How do you think the rising tensions about slavery impact the relationship between the McCains and Cathcarts?
McCains could not understand how you can buy and sell a human being in a place where everyone else was moving and settling so they could be free to raise families and farm and have a good life in a place that was starting to offer more to society as a whole.
The McCains didn’t believe in slavery. The Cathcarts owned and depended on slave labor. These were very opposite views of what was acceptable. Yes, there was tension, yet they came together at times to support each other. It didn’t seem to come to be an all out deal breaker between the two families. Slavery was/is wrong, but this is a book about a different time in history, where both opinions and actions were in force.
There were tensions between the two families but they still got along to a point.
The issue of slavery was a point of tension that seemed to be more important to the McCains since slavery was anathema to them. But like many families with serious moral differences, the family ties didn’t break. While contact was limited, the families were still related. In a frontier situation, family was often critical to survival.
I think you said it well, families depended on one another for survival and so could not just cut-off relationships. That being said, (the McCains) didn’t have to follow suit or have a close relationship with Cathcart’s.