Matt saw the man's back and visibly winced. Some of the wonder left his eyes and he glanced around with a new perspective.
"Not a very pretty sight is it?" I said.
Matt glanced at me, "No, it's not."
We continued to follow our self-imposed guide up the dusty lane as it picked up in elevation. In the distance I saw mansions arrayed against the hillside in the shadow of the dormant volcano that rose up massively beyond.
Matt spoke, "you haven't said what you think of all this Eli. I'm curious."
Off to our right I saw a slave girl shoved hard against an old-fashioned butter churn that she had momentarily stopped operating in order to watch us go by.
"Do you mean do I feel that the role reversal taking place around us is justified?" I asked.
"Yes."
"No, I do not."
It was a small statement to express how not okay I was with all this. No one deserved forced servant hood like this. What I couldn't figure out was why there was the need for slaves at all?
Matt kept his voice low as to not be overheard, "The South attempted to biblically justify their enslavement of the black man. Did you know that Eli?"
"No I did not, but it doesn't surprise me. I'm curious though, how did they go about that Matt?"
"They believed that black people were descended from Noah's son Ham and they went off that line about where because of him seeing his father's nakedness he was relegated to serve his brothers."
"You're serious? They got ripping apart people's lives and using them for their own gain out of that line of the Bible!" I exclaimed under my breath.
"Yep. Ridiculously out of context isn't it. They also used the example of the children of Israel having slaves to justify their practices, but there's no resemblance. Israel's so-called slavery was basically indentured servant hood. If a slave was mistreated he was to be set free by Jewish law. If he was killed by his owner his owner's life was forfeit in turn. All slaves were also to be let loose every seven years and their lands restored to them. So you can see there really is no comparison between the old South and the biblical Israel."
"And yet I wonder how these black masters have justified their role as the lords of this place?" I said reflectively and Matt nodded in agreement.
There likely was some half-baked justification for the continued use of slavery, but it likely didn't make any sense just as the first round of excuses hadn't in the old South.