How did white propagandists depict Israel Hill in their pro-slavery smear campaigns?
Were these campaigns effective? A: Most white Virginians at least passively accepted slavery as a given. Many depended on the institution, both economically and socially. Then there were those who actively defended bondage as the best possible system, for blacks as well as whites. That last group became more and more vocal as Northern criticism of slavery mounted. Those who wanted to prove slavery was good for both races felt they had to demonstrate that freedom would turn black people into helpless paupers, criminals, and parasites. Richard Randolph’s argument that the races were equal and that blacks could achieve success as free people, if proven correct, would refute the whole idea of slavery as a positive good. So prolavery propagandists proclaimed Israel Hill a definitive experiment in black freedom, and they declared it a complete failure. The first generation of free blacks born on the Hill, they said, had turned into poverty-stricken, disease-ridden thieves, prostitutes, and l
