Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
Facts about Jefferson:
• Third President1801-1809
• Born: April 13, 1743 in Albemarle County,
Virginia
• Died: July 4, 1826 in Monticello in Virginia
• Married to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
• Author: The Declaration of Independence
• He was supported by slave labor his entire
life
• He purchased eight or more slaves while
president
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
•
PREJUDICE ON BEHALF OF WHITES AND RESENTMENT FOR
INJURIES SUSTAINED ON BEHALF OF BLACKS WILL FOREVER
DIVIDE THE TWO RACES: “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by
the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the
injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real
distinctions which nature has made; and many other
circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions
which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one
or the other race. To these objection, which are political, may be
added others, which are physical and moral.”
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
WHITES ARE PHYSICALLY MORE BEAUTIFUL:
“The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy
attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other
domestic animals; why not in that of man?”
The difference is fixed in nature
Color
fixed in nature
less hair of face & body
Stature—seem to be made for labor
secrete less by kidneys, more by glands
strong disagreeable odor
more tolerant of heat and less of cold
require less sleep
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
• Bravery
– Were they really brave or did they have no forethought, which kept them
from seeing danger.
• Love
– More ardent after their females
– Have more eagerness of desire than love
–“They are more ardent after their female;
but love seems with them to be more an
eager desire, than a tender delicate
mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their
griefs are transient. Those numberless
afflictions, which render it doubtful whether
heaven has given life to us in mercy or in
wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten
with them. In general, their existence
appears to participate more of sensation
than reflection.”
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
• Memory
– Equal to whites
– “…in memory they are
equal to the whites; in
reason much inferior…”
• Imagination
– Dull, tasteless and anomalous
• Arts
– No trace of art, painting or
sculpture, only narratives,
even though they had been
exposed.
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
• Music
– More gifted than whites in regards to tune & time, but no
evidence of composition of melody or harmony.
• Poetry
– Regarding Phyllis Whately, her compositions
were below dignity of criticism.
– Ignatius Sancho, approached nearer merit, but
his letters do him more honor.
– “Among the blacks is misery enough, God
knows, but no poetry.”
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
Blacks are inferior to the whites
in the endowments both of body
and mind.
• “…though for a century and a half
we have had under our eyes the races
of black and red men, they have never
yet been viewed by us as subjects of
natural history. I advance it therefore
as a suspicion only, that the blacks,
whether originally a distinct race, or
made distinct by time and
circumstances, are inferior to the
whites in the endowments both of
body and mind.”
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
When compared to Roman slaves, who
were white.
•Roman slavery was much more
appalling, but the slaves were often the
rarest artists.
•They excelled in science and were tutors
for the master’s children.
Roman
Slave
medallion
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
Slavery is harmful the to slave owners and their
posterity: “The whole commerce between master and slave
is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the
most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading
submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to
imitate it…”
“The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of
smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and
thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny,
cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.”
Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
Slavery Damages the Moral Fiber of the Country:
“With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For
in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make
another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of
slaves of a very small proportion are ever seen to labor.”
“…I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his
justice cannot sleep for ever; that considering numbers, nature and
natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange
of situation, is among possible events…”
A detail from the cover of the booklet
produced for the June 22-25
symposium on "Thomas Jefferson
and Slavery" shows the U.Va.
founder (left) and Isaac Jefferson, a
slave who became a blacksmith and
later overseer of Monticello in 1797.
He was the only slave ever to hold
this position there.
Thomas Jefferson is
believed to have fathered
children with his slave,
Sally Hemings
http://www.cnn.com/US/99
05/17/jefferson.reunion/
http://www.michaelcosm.com/sub_feat/feat_jeff.html