I had a Facebook exchange with an old friend the other day. My friend is liberal, free-thinking, and educated, and a good and spiritual person. He was decrying the “cancel culture,” which he defines as “erasing” people from history. He was fine with removing the Confederate statues, but he felt “differently” about historical figures like Washington and Jefferson, who he felt needed to be looked at “in the context of their time.”
Like millions of other Americans, he was saying that you can’t fairly apply today’s standards of beliefs or behavior to people who lived two hundred years ago. The implication is that today’s standard of beliefs or behavior didn’t exist then, or weren’t accepted to the degree they are now.
Well, okay, let’s take a look, then, at Thomas Jefferson. He is a good candidate because he made some remarkable contributions to this country and therefore could never be “erased” from our history, he had conflicted beliefls about racism (still the biggest issue in America), he had the opportunity to address racism in his country, he is a person who behaved monstrously, and because if we don’t understand a person as historically prominent as Jefferson for what he really was, we have no future as a nation.
We have forgotten how long humans have debated slavery. Movements to end the practice of slavery began in Europe in the thirteenth century, In 1315, Spain abolished slavery (inside its border, not in their colonies). The Catholic Church condemned slavery in the seventeenth century. The debate about slavery in American began with the first settlements. In 1732, Englishman James Oglethorpe founded the American colony of Georgia and abolishes slavery there. A strong abolitionist movement was founded in Canada during first half of the eighteenth century.
Let’s map Jefferson’s actions to what was going on in his world during his own lifetime.
Thomas Jefferson is born in Virginia in 1743.
The first court cases in the British Isles challenging the legality of slavery take place in Scotland in 1755 and 1769.
In 1772, Jefferson marries Martha Wayles. The following year, Martha’s father John Wayles dies, and Martha Jefferson inherits several of his slaves, including an infant named Sally Hemmings and her brother James. Under Virginia law, Sałly and James Hemmings are black slaves. But in fact, they are three-quarters European, because both their grandfather and their father were white men who had sexually abused slave concubines and had fathered children with them. Sally and James Hemmings are also the half-sister and half-brother of Jefferson’s wife Martha, as a man named John Wales is the father of all three of them, and this fact is not only known to all but explains why the two slaves move to Monticello with Martha,
The history of the attempts to end slavery in the American colonies begins with Thomas Jefferson in 1775. The slaveholder Jefferson includes strong anti-slavery language in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, but other delegates remove it. What does survive is his famous preamble: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The American colonies proclaim themselves to be a sovereign nation, and the Revolutionary War against Great Britain begins.
In 1775 Jefferson’s close friend Benjamin Franklin helps found the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first recognized organization for abolitionists in the United States.
In 1778, Vermont becomes the first state to abolish slavery.
In 1780, Pennsylvania abolishes slavery.
In 1782, Jefferson’s wife Martha dies.
In 1784, Jefferson is appointed as the American envoy to France. He moves to Paris with his household, which includes Sally Hemmings, who is twelve, and her brother James. While in Paris, Jefferson has both Sally and James tutored in French. James Hemmings, then 19, is also trained as a chef. Jefferson is heavily influenced by his experience living in France during the Age of Enlightenment. He becomes familiar with the writings of several French philosophers who are opposed to slavery and its moral and economical justifications, including Montesquieu and Brissot, who founds the Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des Amis des Noirs) to work for the abolition of slavery.
In 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is formed in Great Britain, and abolitionism becomes an issue in the parliamentary campaign.
In 1789, Jefferson impregnates Sally Hemmings for the first time. She is 16, so this is legally child rape. Slavery is abolished in France that same year, which means that Sally and James Hemmings can petition the government for their freedom. Jefferson becomes concerned that Sally and James Hemmings will learn of this and writes about his apprehension to another American slaveholder who is a similar position. Jefferson pays Sally Hemmings a monthly wage while they are in Paris so as not to run afoul of the new prohibition of slavery in France. (According to an 1873 interview with Sally’s son Madison, Sally does learn about her right to sue for her freedom and considers doing just that.) In the end, she returns to Virginia with Jefferson after he promises her that he will free her children when they reach the age of twenty-one. Back in Virginia at his estate at Monticello, Jefferson has a passageway built between his room and hers so that he can visit her at night without disturbing the household.
In 1791, Jefferson accepts President Washington’s invitation to serve as Secretary of State. This means moving his household to Philadelphia, which is the nation’s capitol. But slavery is banned in Pennsylvania,, so, to stay on the good side of the law in that state, Jefferson has to pay Sally and James Hemings salaries during his stay there.
