If you had a cotton or tobacco plantation in those day, owning slaves was not an option if you wanted to stay in business, because the cost of labor would put you out of business. Thus a lot of people owned slaves that didn't really want to but that is just the way it was in those days.That's simply not true. His slaves were explicitly forbidden from being beaten and the people charged with overseeing his estate while he served overseas, in Washington, etc. are on record stating as much.Thomas Jefferson
- Vehemently opposed slavery
- Introduced legislation in Virginia to end slavery before the U.S. even declared independence from England
- Inherited slaves from his family and was not permitted to release them by law
Listen from the 4:30 mark to the 8:00 minute mark for the truth about Thomas Jefferson and slavery:
- Original writings prove his disdain for slavery and his deep desire to see it end
Slavery and Our Founders Part I: Thomas Jefferson
I have a lot of respect for Thomas Jefferson the writer and thinker- but like many people- he was conflicted- he was personally opposed to slavery- yet at the same time bought and sold slaves- and allowed his slaves to be beaten.
But thank you for recognizing that Thomas Jefferson vehemently opposed slavery - something so many progressives deny.
Well as a progressive- its not hard to find progressives who admire Thomas Jefferson for everything but his slavery. I think most everyone can agree now that slavery was reprehensible- and for a slave owner- Jefferson was rather unique in believing that slavery should be ended- but he also considered slavery his greatest source of wealth.
Many slaveowners, including Jefferson, understood that female slaves—and their future children—represented the best means to increase the value of his holdings, what he called “capital.” "I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm," Jefferson remarked in 1820. "What she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption." An enslaved couple, Minerva and Bagwell Granger, came close to fulfilling Jefferson's disturbing calculation; they had nine children between 1787 and 1810.
Beating's did happen.
Often absent from Monticello, Jefferson did not always succeed in lessening the violence of slavery. Several slaves were whipped at the hands of Monticello overseers. For example, William Page, an overseer at Lego farm for four years, had a reputation as a “terror” among slaves and was characterized as “peevish & too ready to strike.” William McGehee, an overseer at Tufton farm for two years, was “tyrannical” and carried a gun “for fear of an attack from the negroes.” And Gabriel Lilly, a nailery manager and overseer at Monticello for five years, whipped James Hemings three times in a single day, even when he was too ill “to raise his head.”
Runaway's were sold- along with others
Despite his expressed "scruples" against selling slaves except "for delinquency, or on their own request," he sold more than 110 in his lifetime, mainly for financial reasons. Seventy-one were sold from his Goochland and Bedford county plantations in three sales in the 1780s and 1790s. Chronic runaways and resisters like Sandy, James Hubbard, and Billy were almost invariably sold.
Did Jefferson free his slaves?
During his lifetime, Jefferson freed two enslaved men. At his death, Jefferson bequeathed freedom to five men in his will. At least three other slaves were unofficially freed when Beverly Hemings, Harriet Hemings, and James Hemings, son of (Critta Hemings Bowles) were allowed to leave Monticello without pursuit. (Sell also Slaves Who Gained Freedom.)
A single paragraph cannot do justice to the issue of Jefferson's failure to free more than a handful of his slaves. Some of the possible reasons include: the economic value of his human property (at certain times, his slaves were mortgaged and thus could not be freed or sold); his lifelong view that emancipation had to go hand-in-hand with expatriation of the freed slaves; his paternalistic belief that slaves were incapable of supporting themselves in freedom and his fear they would become burden to society; his belief in gradual measures operating through the legal processes of government; and, after 1806, a state law that required freed slaves to leave Virginia within a year. Jefferson wrote that this law did not "permit" Virginians to free their slaves; he apparently thought that, for an enslaved African American, slavery was preferable to freedom far from one's home and family.