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objective desire to know the facts) the Slave Narratives have had little effect upon the modern historiography of this period.

Why have these narratives been ignored? The answer is quite predictable. The Narratives consistently portray an amazingly benign picture of Southern plantation life. Affection for former masters and mistresses is expressed in terms of unmistakable devotion. Testimony to the good treatment, kindness, and gentleness of many so-called "heartless slave holders" abounds. Many of the old slaves express a wistful desire to be back at the plantation.

Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care. In the narratives taken as a whole, there is no pervasive cry of rage and anguish. We see no general expression of bitterness and outrage. instead we find, on page after page, expressions of affection for a condition which, in the words of one historian, "shames the civilized world." The overwhelmingly positive view of slavery is all the more striking when one considers that the period being remembered by these former slaves could arguably be called the most harsh years of the institution — those years when it was under fierce attack, and when slave owners had circled the wagons.

Predictably, the modern heirs of the abolitionists have fallen over themselves in an effort to discredit this amazing testimony. "They were old and their memories were defective . . .  They were suffering under the Great Depression, many would think of slavery in a warm way under the conditions they suffered... They were talking to white people and weren't about to say things that might get them 'in trouble.'" However these efforts to explain away the overall testimony of the Narratives fall to the ground.

These explanations fall because the testimony is not unanimous. There are those, scattered here and there, who mention atrocities, and complain of the meanness and immorality of their owners. There are those whose voices drip with the bitterness brought on by years of unjust treatment and ungodly oppression. They were not too old to remember the outrage they felt then; nor had that outrage diminished over the years. They did not look back on their experience with affection and nostalgia. They weren't afraid of what "Whitey" might think. In fact they were happy for the opportunity to make their bitterness known. Their testimony adds the clear note of authenticity to the Narratives. There was mistreatment, there were atrocities, there was a great deal of wickedness on the part of some — but, as the Narratives make plain, these abuses came from a distinct and very small minority. The Narratives have the ring of truth because they present the mixed picture which might be expected in an examination of any human institution. The surprise for moderns is that the mixture contains such an overwhelmingly positive view of master/slave relations before the War.

R.L. Dabney, William S. White, Charles Colcock Jones, and many other defenders of the South had long acknowledged the existence of mistreatment and wickedness among some slave holders. But they nevertheless maintained that these instances were relatively rare and infrequent. Dabney is careful to note: "Now, while we freely admit that there were in the South, instances of criminal barbarity in corporal punishments, they were very infrequent, and were sternly reprobated by publick opinion."

A Presbyterian pastor, William S. White observed:

In all lands there are husbands and fathers who maltreat their wives and children.  So there are masters among us who maltreat their slaves. But the prevailing