Another myth held by Southerners was that Africans were intellectually inferior and deserved, or even needed, the white man's care. It was, as British writer Rudyard Kipling describes, "the white man's burden" to colonize, civilize, and Christianize non-Europeans. Some whites believed that slavery was a means of protecting and bringing Africans into the civilized era. But, as Douglass points out, slavery provides no such benefits. The very text itself is a testimony against the belief of black intellectual inferiority. In the preface, Garrison argues that any person, regardless of race, would lose "all reasoning power" if kept under slavery.
Finally, many Southerners had a romantic image of the institution of slavery, believing it to be an integral part of gracious, genteel Southern living. This image of the Old South exists up to the present day — fortified by such cultural icons as Gone with the Wind. In fact, however, as Douglass points out, many slave owners were far from rich and grand — many lived in modest conditions and were crass and mean. The reality of the grand and gracious South was far from the mythical images of gentility and noblesse oblige of Southern living. This romantic image myth about the South includes a belief that the slaves were happy being slaves. Douglass rebukes this image; slaves never sing because they are happy — they sing because they are sad.
Douglass condemns both whites and blacks who buy into this fraudulent mythology. He is aware that even blacks can be fooled into accepting these myths about their position in Southern culture. Douglass is particularly incensed and sad about the vast disunity among slaves. He mentions slaves fighting among themselves to determme whose owner is kinder. While there is considerable natural fellowship among slaves, he says, the system promotes disloyalty among slaves. Owners encourage slaves to betray other slaves; a traitor double-crosses Douglass and prevents his first escape attempt. Some slaves cast their lot with slave owners and not with fellow slaves in the false belief that their prospects were better as slaves.
Slave owners encouraging slaves to buy into this false belief was one of the most insidious aspects of the mythology of slavery.
