I am going to write an essay about Thomas Jefferson and slavery and I am going to argue that Jefferson actually supported slavery. As we recall the words and deeds of the man perhaps most associated with American freedoms, we must not be ignorant of his unremitting campaign for the proliferation of slavery, his support of French oppression in Haiti, and his continuous subjugation of Native Americans. Indeed, while other national leaders of the time were emancipating their slaves and responding to the irrepressible thrusts of egalitarian rhetoric, Thomas Jefferson was expanding his slave population and erecting special walls that secluded them from his majestic Monticello in Virginia. In 1822--four years before his death--Jefferson's collection of slaves had risen to 267. Four years later, when he lay moribund, he found it proper only to free three, leaving the rest to languish in a nation that would grapple with the issue of forced servitude for another four decades.
David Walker, a prominent black Bostonian, was perhaps reacting to Jefferson's life of unabashed hypocrisy when in 1829 he warned African Americans that they should remember the third president as their greatest enemy. "Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us," Walker suggested, "have sunk deep into the hearts of millions of whites and will never be removed this side of eternity." In the end, what else could a former slave say about a man who championed freedom while proclaiming that "the amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of the excellence in the human character, can innocently consent.” (Ohline, ,1975)
It was easy for Jefferson see those of African descent--either from the United States or elsewhere in the hemisphere--as little more than property for exploitation and enslavement..........