In 1793, Jefferson decides to return to Virginia. James Hemmings, Jefferson’s son and chef, is understandably reluctant to return to a slave state, so he negotiates a signed contract with Jefferson that includes this promise: “Having been at great expence [sic] in having James Hemings taught the art of cookery, desiring to befriend him, and to require from him as little in return as possible, I hereby do promise & declare, that if the said James should go with me to Monticello in the course of the ensuing winter, when I go to reside there myself, and shall there continue until he shall have taught such person as I shall place under him for that purpose to be a good cook, this previous condition being performed, he shall thereupon be made free by which he will gain freedom after training a replacement chef at Monticello to take his place.”
In 1792, France grants full citizenship free people of color in that country.
In 1796, during the nation’s first contested presidential election, the newspaper “Gazette of the United States” publishes an article accusing Jefferson of carrying on an affair with Sally Hemings.
In 1796, Jefferson grants his son James his freedom.
In 1801, Jefferson is elected President.
In 1802, political journalist James Callender writes in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson has for many years "kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves." "Her name is Sally," Callender writes, adding that Jefferson had "several children" by her. Callender's article spreads the story widely, it appears in political cartoons, and it is taken up by Jefferson's Federalist opponents and is published in many newspapers. Jefferson does not respond to the charge, publicly or privately..
1804 politica cartoon about Jefferson and Sally Hemmings
By 1804, all the northern states in the United States have abolished slavery.
In 1804, Haiti, a former French slave colony, declares its independence and abolishes slavery. This causes shockwaves in the United States. It energizes the abolitionist movement and creates a surge of fear about slave rebellions among American slaveowners.
In 1807, the British Parliament outlaws slavery in the British Empire. That same year President Jefferson signs the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, which means that no new slaves can be imported to the United States. Jefferson has sired five children with Sally Hemmings by this time.
During the period between 1810 and 1826, slavery is abolished in most of Latin America.
During these years, Sally Hemings keeps her children close by while she works as a chambermaid and seamstress at Monticello. According to her son Madison, while young, the children "were permitted to stay about the 'great house', and only required to do such light work as going on errands.” At the age of 14, each of the children begin their training: the brothers as carpenters, and Harriet as a spinner and weaver. The three boys all learn to play the violin, which Jefferson himself plays. Several people close to Thomas Jefferson or the Monticello community believe that he is the father of Sally Hemings's children, and there are several contemporary accounts noting how closely Hemmings’ children resemble Jefferson.
In 1820 Jefferson privately supports the Missouri Compromise, believing that it may help end slavery.
In 1821, Jefferson writes this about slavery in his autobiography: "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, then these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government."
In 1822, at the age of 24, Sally and Jefferson’s son Beverley leaves Monticello and heads north. Per Jefferson’s promise to Sally, he is not pursued. His sister Harriet Hemings is allowed to leave the next year, after turning 21. Beverley and Harriet, being seven-eighths European in ancestry, both enter white society in Washington, D.C., and each marries well.
In an 1824 letter, Jefferson laments that the nation cannot find a practical way to abolish slavery, writing "But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”
Jefferson dies bankrupt in 1826. George Washington freed all of his slaves in his will, but Jefferson’s will frees only the five male slaves from the extended Hemmings family, including his sons Madison and Eston. Jefferson’s slaves and and other property are sold to pay off his debts.
Sally Hemings is not granted her freedom in Jefferson’s will. She is withheld from auction and allowed to leave Monticello by Jefferson's daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph—who is also Sally’s niece. Hemings lives free in Virginia with her sons Madison and Eston in nearby Charlottesville for the next nine years until she dies in 1835.
Both Madison and Eston Hemmings marry feee women of color in Charlottesville. After their mother's death, they and their families move to Ohio, where they are listed as “mulattos” in census records. Even though he is legally a free person, Eston Hemings and his family move to Madison, Wisconsin, to be farther away from slave catchers. He lives as a white man from that time on, changes his name to Eston H. Jefferson, and becomes a professional musician and bandleader.
Madison Hemings' family are the only Hemings descendants who continue to identify with the black community. Over time, some of their descendants pass into the white community, while others continue to identify as blacks.
After Jefferson’s death, his white family begins vigorously denying the allegations about Sally Hemmings. Jefferson’s grandson claims in the 1850s that the father of Sally’s children was Peter Carr, Jefferson’s nephew, and this story becomes the accepted history.
In 1873, Madison Hemming is interviewed by an Ohio newspaper and states that Thomas Jefferson was his father. "I was named Madison by the wife of James Madison, who was afterwards President of the United States,” Madison states. “Mrs. Madison happened to be at Monticello at the time of my birth, and begged privilege of naming me, promising my mother a fine present for the honor. She consented, and Mrs. Madison dubbed me by the name I now acknowledge, but like many promises of white folks to the slaves she never gave my mother anything.” Eston Hemmings also tells interviewers that Jefferson was his father.
For the next 150 years historians deny Jefferson’s paternity.
