Stokes assured the small audience, We’re not interested in slavery. It’s emotional and it separates people. But the absurdity of slavery means it is practically impossible for anyone to contain all the contradictions that arise when speaking of it. So despite his promise seconds earlier to refrain from talk of slavery, Stokes started by explaining how often the term “servant” is used as a euphemism for “slave” in New England and how there is a presumption that Africans here were somehow “smarter” and treated better than those in the South. This misperception, he pushed, is because people don’t
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