It can easily be seen how being black is an extreme burden, even when one has been freed. Linda's lover was a free man of upstanding character who truly loved Linda and "believed her to be a virtuous woman". He saw how beautiful she was and wished to marry her. He wished to have a family as any free man should be able to do. But still he feels the turmoil of his race, because the majority of African-Americans at this time are enslaved and very few masters would allow a slave, especially a woman to marry a free man. So while in theory this man is free, he is still a slave to race and the limits it puts on the way he can live his life.
Slave owners at this time found it appalling for a slave to love another, especially a freed black.
"'Do you love this nigger?' said he, abruptly.
'Yes sir'
'How dare you tell me so!' he exclaimed, in great wrath."
Here the slaves are not necessarily caught between cultures, but between human and animals. They are denied the right to love another of the same species, a basic human emotion. Slavery is dehumanizing not only in that the slaves are forced to work like animals, but also that they are expected to act and feel as animals, with no human emotion. And this causes great conflict between the slaves and their owners. It is criminal to take away the Africans peoples culture as slave owners sought to do, but it is even more horrendous to rob them of the simple emotions that separate them from actual beasts of burden.
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