Renty’s enslaver contradicted his own racist beliefs in his final will

Evidence

I could tell he was proud, and decided to save my questions for when we met in person. For instance, how else could the same man who offered Renty and Delia to Agassiz as examples of an inferior race say such a thing? This was his dying declaration and it made me wonder if he had an attack of conscience as he neared the end of his life. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 445

Categorization

• QUESTION: The apparent contradiction between Benjamin Taylor offering Renty to Agassiz as polygenist ‘evidence’ and writing a humane slave-division clause is worth chasing.