You may have heard about Faux News and other right-wing media going on a multi-day freakout over the Monticello museum (that's what it is now) telling visitors that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
The reality is probably worse than you think. Jefferson enslaved 600 people in his lifetime, 400 of them at Monticello. Most people know that he fathered several children with a woman he enslaved, named Sally Hemmings. What most people don't know is that Sally Hemmings was his wife's half sister. That's right -- Jefferson's father-in-law raped one of his slaves, Jefferson inherited his daughter, then he in turn raped her. (Credit where it's due, as far as we know he didn't rape her until his wife had died.) That southern gentlemen had sex slaves, as well as enslaved field hands and household staff, was fully known and accepted, though it wasn't generally talked about.
Jefferson manumitted his children in his will, though he couldn't bring himself to do it while he was alive. Some of them decided to pass as white, others chose to identify as Black, and to this day the descendants of Sally Hemmings may be of either identity. Some cousins became estranged when they made different choices. By the way, Jefferson did not free Sally Hemmings in his will but to be fair, this may have had to do with Virginia law and enabling her to remain in her home, though that was an inferior quarters, not in the mansion.
It is completely indefensible to discuss Jefferson's legacy without seriously confronting his hypocrisy. Apparently Jefferson himself was conflicted about slavery but not conflicted enough to do anything about it. He encapsulates the fundamental contradiction of American history. He was responsible for much of the high minded rhetoric about freedom and equality, but when he wrote that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights, he meant, first of all men, not women; and he didn't actually mean all men, he meant white men of property. He didn't mean Africans, or Native Americans, or poor white men. He meant people like himself, who denied Freedom to Africans and life itself to indigenous people. To pretend that isn't true is an offense to humanity.
5 comments:
I don't mind teaching history, but as many now say, add some context.
These practices, as much as we think of them as abhorrent by today's standards, were the law and the culture of the time. Portugal, England, Spain and others also engaged in slave trade and some of these same practices. It was a world standard.
You're not doing students of history any favors by omitting these crucial facts and only looking back through the lens of contemporary standards.
For the record, it's "Hemings" (not "Hemmings"). Of little import, just mentioning it.
Also, it's fascinating that at Monticello, researchers have recently excavated the room right next to Jefferson's bedroom that is believed to have been where Sally slept (and was visited by him for sex). When Hemings was still a teenager, Jefferson, who was in France at the time, summoned her to him. She made the voyage and could have stayed in France and remained free there but, unfortunately, she allowed him to persuade her to return to Monticello, where she bore him six children (four survived to adulthood).
Obviously, Jefferson had feelings for Sally Hemings. But in the world of privilege that he inhabited, he could not marry her, and he was such a hypocrite that he probably would not have done so. He was a rich Caucasian man whose continued wealth and prominence depended upon the racist bedrock of the country he helped to found. Faced with a choice between decency/honesty and affluence/sexual gratification, he consistently chose the latter. To him, as to many people at the time, African Americans were not people; they were property. But there were always decent humans who knew the truth and honored it. He knew the truth, and partitioned his mind with cognitive dissonance. He is still responsible for his actions.
Incidentally, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, transacted under Jefferson, was illegal. But it was a great deal. Jefferson was a man of principle only in principle. In reality, he was strictly an opportunist and a predator. Yes, people are complicated. But they make choices.
Maud, while it is true that the U.S. was far the only slaveholding society -- and in fact European enslavement of Africans was built on African institutions of slavery -- there were in fact many Americans and Europeans who believed slavery was an abomination. It was a matter of great controversy in the Constitutional convention. But the point is not to condemn Jefferson specifically but rather to be honest about the history, which you certainly aren't denying, but rather emphasizing. In other words I don't really take your point.
In all fairness, let's all remember why the Republican party came into being.
So what? That was then, under Nixon the parties switched places on racial issues.
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