"Real relationships" between slaves and slaveowners in the South?

by T3chniks

I shall preface this by noting that when one person is enslaved by another, they cannot meaningfully consent to the other person. Hence my use of quotation marks in the question title. This id obviously a very sensitive topic. Without that laid out, on to the main question:

I recently watched 12 Years a Slave and in it, the slave owner Shaw married one of his former slaves after his wife died (this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saXM9C1B9iY) The two seem to be in an actual relationship, a "real relationship". I am curious to know common this kind of thing actually was (versus the commonly described sexual coercion of the South) at the time. Therefore, I have two questions:

a) how often did relationships like this happen, where there was some kind of genuine romantic attachment between a slave and a slaver?

b) what did Southern society in general (white, black, slave and freeman) think of these relationships?

Obviously I am thinking of relationships between white male slavers and black female slaves but any information on white female slavers and black male slaves is welcome too (though I would imagine we have less information available on those due to various limitations).

Georgy_K_Zhukov

This and this, and also this should be of interest for you.