[acdha]

> Its not like humanity used to think slavery was good for the slave.

People said it was the natural order of things - similar to how men owning women or children was divinely approved, and if you read about “the curse of Ham” you can see many variations of the excuses offered that it was just due to ancestral sin - and during the colonial era that exact argument was used to the general effect that slavery provided heathens with a chance to adopt Christianity and be saved.

The reason the Southern Baptists exist as a separate denomination is because they split off from the main Baptist community in support of slavery, only recanting in 1995!, and while that’s generally accepted as being significantly motivated by the massive financial impacts it relied on those rationalizations (it’s biblical, we’re improving people who would otherwise be doomed to a primitive existence without the chance of salvation). These days people know not to say slavery was good but you can still find conservatives saying colonialism was a net win for many countries.

There’s considerably more about this dark part of our history here:

https://www.ushistory.org/us/27f.asp