This begins to change with the publication of Annette Gordon-Reed’s book “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy,” that analyzed the historiography of the controversy.
In 1998 a DNA analysis shows no match between Peter Carr’s descendants and Sally Hemmings’ descendants, but the test do show a match between Thomas Jefferson’s descendants and a descendant of Eston Hemmings.
In 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello, conducts an independent review that concludes that Jefferson was probably the father of all of Sally Hemmings’ children, but other Jefferson descendants continue to resist this finding, with some of them fingering Jefferson’s brother Randolph as the father.
So what is the “context” by which we should appropriately judge Jefferson?
Did Thomas Jefferson make enormous contributions to American history? Absolutely. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, a document that has inspired millions, served as envoy to France, secretary of state, vice president, and president. He engineered the Louisiana Purchase and financed the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Did he live in a Virginia society that legalized slavery and turned a blind eye to the abuse of slaves as sexual concubines? Yes.
Was Jefferson a racist? Obviously, he was much worse than that.
Did he live in a world that unquestioningly accepted slavery? No. The debate about the abolition of slavery began in Europe in the fourteenth century. It was condemned by Catholic Popes. During Jefferson’s lifetime it was outlawed in most of Europe, including France, a country that Jefferson greatly admired, and in most of the United States. Jefferson was a Southerner, yes, but he was also an Anamerican—and a well-traveled, learned one to boot. Many of Jefferson’s friends, such as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, were committed abolitionists. Jefferson himself believed that slavery was wrong, but, unlike Washington, he did not free his slaves (except for his own slave children) upon his death.
Were these base actions of Jefferson’s rare and unusual—out of character? Hardly. Owning slaves and sexually abusing them was a part of Jefferson’s daily existence for most of his adult life.
Did Jefferson’s sordid personal life have an impact on his politics—specifically, his views on race? Of course. He was unable to square the circle of his racism and his interracial family, and this is reflected in his inconsistent and hypocritical views on race and his politics.
Did Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemmings lead him to commit acts that were considered monstrous during his life? Yes. Jefferson’s sexual appetite led him to rape a child who was his wife’s half sister, father six children out of wedlock, keep those children as his own household slaves during his lifetime, use the prospect of freeing his slave children as a negotiating tool to keep his slave concubine from leaving him, maintain a fiction of paying his own slave children wages so as not to run afoul of the law, and to not free the mother of his six children even after he died. These were all horrific acts (if not uncommon ones) even according the morality of the time, and the fact that their existence was used against him politically, and then denied for 150 years to protect his reputation, is proof of that such acts were far from acceptable in American society.
Is there really any kind of historical “context” that could ameliorate or soften Jefferson’s horrific acts? No. Jefferson’s long catalogue of behavior agalinst slaves, many of whom where his own children, were never officially accepted as legitimate behavior in early America.
Okay, so Jefferson was both an illustrious champion of freedom AND a loathsome scoundrel. So what?
It’s important to accept trhe historical reality of both sides of Jefferson because his personal duality is a perfect mirror of the history of the United States, which is both revolutionary and despicable. THIS is the discussion millions of us are trying at long last to have in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. If blacks and whites can’t talk about the real Thomas Jefferson, we’re sunk.
U.S, Senator Tom Cotton, who has railed against “cancel culture,” has introduced the Saving of American History Act of 2020, a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts. Schools that teach the 1619 Project would also be ineligible for federal professional-development grants. Nikole Hannah-Jones, who oversaw the 1619 Project, describes it this way:
The United States is a nation founded on both an ideal and a lie. Our Declaration of Independence, approved on July 4, 1776, proclaims that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” But the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true for the hundreds of thousands of black people in their midst. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” did not apply to fully one-fifth of the country. Yet despite being violently denied the freedom and justice promised to all, black Americans believed fervently in the American creed. Through centuries of black resistance and protest, we have helped the country live up to its founding ideals. And not only for ourselves — black rights struggles paved the way for every other rights struggle, including women’s and gay rights, immigrant and disability rights.
In other words, the 1619 Project is focused on exposing just the kind of monstrous schizophrenia about race that Jefferson embodied. (Just yesterday, Cotton called slavery “a necessary evil” in the history of the United States. He only got the second half right. )
In an interview in 2000, the historian Annette Gordon-Reed said of the change in historical scholarship about Jefferson and Hemings: "Symbolically, it's tremendously important for people ... as a way of inclusion. Nathan Huggins said that the Sally Hemings story was a way of establishing black people's birthright to America."
Having this conversation is not “cancel culture.” No one will ever erase Thomas Jefferson from American history, whether you believe that there should be statues of Jefferson or monuments to him or not. The outraged claims of “cancel culture” are just the latest in a cursed series of dodges that we Americans have used for over four hundred years to avoid having a real conversation or historical accounting of it. And until we have this conversation, there is no possible way forward for us.
