The Chris Moeller Archives

Jefferson and slavery

Musician and author Ned Sublette wrote a tremendous book released last year entitled "The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square." It's a political, cultural, and musical history of that city from the Spanish "discovery" and colonization period, beginning in the 16th century, until essentially the 1820s.

I was particularly informed by the chapter on Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President and card-carrying "founding father" of the United States, architect of the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, fully one-fourth of Mount Rushmore, and author of these words in respect to the African "race":

The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites... Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigation of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.

Sublette essentially argues in this section of the book that any attempt to categorize Jefferson as conflicted on the issue of slavery is a whitewash (so to speak) of history. It's a common defense of the former president, with all he symbolizes for American history, to call the matter "complicated." Jefferson, after all, occasionally expressed apprehension in writing about the righteousness of chattel slavery, and he freed some of his slaves at the time of his death, but Sublette looks deeper while addressing head-long one of the most controversial subjects in American history-- the rumored relationship between Jefferson and his most-prized slave, Sally Hemings, whom the Master allegedly impregnated...

Sublette: A November 1998 article in Nature Magazine summarized DNA tests that showed, in the author's words, that "the simplest and most probable explanations for our molecular findings are that Thomas Jefferson, rather than one of the Carr brothers (blogger's note: Jefferson's nephews), was the father of Eston Hemings Jefferson [the last of Sally's children]."... For me, the question the Jefferson/Hemings story brings up is not whether he fathered her children, but why did American historians kick and scream so hard for so long that this couldn't possibly be true? Of course it could be true. Whether Jefferson exercised his option or not, he could have sex with Sally Hemings whenever he wanted. The matter of her consent was irrelevant, because she couldn't refuse. Because that's what slavery was.

A page later:

If the matter were tried in a court of law, with a presumption of innocence and an expensive law firm to defend Jefferson, (which is how a number of mainstream American historians seem to have seen their role in this case), we might have to let him off the hook for lack of definitive proof. On the other hand, if he were a poor man with substantial circumstantial evidence against him and a public defender, he'd accept a plea bargain, the way some 95 percent of criminal cases in the United States are resolved now, and get off with a guilty plea and a reduced sentence. But then, no one has accused Jefferson of a crime. After all, you can do with your property as you like.

According to the author, Statesman Jefferson favored the idea of teaching slaves to read, but opposed teaching them to write. This was a common notion at the time because being able to write allowed slaves to forge passes to leave the plantations. It wasn't a mark of great liberal thinking on Jefferson's part. He shared another of the typical attitudes of the day too: that Americans were stuck with their Africans even as they feared a violent uprising along the lines of the bloody slave revolt in Haiti (then called Saint-Domingue) during the last decade of the 18th century. It was the fault of the British for transporting them to the colonies in the first place, according to this train of thought, and it was now impractical to round them all up and deport them back to Africa. If they couldn't be expelled, they couldn't be freed.

Though he conceded the eventual inevitability of emancipation, Jefferson was married as much to the institution of slavery in his livelihood and his identity as he was in his political outlook, Sublette argues:

Thomas Jefferson-- amateur violinist, revolutionary, politician, farmer, nail manufacturer, architect, philosopher, Jefferson Davis's namesake, and grandfather of the Confederacy's minister of war (George Wythe Randolph... born at Monticello in 1818)-- owned over six hundred other people during his lifetime, between one and two hundred of them at any one time, including four who were probably his own children. He lived his entire life dependent on the income of slave labor. As was the norm for planters, Jefferson was both insolvent and fabulously wealthy. He was not a man to deny himself anything. Monticello was proof of that. When he remodeled Monticello, he mortgaged his slaves to cover his expenses. That was a common enough practice; plantation owners lived in constant debt, and their most visible asset was not their land... Their best, and most liquid, asset was their Negroes, who formed the basis of their credit.

So again, we're back to the major theme of today's America-- politicians in service to the ideals they value highest-- the protection of personal property and unimpeded acquisition. However immoral an institution may be, it must endure if there's capital to be protected. Today, the facts about Thomas Jefferson still get swept underneath the nation's living room rug, and there's some new revisionism blooming as well-- the suggestion put forth by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and others that the South did not fight the Civil War over the issue of slavery.

This is an absurd notion. Indeed, it had everything to do with slavery. For the South, it was about perpetuating white supremacy and an economic system in which slave labor was the engine. Lincoln was assassinated by a white supremacist. That the majority-poor whites of the South were not large-scale planters or may not have had the financial means to even own slaves, and therefore had no reason to fight to maintain the institution of such is arguable but ultimately immaterial. Wealthy elites make the wars, as they still do today, and poor folks fight for their purposes and for their benefit.

The history of slavery in the United States requires continued discussion and debate as we try to come to grips with its legacy-- this is true for everyone regardless of skin color or whether they reside above or below the Mason-Dixon line. There's still much pain and pride at play, as well as the desire by all for that vital sense of belonging. But it has to be history that we're discussing and debating, not myth, and there's too much myth still surrounding Thomas Jefferson, who may have possibly authored the line "all men are created equal," but didn't live the concept a single day of his life. Fortunately, in our quest for reconciliation, we have the common ground of all being Americans. We're all beneficiaries of the spoils of evil deeds.

posted by CM @ 7:16 PM