I think there was a justified basis for suspicion and skepticism from the one chapter given. the foundation a story is built on, and it's execution, determines the strength of the final story. even though I can think of ways this could have beaten expectations, this story was on shaky ground to begin with, starting with the setting and characters, and ending with the "I'm your slave" line.
of all the kinds of people and stories you could tell about this time period in this place, why are these the ones chosen? what's the appeal of their dynamic? how is the setting and time period relevant to that?
as it stands, it looks like there was a very deliberate choice to write around the existence of Black people who lived during that time even though their presence and labor is integral to the livelihoods of the MCs. maybe the author thought they'd avoid the backlash they got by doing that, but that's still an expression of racism, by ignoring that Black people are also people who want their stories and experiences told and treated with respect. and if the author didn't want to include Black people, which they're ultimately not obligated to do, they would have been better off choosing another topic and setting to write about, because like it or not, when writing about American history, you'll have to grapple with the racial dynamics of this country one way or another, to say nothing of the civil war era (even postwar) where the crux of the conflict was "what are we going to do with these Blacks? (are they even people?)". to then make the only Black people in the story be faceless mobs seemingly only with the intention of making the white MC look good and ethical, just rubs salt in that wound.
it's very suspicious to have a story where the civil war and its aftermath are significant to the narrative and characters, and then only feature Black people as background props to assure modern readers that the protagonist isn't a bad person by their standards. maybe there would have been actual Black characters done well in future chapters, but that initial presentation does not inspire confidence in the creator since they were not even aware of the implications of what they drew in chapter one. and if they were aware of the implications and making choices for shock value in the first chapter, like the "I'm your slave" line, then the response to those choices shows that the creator needed to reconsider their approach if they wanted better, more favorable reactions.
that's not even getting into how ezra, the ml, looks very ethnically and culturally vague... how was the creator going to handle the history of dispossession of indigenous lands and the violence inflicted on indigenous people by whites to settle their land and by indigenous people to whites to defend themselves? the various tactics and policies implemented by European settlers to weaken indigenous populations and suppress their ways of life that amounted to genocide? and that's not getting into how the ml is evidently mixed-heritage with blue eyes, which is its own can of worms in terms of visual design choices and how the creator would explore that character background.
perhaps the creator would have given more depth and nuance on the power and racial dynamics between the mc and ml in this time period, but their handling of the setup in the first chapter gave me significant doubts.
if the author wanted an interracial cowboy romance with this particular dynamic, they had other options for time and setting (and not to mention that those power and racial dynamics are present in other times as well).
every choice a creator makes in their story reflects their knowledge and interests, which are not free from bias. intentional or not, there were many opportunities for missteps here.
racism isn't always direct insults and targeted violence. it's also erasure and exclusion, putting particular people in particular roles. it's often unconscious and not deliberately intended. similar to how bullying isn't always physical violence, racism can operate in all kinds of subtle ways that can be hard to explain to other people if they aren't the target of it. many explanations have also been given in these comments for why people have reacted negatively to this.
I liked these threads for more background info -
https://x.com/SPLover1863/status/2069382347972063697
https://x.com/SPLover1863/status/2069512321475465603
tl;dr - it's not simply the mere presence of slavery in the story that raised concerns, but how racial dynamics and historical conflicts during a controversial time would be treated by a creator who may not have had the knowledge, research, and feedback to avoid insensitivity or outright racism.
maybe if they really wanted to and were confident in delivering on the story, they would have continued. plenty of creators ignore feedback and reactions all the time.
After reading the promotional chapter, I honestly feel like a lot of people judged this one before seeing how it was actually handled. The slavery aspect didn’t feel romanticized to me at all — it was presented as part of the historical setting. The MC is portrayed more as a lost war survivor dealing with the aftermath of everything, not as someone being praised for the system he inherited.
Even the “I’m your humble slave, master” line reads as sarcasm and a challenge, not a romanticized dynamic. Maybe the story could have handled things really badly later, we’ll never know, but based on what we actually got, it felt more like a historical setting dealing with uncomfortable topics rather than glorifying them.
It’s not like there haven’t been stories in similar settings before, I think y’all just escalate more if it’s smth you all learned about in school for once.