalization he expressed.
I've always found the most interesting part of it is that they actually believe that stuff.

The flip side of this argument is to paint every white person with the same slavers brush, to insist that all white people were complicit in black slavery. There were very few black slaves in my native Canada, the climate is barely tolerant of people raised in cold climates and is potentially lethal to people from tropical climates, at least before the invention of central heating. I'm not saying my Canadian ancestors were adverse to having black slaves back in the mid 1700's when we first came over but it just wasn't a viable option, investing in livestock hardy enough to survive the winters was a much better business decision. Indentured servants was the way to go back in the early days, basically the poor or criminals who would be sold into temporary slavery for a period of 7 years, after which they would regain their freedom having paid off their debt for transportation to the New World. Faced with the prospect of death by starvation or by the gallows, indentured servitude was an option that many whites opted for, including some of my ancestors. The trick was to survive the last year of servitude because the employer/owner would cut back on expenses like food/clothing/heat in the final year because there was no incentive to provide for the slave that was soon to be freed.
The Underground Railroad's terminus was in Canada because there were laws on the books until after the American Civil War that allowed slavers to recapture escaped slaves in 'free states' and return them to their owners in the 'slave states'. Something I had to point out to some of my black workers in Bermuda who accused me of being the descendant of black slave owners who had made their fortunes off the sweat of the brow of slaves. Slavery was banned officially in Canada in 1834 but black slaves were virtually non-existent here, indentured servitude for white virtual slaves continued for another century, including the transportation of orphaned children for work on farms until the 1940's and the subjugation of the native peoples which has only recently been addressed.
Aren't humans a bunch of enslaving bastards and I'm not even going into the history of slavery among non-whites like the Barbary pirates, Chinese slavers, Native American slaves captured in war and even African tribal slavery.

Don't forget widespread Native American deaths from blankets infected with smallpox, courtesy of the United States Army.

@bigpawbullets Many people prefer a convenient lie to an inconvenient truth.

@LiterateHiker The idea that Africans cannot take cold weather has a false tint to me. I worked with African Immigrants in Minnesota a while back. I clearly remember a family of Somalis who had just arrived in St Paul by way of Nairobi. From "very hot" to sub-zero in less than 24 hrs. They adapted quickly like countless others.

For that matter the recent in migration of black people to Montana cannot be only attributable to global warming and modern heating. Some of the very earliest trappers and traders in the area were escaped or recently freed slaves. These were people who made their livings by putting traps in icy streams all winter long and usually getting wet in the process.

Humans are amazingly adaptable.

@schmiedeskamp I agree completely that humans are amazingly adaptable but being a slave from the tropics, shipped across the ocean in inhumane conditions, then picked over by every slave buyer from Barbados to New York City and finally dumped off as the dregs in Canada to perform hard labour and live in a lean to shed for the livestock through a Canadian winter are long odds for survival. Bear in mind it would be pre-1834 Canada, wood stoves were still a luxury for many, drafty houses with inefficient fireplaces were the norm. I do recall reading a historic account of a visit by one of the English Lords who had been appointed to Canada back in the late 1700's and how his man servant was a black negro which raised quite a stir at the time, many Canadians having never seen a black man in the flesh before.
Certainly there were black settlements in Canada because Canada was the end of the Underground Railroad where slaves were finally safe from capture and return to their owners in the South. There is a historic settlement in Oro-Medonte not far from where I used to live on Lake Couchiching, built on land granted to them by the Crown. So Africans can adapt to cold climates most certainly but it would have been a greater hardship for them than the Irish indentured servants that were shipped over during the clearings and the potato famine. My brother in law was born in Jamaica but moved to Toronto as a child, he still complains about the bitter cold here and loves the hot humid summers but maybe that's just him.

@Surfpirate To begin, I apologize for being so slow to reply. I think we are on pretty much the same page. Bottom line is that slavery was a horror which is still very much with us all (regardless of race).

While I agree with you, there always has been and always will be slavery. I'd bet that there are more slaves in the world today, than there were pre-American civil war days.

@bigpawbulletsI don't doubt it. we are all slaves to a system.