In response to Henry Wiencek's first message of Dec. 19, 2011, Kevin
Hardwick wrote on Dec 19, 2011:
"[I]f Jefferson did in fact believe that persons raised as slaves
could not well fend for themselves, then it would not be especially
surprising that he would draw the conclusions that Turner asserts that
he did [regarding James Hemings's suicide as confirmation of that
belief]. The more troublesome issue, then, at least so far as
Turner’s arguments go, is not the plausibility of the inference he
ascribes to Jefferson, but rather the fact that, as you [Henry
Wiencek] say, there is no evidence that Jefferson actually drew that
conclusion."
Without more research than time permits (Gordon-Reed's Hemingses of
Monticello being the obvious first stop), I can't shed further light
on any conclusions TJ did or did not draw from Hemings's suicide. It
is true, however, that he repeatedly expressed the belief that those
who had been brought up in slavery could not well fend for themselves
in freedom. The estimable Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia conveniently
supplies the following quotations, at http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-slavery-and-emancipation
:
1789 January 26. (to Edward Bancroft). "As far as I can judge from the
experiments which have been made, to give liberty to, or rather, to
abandon persons whose habits have been formed in slavery is like
abandoning children. Many quakers in Virginia seated their slaves on
their lands as tenants. They were distant from me, and therefore I
cannot be particular in the details, because I never had very
particular information. I cannot say whether they were to pay a rent
in money, or a share of the produce: but I remember that the landlord
was obliged to plan their crops for them, to direct all their
operations during every season and according to the weather, but, what
is more afflicting, he was obliged to watch them daily and almost
constantly to make them work, and even to whip them. A man's moral
sense must be unusually strong, if slavery does not make him a thief.
He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with
difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force.
These slaves chose to steal from their neighbors rather than work.
They became public nuisances, and in most instance were reduced to
slavery again. . . ."
1814 August 25. (to Edward Coles). ". . . For, men, probably of any
colour, but of this color we know, brought up from their infancy
without necessity for thought or forecast, are by their habits
rendered as incapable as children of taking care of themselves, and
are extinguished promptly wherever industry is necessary for raising
the young. In the mean time they are pests in society by their
idleness, and the depredations to which this leads them. . . ."
I seem to recall at least one other letter in which TJ expressed the
same opinion, but can't put my hands on it at the moment.
--Jurretta Heckscher
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"I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter."
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