To Painter, From Jacobs

Dear Ms. Painter:

Could you elaborate on the pathology of holding slaves?

You talk of hierarchy, violence, and attachment, but I wonder at how slaveholders's natures have been altered, how slavery has not only murdered our souls, but their souls as well. Are certain people born with a greater propensity to tyrannize and torture? What kind of man would Dr. Flint be now, in 2017, without the legality of slavery and his slaves to serve as an outlet for his malevolence? The whites now feel that they must disassociate themselves with their ancestors, the slaveholders of the past, but how might these propensities, knowing that they "once" exist, manifest today? I really doubt that human nature, over the past 260 years, has changed all that much.

With best regards,
Harriet Ann Jacobs