“The most blessed of patriarchs”: Slavery in Peace

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From the course by University of Virginia

Age of Jefferson

240 оценки

University of Virginia

Age of Jefferson

240 оценки

This course provides an overview of Thomas Jefferson's work and perspectives presented by the University of Virginia in partnership with Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Together, UVA and Monticello are recognized internationally as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

From the lesson

Jefferson and Slavery

The man who wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” was a lifelong slaveowner whose affluence rested on the exploitation of hundreds of African Americans. In this module, we travel to Montalto, the mountain overlooking Jefferson’s home and plantation on Monticello, to try to gain some perspective on this great tension in Jefferson’s life and thought. Our goal will be neither simply to exonerate nor to castigate Jefferson, but rather to understand how he viewed slavery and his relationship to it. Only by confronting and considering this complicated, frustrating, and tragic chapter in American history can we come to a more complete and nuanced understanding of Thomas Jefferson and his legacy. As students attending the University Jefferson founded, it is especially important to engage this topic.

“The most blessed of patriarchs”: Slavery in Peace9:55

The Future of Slavery13:18

Meet the Instructors

Professor Peter S. Onuf
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor, Emeritus
Corcoran Department of History

I'd like to give you a an image that Jefferson has of himself

as we turn our discussion to Jefferson in peace time.

And this is a letter he writes to Alexander Hamilton's sister in law,

Angelica Schuyler Church in November 1793 just as Jefferson is thinking,

longingly about finally returning to Virginia to Monticello

after years of service in the Federal Government as

Secretary of State. And his bitter rivalry with Angelica

Skylar Churches. His brother in law, Alexander Hamilton,

Jefferson tells Mrs. Church That he sees himself at Monticello as

the most blessed of the patriarchs, looking out for the welfare of

my own children.

And he imagines his daughters settling there or nearby.

And their growing families. So what would be now three generations.

But he also and significantly, includes this statement.

I will look out for the welfare, for the happiness of those who provide for mine.

In this notion of patriarchy, Jefferson is including

his slaves.

It's a fascinating statement and its jarring in its juxtaposition to the

idea, that in effect a plantation is a battlefield or potentially a

battlefield that slaves are your enemies and they have every right to

hate you to want to kill you to wreak vengeance against you.

Here, somehow Jefferson looks

forward in 1793, looks forward to this idyllic

fantasy of a self-contained world over which he

presides, almost like a king. A patriarch.

What are the implications of this notion of patriarchy for Jefferson's own slaves?

Well,

the most important implication is this.

Slaves are property.

They're fungible, that is they, you can exchange a slave for other property.

You can move this property around.

And what you will do in the normal operation of

any plantation system, and Jefferson has of course, several farms

at Monticello, and he has plantations elsewhere, is you'll move

your slaves around to make the most rational and profitable

distribution of those slaves so that you can produce

the kind of wealth that will sustain this patriarchal fantasy.

Now Jefferson insists that he keeps

families, black families together when he can.

But what slavery does of course is to destroy families,

because they can be broken apart through sale, and perhaps more fundamentally

is to emasculate slave men who have no

authority in their own families. Think of the tragic

dissonance between Jefferson's claims to authority,

the claims of a father. Claims that still resonate for us in

modern American society. That is, well, fathers are losing it, but

in theory, fathers have authority. It's, it's still being overcome.

Through several waves of feminism.

But it used to be, and Jefferson thought it was natural for a father to rule.

And that maybe true, he could claim in his own

time within white families. But what about the black father?

Well, sometimes the black father wasn't even

the father because many children on plantations.

Were the children of their masters or as at

Montichello of white workers free workers. There was no sanctity to

the black family, it had no legal standing and black

men had no role, had no authority. And

as you might suspect, it's this denial of authority, this

Emasculation which leads to what Jefferson

fears will be, just black rage. Where would

the energy for revolution come from?

Where would that servile insurrection start?

It would start in the battered selves of black men,

black men who claimed their natural rights in the only way they

could, which is through violence through destroying their masters.

That's why Jefferson says we have to act preemptively.

We have to make them independent on our terms, on terms that

do not jeopardize the sanctity of our white households and families, which

do not jeopardize the property rights we still have in our slaves.

So let's think for a minute then about that idyllic fantasy, patriarchal fantasy

that Jefferson has about his life at Monticello and

what it means for the people he owns.

Well, when Jefferson comes home in 1793, when he comes home after being Secretary

of State, he wants to be a reformer, this is a Jefferson

that we're familiar with who wants to make things better, and as he

tells mrs Church I want to make things better for my slaves too.

But what's

striking here is he's not worried about their rising up and rebelling against

them, why? Because he's domesticating them, he's

incorporating them imaginatively at least into a capacious family, black and white.

He's domesticating them, meaning that he's emasculating the black man.

But what an image because Jefferson presides

over this world, as the ultimate authority.

But his authority is based in his benevolence.

He's blessed, because of what he does for his family, including, his slaves,

so that vision of course is completely at

odds with the notion of two nations at war, black

and white. And here we have Jefferson in peacetime as

a reformer making things better, one of the things he's going to do.

As a reformer, one of the things he's already done in his revisal

of the laws in 1779 is end primogeniture and entail in Virginia that is the large

estates being passed down through aristocratic families in

the future will have a broad distribution of large.

Public land will be made freely available, to enterprising

settlers, we will not keep great estates together in entail.

We will not privilege elder sons as we do in primogeniture,

instead, this is the great revolution in land owning in Virginia.

And its part, and parcel of a broad and

comprehensive plan of reforms, including the end of slavery.

But here's the irony about Jefferson's

land policy and about his reforms generally.

And that is

when large estates are broken up, as they are with the passage of generations.

Then, large slave holdings will be broken up

as well, there'll be a dispersal of slaves.

In fact, what is clear is that for

the first time there's a vigorous, robust market.

And human flesh within Virginia. A redistribution of slaves,

a democratic redistribution of slaves, so that

more and more White Virginians could either own

slaves, aspire to own slaves or hire slaves,

including some of Jefferson's slaves when they're underemployed.

On his plantations.

And Jefferson, for that matter, is himself busily involved

in the labor market, hiring slaves in the neighborhood.

The University of

Virginia was largely built by hired slaves.

So, democratization, the creation of a republic

in which all white citizens have authority.

They are the source of authority, they're consent makes the republic work.

This is a world, a new republic, in which slavery

becomes more entrenched and expands its scope.

Not only in Virginia but across the great Southwest.

Ultimately, across the Louisiana territory after its' purchase

from France in 1803 so that we have an empire of slavery.

[MUSIC]

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