thomas jefforson race and slavery essay

thomas jefforson race and slavery essay

The Impact of Thomas Jefferson’s Views on Race and Slavery

1. Introduction

Thirdly, the section labeled “The Black and White of It” will compare and contrast Jefferson’s views of the white and black races. This includes his support of the mindset of gradual emancipation and that of whites and blacks achieving freedom and equality in the United States. To do so, Jefferson proposed to utilize the previously acquired Western lands that the government had gained as Indian territory and “act… with others in the expunging from the earth that…only blot of our country, with the destruction of the Indians”. This would provide a suitable environment for a peaceful change in status for the black to the white man because, as Jefferson had believed, “deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained, would divide us into and partial to one, and partial to the other” (Jefferson, 2nd Autobiography). This change would end in a dominantly white America on new soil free of an interracial history step by step, leaving the Negro behind. An analysis of Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on this subject will conclude the section.

This is followed by the section entitled “Jefferson and Slavery” which entails. In continuing with the effort to understand the mindset of Jefferson, a section category labeled “A State of Mind” will demonstrate his view of the black man in the context of equality with the white man, his discouraging outlook on intermingling of the two races, his hope for emancipation and expatriation, and his ultimate selfishness in regard to the peculiar institution. This section, an obvious focal point of the paper, will use many direct quotations from letters of Thomas Jefferson to acquire the most accurate portrayal of his thoughts.

This essay unfolds a critical analysis of Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts on race and slavery. Moreover, his initial two drafts of the Declaration of Independence are contrasted in their implication about the Negro’s. This paper is divided into various sections beginning with a brief biography which will acquaint the reader with the life of the author. The accomplishment of this goal is essential to understanding the mindset and intentions of Thomas Jefferson as he furthered his career.

2. Thomas Jefferson’s Beliefs on Race and Slavery

The first misconception about Jefferson is the relatively benign consequence that he believed in the incapacity of blacks and his attitude that slavery was a harmful and tedious toil. During the course of his life, he maintained a steady position that blacks were innately inferior to whites but, for the most part, he could only speculate on the intellectual and moral differences between the two races. His opinions eventually hardened. Despite aspirations for the eventual emancipation of slaves, he held the tacit belief that their removal from the United States was the best solution to the problem of integration of the races. To this end, he made several attempts to create colonization plans for the emancipated slaves, but none were successful. His views on the race issue were later catalogued by Samuel Knott as the theory of difference. This was the idea that two races could not live peaceably and equally in the same country because of such a difference in their condition. As time and the race problem proved his speculation right, this caused Jefferson to be pessimistic on the issue of emancipation. In later life, his attitude turned to the belief that slavery was a natural condition and for the blacks, a beneficial one. He wrote of his fear of retribution of blacks against whites and also stated that the two races, living together, would only result in the blacks’ suffering at the hands of their white oppressors. This conviction towards the end of his life was a contradictory one to his many acts for the cause of abolition. Although it was a strange twist to Jefferson’s evolving theory of slavery, it was probably best that Jefferson did not try to rationalize this contradiction and left it to be resolved later by his country in a way that he knew not.

3. The Influence of Jefferson’s Views on American Society

In comparison with his near neglect of the race question, Jefferson’s views on slavery itself carried far greater significance. His general abhorrence of involuntary servitude and his belief in maintenance of republican liberties were in constant conflict with the practice of slavery. His solution to this dilemma was gradual emancipation and deportation of the slaves. He never freed his own slaves.

His views on race, if somewhat condescending, were never inferior. He believed slavery had reduced the black man to a state below that which he once held in Africa, and that through mixture with the white race his progeny might raise to an equal status. Believing it best to effect emancipation through deportation, he at no point outlined political equality for the Negro in America. This might appear a heinous betrayal to modern blacks, but it is necessary to weigh this against his living situation. The small number of freed blacks living amongst a larger hostile white population presented a recipe for disaster. Jefferson was a practical man.

If we are to believe that Jefferson freed only a few of his many slaves, and that only at the behest of his debts, then of course we may conclude that his life and works are no better than an unwitting satire on the highest expressed American ideals. To deny, however, that he held important influence on the future of the Negro race in America is near fatal to our understanding of the race itself; for Jefferson was nothing if not a theorist. His views on slave/race relations were expressly stated and form a consistent body of thought.

4. Critiques and Controversies Surrounding Jefferson’s Legacy

The significance of Jefferson’s time spent in France with James Hemings lies in Hemings’ return with Jefferson to Virginia. In France, Hemings had been influenced by French culture and expressed discontentment while in the United States with the condition of his people. He petitioned for his freedom from Jefferson several times. Jefferson suggested the thought of emancipation and even recruitment of enough slaves to revolt and form a colony in Virginia in a letter between his friend Edward Coles. This idea did not appeal to Hemings, who had a desire for free blacks to better their condition in the United States. In Paris of 1786, Jefferson made a 12-month loan agreement with the Comte de Buffon and arranged for Hemings to perfect his French culinary skills as well as to be trained in the art of French cookery under the Comte de Buffon. At the end of the loan term, Jefferson would receive a 600-pound fee and the services of James Hemings. This exchange was never fulfilled as Buffon died between the time of the agreement.

Jefferson’s retirement was once again cut short in 1784 after being asked to represent America’s minister to France. Jefferson reluctantly obliged and joined his family in France. His two youngest children accompanied him, as well as a slave named James Hemings. In a 1784 letter from Jefferson to a friend, he noted, “I am of the opinion that when a child is grown up, it is wrong for a father to follow him with conditions, against his own consent and the interests of his family”. Yet Jefferson had arranged for James to “apprentice” under a French cook so that he would be trained in French cuisine. Upon hearing of a slave’s easement of slavery to a five-year position, Jefferson consented to allow James Hemings to negotiate slavery freedom with his French master. If the negotiations failed, Hemings was to return to Jefferson and be a free man. If Jefferson made these provisions to secure freedom for James Hemings, it would serve as the only time that he’d attempt to free a slave outside of a will and testament.

5. Conclusion: Reevaluating Thomas Jefferson’s Role in History

Jefferson remains the most consummate example of a perennial theme in the construction of America’s national identity, in which the potential exists to promise liberation and justice to all while never intending that such a process lead to a truly inclusive society. The power of his words and the symbolic use to which his life and deeds have been put and utilized by so many should continue to oblige us to confront this particular aspect of our history and its relation to the possibilities for creating a society where tyrannies may not merely be changed in force and form but also in the hearts and minds of people.

Jefferson’s refusal to agree to permit a document of his authorship to call for the abolition of the slave trade within the Declaration of Independence, his insistent claims that Blacks were incapable of sustaining complex civic order or of participating in the rights and duties of citizenship, and the manner in which he quickly dispatched the Haitian revolution and its ideals from the public sphere when he acquired the Louisiana Purchase show a discomforting consistency as to his thoughts on race and social policy. That Jefferson could pen the inspiring poetry of hope and expectation from the end of his Query on a recent edited by his young friend Edward Coles into a state of Virginia that would eventually send on his own epitaph that is the sole of the century which of the two revolutions Morse speculating that future generations may mix them up.

It is clear that Thomas Jefferson’s views hold a special and paradoxical place in American public life, and they deserve serious reevaluation. The portrait of American history that Jefferson’s words and deeds created is a powerful tool for future generations to understand how the United States originated and its core ideology during that time. His personal contradictions should also remind us to be humble about our individual abilities to achieve perfection in our own social and political lives.