Nobody ever made any money betting against David Brion Davis's deep
understanding of the history of slavery, but I have to add an observation.
The concept of a certain "anti-slavery" ideology was emerging in the early
18th century.  I think we can properly designate that a universal
anti-slavery ideology, but there can be no denying that colonial America
already had a 'particular' anti-slavery sentiment.  Otherise, why all the
fuss when American Indians took captives from white settlements?  These
raids were, after all, simply another form of slavery;  with white settlers
as victims.

The point I am making should be obvious to all:  the 'normality' of slavery
within any civilization is riddled with unstated exceptions for rank,
wealth, religion, race, etc.  The enslavement that was actually being
attacked by Enlightenment anti-slavery thought was that of Africans and
Indians in the New World, Africans and Javanese in South Africa, and victims
in other parts of the world about which I have less knowledge.

From the Greek polis to 18th and 19th century Virginia, the belief in
slavery was actually a belief in Aristotle's rationalization of "natural
slaves and natural masters."  "Natural slaves" have risen above their status
in revolt many times in history, from Spartacus to Nat Turner, but 'natural
masters" have rarely thought beyond their self interest and about the larger
moral questions of human identity.

One and a half cheers for Thomas Jefferson.

Harold S. Forsythe
Visiting Fellow (2005-2006)
Program in Agrarian Studies
Yale University
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Hershman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 3:22 PM
Subject: Re: Jefferson & Slavery


> Just a reminder to remember that as David B. Davis in _The Problem of
> Slavery in the Age of Revolution_ taught us, the concept of anti-slavery
> was an emerging and evolving concept that flowered during the first half
> of Jefferson's life. At his birth, few anywhere in the Atlantic World,
> certainly not in Virginia, opposed slavery--except for a few saintly
> Quakers (who got a mixed reception even within their own community).
> Riding on Enlightenment ideas and on the religious zeal of the Great
> Awakening, anti-slavery burst with force into the world of the 1770s.
> Though Vermont outlawed it in its 1777 Constitution, all the 13 colonies
> at the time of the Declaration of Independence permitted slavery. That
> Jefferson was so attuned to those Enlightenment concepts perhaps makes
> his actions even more damning or, at least, helps to understand why he
> turned to the scientific racialist ideas expressed in _Notes on Virginia_.
>
> All Best,
> Jim Hershman
>
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