In the United States, what were the attitudes of house slaves towards the other slaves?

by [deleted]

In particular, I'm curious if the house slaves looked down upon them or felt that they were in their position due to negative habits, qualities, or behavior.

FatherAzerun

It really depended upon the slave, but there's a very powerful some stories from the house slaves that talked about sometimes also feeling separate from the other slaves. Strangely, there's a story that I recall ( actually look up and see if I can find it, I think it's in John Blassingames book, but I don't remember) about a young girl who was used as a house slave and her job was to help take care of the baby. She would rock the baby to bed at night using her foot in order to have the crib go back-and-forth. And she would talk about how lonely she felt and was concerned about the slaves outside. She could hear them in the evenings dancing and singing and felt like that she was never going to belong. So at least in that one case, even though that she might've been seen is privileged by the other slaves, her narrative was that she actually felt below them because she was isolated from the community, not really excepted by the master his family, and also separated from the other slaves were she felt like there was a real family that she was missing. This, of course is only one anecdotal experience, and is not necessarily indicative of all how slaves just one young girls experience that I happened to remember vividly from having read it.