First off, the first record we have of slavery is from around 1700b.c.e whereas thr first record we have of pets being kept dates back to something like 26000 years ago.
Kind of hard to reconcile white people keeping pets as a substitute for slavery when white people kept pets for much than the existence of slavery.
Secondly, people of all races have kept pets. Did you know the Aztecs were fond of chihuahuas? Yeah. Pets were already in America long before European colonists. They came with the original colonists across the Bering Strait and all other points of entry by early human tribes.
European colonists also brought pets with them when they arrived. The first known slave owned by a white person in America was during that same time frame. Hard to reconcile the notion of pets being g a psychological replacement for slavery in the hearts and minds of white people when both existed in the Americas at the same time.
By the way, slavery and pets existed in Egypt at the same time. China. Sub-Saharan Africa. Indigenous populations of the Americas had both. Does your theory apply to all these people too? Or just to white people?
That's just a historical perspective. There's an economic one, an emotional one, and a psychological one.
The interesting part of your article was part of the psychological argument. But again, you're missing some obvious things.
It's true that something had changed in how we treat our pets. Lot of people are developing maladaptive relationships with their animals. But that didn't start until very recent times, which were well beyond the end of slavery. Hard to reconcile using pets to make up for not being able to control slaves when you have no living memory of the experience of being able to control slaves.
Also, the vast majority of white people did not own slaves and so could not control them, regardless of how they went along with the institution or felt a out it. And yet thr pet effect is pretty extensive. So that doesn't track either.
I also think it's interesting to note that this same maladaptive can be applied to their own children in many cases.
