" This was a super interesting question, so I went and dug up some info.

For your first question: No, they couldn't have really escaped easier. This isn't really a question of history, but more of a question of albinos. An Albino African would look like a pure white African, not like a European.

True albinos are also exceedingly rare, meaning that there really wasn't any 'general consensus'. While some historical documents (including the one I'm linking) say that it's not rare, they are including both Albinism and vitiligo in their counts, of which vitiligo is much more common. Albinism comes with several health issues, the most significant being eye issues and inability to deal with the sun. Despite this, Joseph Jones, who was a doctor, wrote about them briefly in 1896. He theorized that because of their skin tone, they were 'superior'. Still Negros, but closer to Europeans in intelligence. He also had a whole lot of other incorrect ideas, about a baby being black before developing albinism in the womb, and thinking that Vitiligo was directly related. He wrote about that in "Observations and Researches on Albinism in the Negro Race", which is good for getting at least a rough idea about thoughts at the time.

You can find that article here.

Of the stories mentioned, some seem more accurate than others. The explanation of 'Robert Crews' has him working as a slave, overly sensitive to sunlight, and eventually buying his own freedom due to his intelligence. It's difficult to say if he was treated kinder because of his albinism, or if he simply had a kinder master then others.

The story of Henry Moss is almost certainly fabricated. It recounts the story of a man who developed vitiligo, which eventually completely covered his body. While this is possible, the explanation that his hair turned 'silky straight', and that he was impossible to tell from a European is extremely unlikely, if not impossible. In his case, generous benefactors gave him money so he could buy his own freedom.

While I couldn't come up with any answers directly linked to the American south, around the 18th and 19th centuries there was a demand for albinos in freak shows. The 'white negress' was the most popular, with Amelia Newsham, a slave in London, being one of the more prominent ones. "

From the last time this was asked