Reference no: EM133607041

Thomas Jefferson was one of the most influential figures in all of American History. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and his successful political career culminated in 1801 with the presidency of the United States.

As an influential and respected politician, president and citizen, Jefferson could have influenced national discussions regarding slavery. However, his comments on the topic sometimes puzzled Americans of his day, and they continue to perplex historians today. A number of Jefferson's well-known comments regarding slavery are posted below.

It has also been alleged that Jefferson had children with an enslaved person. Review the evidence supporting this claim, and decide if you think the claims are credible.

After reading the following pages, post a response of about one decent paragraph in length. Some possible questions to possibly consider as you read and post are as follows: Were Jefferson's views on slavery inconsistent? Did Jefferson's views on slavery evolve over time? Was Jefferson being honest when he publicly shared his opinions regarding slavery? Do you think Jefferson fathered four children with an enslaved person named Sally Hemmings? Is there any way to determine if the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemmings was one love and respect, or one of abuse? Your post might address one or two of these questions, or you might want to post something complete different but relevant to the topic.

Two things to keep in mind as you read: 1) Jefferson owned more than 200 slaves when he died. 2) Jefferson did make documented attempts to capture enslaved people who escaped from his plantation (see photo attached to this discussion)

Thomas Jefferson Quotes Regarding Slavery

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature...." ~1770

"The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative." ~1774

King George III "has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare... is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain." ~1776

"I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks ... are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind." ~1785

"I congratulate you... on the law of your state [South Carolina] for suspending the importation of slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to prevent it for ever. This abomination must... end, and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it." ~1787

"I am very sensible of the honor you propose to me of becoming a member of the [French] society for the abolition of the slave trade. You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not only of the trade but of the condition of slavery: and certainly nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object. But the influence and information of the friends to this proposition in France will be far above the need of my association. I am here as a public servant; and those whom I serve having never yet been able to give their voice against this practice, it is decent for me to avoid too public a demonstration of my wishes to see it abolished." ~1788

"No person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained... and to find that in this respect [African-Americans] are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunity for the development of their genius were not favorable and those of exercising it still less so." ~1809

"There is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity." ~ 1814

"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." ~1821

"I wish that [plight of Indians] was the only blot in our moral history, and that no other race had higher charges to bring against us." ~1824

The abolition of the evil is not impossible: it ought never therefore to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object." ~1825

Did Thomas Jefferson have an affair with one of his slaves?

Thomas Jefferson was married to a Woman named Martha Wayles. Martha was not a healthy individual, and she died during the birth of their sixth child. By all accounts, Jefferson was devastated, refusing to even leave his bedroom for three weeks after her funeral.

Jefferson never remarried, but it has been alleged that he had a long-standing relationship with an enslaved person he owned, a woman named Sally Hemmings, and the two of them might have even had four children together. The allegations are based on the following information which may or may not be sufficient proof --

• According to one source, the four children of Sally Hemmings "were permitted to stay about the 'great house,' and only required to do such light work as going on errands."

• In his will, Jefferson granted freedom to Sally's two youngest sons when they reached their 21st birthday.

• Jefferson granted permission to Sally's daughter's to "run away".

• In the 1850s, Thomas Jefferson's grandson, said that all of Sally's children resembled his grandfather.

• In 1870, Sally Hemming's youngest son claimed in an interview that Thomas Jefferson was his father.

• In 1873, a former enslaved person from Jefferson's plantation told an Ohio Newspaper that the Hemmings story was true.

More interesting information:

• DNA testing in 1998 found that a man in the Jefferson Family was the father of at least one child of Sally Hemmings.

• Thomas Jefferson came to "own" Sally Hemming through his marriage to Martha Wayles. Sally was originally owned by the Wayles family.

• In a complicated and somewhat disturbing twist: Historians now believe that Sally Hemmings was conceived when her mother, a woman named Betty Hemmings, was raped by the owner of her plantation. It just so happened, that this owner was John Wayles, the father of Thomas Jefferson's wife Martha. This would mean that Martha Wayles, the wife of Thomas Jefferson, and Sally Hemming had the same father, John Wayles, and thus they were half-sisters.