You are right on about Judaism in the South.
I have to do a lot of research into slave life and I am finding it hard to explain the truth to 2015 politically correct people of any race. Not being free people was absolutely horrific. Yet since many had known and couldn’t imagine anything else, they had grown used to it, and their existence was validated in the strict hierarchy of society (friends and comrades, plus some deep interracial relationships that were friends within boundaries — mistress and personal servant, master and trusted ally slave — I’m not taking about sexual relationship). And roughly half of slaves were treated well within the wrong that was slavery.
However, at least half were treated very cruelly. Their lives were dotted with horror, rape, families ripped apart, no escape from drudgery, whippings, torture. Because all masters were given the freedom to treat the people they “owned” any way they liked, there was no recourse for treatment far worse than King George treated the colonists, meaning our Constitution offered no protection to these people. Against the will of Gd. That needs to be said.
Still, African Americans just out of slavery, with brains and ambition, did so much to make the world and country a better place. Where is that leadership now? Blacks in America, some anyway, are in chains today of their own doing. They could use some real pride and leadership today.
There certainly were abuses--as in every system since the dawn of human interaction; but I seriously doubt that it was anything like you suggest. For one thing, every State but Louisiana had laws that criminalized mistreatment. Secondly, the Southern gentry had a bit of the noblesse oblisge culture, and would have experienced a bit of social ostracism for abusing their position.
You mention King George. That is interesting in this context, as it was King George who actually ended the chattel slavery of Brits in the northern English mines, in 1760. Of course, if you analyze the grievances in the bulk of the Declaration of Independence, the major American complaint against King George was for allowing the British Parliament to continually meddle in our local concerns.
Now anecdotes about abuses--because they have a stronger emotional aspect--are likely to survive far longer than anecdotes about friendly interaction in daily chores & contacts. However the summation of the feelings involved, referenced in many sources, but directly discussed in Booker T. Washington's Address in Atlanta, in 1895, as well as the general loyalty during the war, will suggest that those abuses were far less common than you indicate.
All of that said, of course, the present furor has very little, if anything to do about slavery; but a very great deal to do with efforts to stifle resistance to the pursuit of a monolithic egalitarian value system. Does anyone in discussing classical Grecian civilization, get hung up on the fact that a large percentage of the population were technically slaves?
The promise of America in her fromulation was not really something now labeled as the "American Dream." It is true that many came here wanting to obtain their own real property; but others came here to have communities that shared their value systems, at a time when Europe & Great Britain, itself, were being torn apart socially with attempts to force each others cultural values, etc.
What America offered was the possibility of resettling in a community with like-minded people. The South is full of people who do not want to have to be forced to live according to other people's artificial values. The same used to be true of New England--and hence, Massachusetts & Virginia & Maryland (despite their different social values) could come together under a Constitutional framework, which left social value determination to the States & local communities. When the mutual respect, growing out of the grand alliance in the Revolution broke down, there arose groups, first in the North, but then in the South, who tried to mind the other's local business; and we headed for dissolution & chaos.
Ultimately the enemy of liberty--for liberty in all its manifestations--is a Compulsion For Uniformity. The current attack on Southern culture--actually a war on eccentricity, a deliberate attack on those who reject the forces of egalitarian/collectivism--is but one of a recurring effort to compel uniformity in human value systems.
These things always end badly.