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Slaves seem to have eaten more and better food than the population of the U.S. as a whole, and indeed had more protein in their diets than the recommended minimum for Americans in 1964. What is more, slave owners encouraged slaves with bonuses and fostered a degree of family pride largely dependent on black fathers as heads of families. (Even though the marriage of slaves was technically illegal, de facto monogamous marriages were practiced with the support of plantation owners. Food, clothing, housing and tools were issued to individual families in the father's name.) Time on the Cross suggests, too, that slave owners rarely exploited black females sexually: it was bad for morale. As proof, the book reports briskly that in a noncontraceptive society, after 23 decades of slavery, the nonwhite population was only 7.7% mulatto.
Down from Slavery? Masters apparently did not break up slave families by selling individual members down the river either, at least not in significant numbers. Along with broader auction statistics, the book offers in support of this point the continuous record of 19 plantations with 3,900 slaves. Over a 90-year period, only seven slaves were sold away.
When first confronted by Time on the Cross Black Psychologist Kenneth Clark remarked, "Would the authors recommend a return to slavery?" It may not have been fair, but it was an understandable question. Americans, liberal and conservative, black and white, have an enormous psychological interest in blaming slavery and the demoralization of the black family through cruelty and servitude for many of the ills that afflict blacks in modern society. If the search for a usable past consists of finding a view of yesterday that instructs and encourages today for the benefit of tomorrow, what good in 1974 can come of saying anything good about the dreadful institution of slavery?
Both Fogel and Engerman are liberals. (Fogel is married to a black woman.) They admit to being shocked by the reports that issued from their computer. The whole question of seeking truth aside, the authors claim that preoccupation with the enduring legacy of slavery has too long kept both blacks and whites from paying enough attention to the horrifying inequality of opportunity for blacks from the Reconstruction period onward, which may do more to explain black social conditions today than the rigors of plantation life. The achievements—in administration, artisan skills and dollar earnings—of plantation blacks when given a chance and incentive seem to support this point.