American Experience

Some white slaveowners raped their slaves, though. What about that?

John David Smith:
As I've said above, whites defined blacks in such ways that some whites could justify raping black women. Recent scholars point to the domestic slave trade as the best example of the open, blatant, and perpetual sexual exploitation of blacks, especially women but of men as well. While white women allegedly were shocked by the sexual activities of their husbands and sons, miscegenation was so pervasive that I think it was justified and accepted by whites of all classes as part of the whites' "Herrenvolk democracy." Whites viewed blacks as uncivilized people with no rights that whites were bound to respect.