In my elementary school history classes, we were taught that many Americans, including slave owners, had moral objections to the concept of slavery from the founding of our country, but they saw no other way to feed a nation.
We were told that until the advent of modern engines, tilling soil, planting & harvesting crops required manual labor, thus an agricultural economy depended on slavery.
We were told “Negroes” were deemed better suited to working long days in the sun, because their skin didn’t blister & peel like white people’s skin.
We learned that white sharecroppers were often poorer— that is, were not given basic necessities— than plantation
-dwelling slaves, although whites still had the freedom to pursue upward mobility on their own which slaves could not.
We were taught that the invention of the internal combustion engine is what finally made it possible to begin phasing out slavery. Work formerly done by men & mules with picks & plows could now be done by machines.
We learned that “manumission” — the practice of slave owners freeing individual slaves & their families deemed capable of self-sufficiency— was a common practice.
We learned that “freedmen” themselves often purchased & owned slaves or house servants.
We learned that the first blacks to hold public office soon after the Civil War— example: P.B.B. Pinchback— were elected in the South!
We were taught that the abolition of slavery was ONE issue over which the Civil War was fought. Others included the North’s control of imports & exports, ports & shipping, taxation. “State’s rights” was the South’s rallying cry over all this, not a “dog whistle” for “racism” & “white supremacy.”
We were taught that hanging (”lynching”) was common punishment for white people accused of crimes, too, whether they were guilty or not, because lynch mobs aren’t hard to get riled up.
We were taught. In elementary school.
Some of what you were tought was accurate. Some was not.