Henry, I completely agree with you that the two slavery-related parts
of this letter (TJ to Edward Bancroft, Jan. 26, 1789) should be
approached together.
However, I can't agree that there is an insoluble contradiction
between the two. As you can see from the complete text, below, TJ's
expressed expectation "that they will be good citizens" clearly
applies only to "[t]heir children," who "shall be brought up . . . in
habits of property and foresight." As the next sentence demonstrates,
it equally clearly does not apply to "their [the children's] fathers":
i.e., those who have been brought up in slavery, and who may well (TJ
stipulates) need to have their autonomy curtailed beyond even the
dependence on whites implied by their mandatory economic
"intermingling" with the Germans.
So I see no inconsistency on this point. TJ consistently refused to
accept that those brought up in slavery could as a general rule be
counted on to behave like responsible adults if freed. He also
consistently maintained (in effect; he did not use these terms) that
this disability was not genetic, but environmental, and so need not
affect subsequent generation(s) provided that they were properly
educated. (Note that in his mind the ability to be educated to be
responsible members of society is not the same thing as intellectual
equality with whites.) That is why his proposals for general
emancipation advocated the necessity of some type of education to
prepare the young for freedom.
The only difference, conceptually, between the views in this letter
and all TJ's other remarks on the subject is the location where this
development into a socially responsible community should take place.
That difference is crucial, but it is irrelevant to TJ's views about
the effects of slavery on black people's social and civic capacities.
In all his other statements, TJ insists that this development into an
independent, functional community must not take place in Virginia/the
U.S. Writing this letter, in France--where, one can't help noting, he
was not surrounded and outnumbered by black people as he was at
Monticello--he briefly allowed himself to imagine otherwise. In the
absence of any action to implement it (what about recruiting those
German peasants?--never another word), I am inclined to think the plan
outlined in the Bancroft letter was an impulsive burst of rhetorical
idealism that faded as soon as the ink was dry.
The full relevant text is below.
Happy holidays to one and all--
--Jurretta Heckscher
Thomas Jefferson to Edward Bancroft
Paris Jan. 26. 1788 [i.e., 1789]
Dear Sir
I have deferred answering your letter on the subject of slaves,
because you permitted me to do it till a moment of leisure, and that
moment rarely comes, and because too, I could not answer you with such
a degree of certainty as to merit any notice. I do not recollect the
conversation at Vincennes to which you allude, but can repeat still on
the same ground, on which I must have done then, that 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 any thing but force.
These slaves chose to steal from their neighbors rather than work.
They became public nuisances, and in most instances were reduced to
slavery again. But I will beg of you to make no use of this imperfect
information (unless in common conversation). I shall go to America in
the Spring and return in the fall. During my stay in Virginia I shall
be in the neighborhood where many of these trials were made. I will
inform myself very particularly of them, and communicate the
information to you. Besides these, there is an instance since I came
away of a young man (Mr. Mayo) who died and gave freedom to all his
slaves, about 200. This is about 4. years ago. I shall know how they
have turned out. Notwithstanding the discouraging result of these
experiments, I am decided on my final return to America to try this
one. I shall endeavor to import as many Germans as I have grown
slaves. I will settle them and my slaves, on farms of 50. acres each,
intermingled, and place all on the footing of the Metayers
[Medietarii] of Europe. Their children shall be brought up, as others
are, in habits of property and foresight, and I have no doubt but that
they will be good citizens Some of their fathers will be so: others I
suppose will need government. With these, all that can be done is to
oblige them to labour as the labouring poor of Europe do, and to apply
to their comfortable subsistence the produce of their labour,
retaining such a moderate portion of it as may be a just equivalent
for the use of the lands they labour and the stocks and other
necessary advances.
[The letter then moves on to other subjects.]
Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. Barbara B.
Oberg and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia
Press, Rotunda, 2008.
Canonic URL: http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-01-14-02-0266
[subscription database, accessed 22 Dec 2011]
Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Main Series, Volume
14 (8 October 1788–26 March 1789): 492-93.
On Dec 21, 2011, at 9:01 AM, Henry Wiencek wrote:
> Jurretta cited Jefferson's letter to Bancroft -- it's very frequently
> quoted, but almost never quoted in full. It is interpreted as a
> definitive statement of Jefferson's views on the impossibility of
> emancipation, when the opposite is the case. Strange to say, the
> derogatory passage Jurretta quoted is actually the preamble to an
> emancipation plan:
>
> "Notwithstanding the discouraging result of these [Quaker]
> experiments, I am decided on my final return to America to try this
> one. I shall endeavor to import as many Germans as I have grown
> slaves. I will settle them and my slaves, on farms of 50. acres each,
> intermingled, and place all on the footing of the Metayers
> [sharecroppers] of Europe. Their children shall be brought up, as
> others are, in habits of property and foresight, and I have no doubt
> but that they will be good citizens." So -- Jefferson clearly states
> that black slaves will become good American citizens. Which half of
> the letter conveys Jefferson's actual views?
>
> In fact the Quaker experiment did not fail but succeeded so well that
> it led to the passage of Virginia's liberal 1782 manumission law. In
> the letter Jefferson said he had very imperfect information about the
> Quaker experiment: "I cannot be particular in the details, because I
> never had very particular information." Still, he repeated derogatory
> rumors circulated by slaveholders who wished to nip this movement in
> the bud.
>
> Henry Wiencek
>
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