Summary Of Thomas Jefferson Slave Master

Henry Wiencek in “Thomas Jefferson Slave Master” continues to talk about how Jefferson’s actions do not add up to his slavery clause. In 1794 Jefferson opened a nail factory, which was ran by slaves. He employed a dozen boys around the ages ten to sixteen years old. Jefferson’s reasoning for this is that two months of those slaves work pay a year’s worth of groceries. In 1811 Jefferson started another business, a textile factory. He ordered a 12-spindle spindling machine from New York, he then trained two of his slaves to run it. Sometimes Jefferson would actually reward his slaves, any of the teenage slaves that did extra well in the nail factory got extra food and the top nailer got a suit of clothing. One other account of Jefferson rewarding

Gordon-Reed who wrote Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy says some historians believe it is true because he favored Sally’s kids more than any other slaves he had. One historian, Martha Randolph, doesn’t believe they could really be Jefferson’s kids because they didn’t get close until after the nine months she was pregnant. It has been said that their story began when Sally went to Paris with him to help with the kids, and cook food. His wife was sick and was not able to go with him. They stayed in Paris for twenty-six months. According to Schwabach, Jefferson’s wife died in 1782, sometime after that is when he had a relationship with his slave, and they had many kids together. “ ‘It was common knowledge on the hilltop’, Israel said ‘that Mr. Jefferson was on the most intimate terms with her.’” It has been said that the only reason they did not go to the open about it was because Virginia law would not let them be married. Egerton said. It was also suspicious that Jefferson’s freed all the Hemings kids before he died, yet he did not free Sally. After he died, his kid freed Sally. Egerton says that Jefferson’s hagiographers said that Jefferson’s grandchildren would lie about about just to keep their family

He inherited these when he was only fourteen because his father-in-law had died. Thaddeus Kosciuszko tried to urge Jefferson to free his slaves, he offered him twenty thousand dollars to free whatever that could buy. Not only did Kosciuszko try to talk him into freeing his slaves, but Marquis de Lafayette tried to talk him into it too. Jefferson said he would try and completely free his slaves but he did not want to go in debt and for right now he needed to keep them to work in his plantations. Kosciuszko died in 1817 and left the money to Jefferson. Jefferson owned two hundred and thirty slaves. One hundred and fifty dollars for a small child and five hundred for an adult male. In his lifetime he owned more than six hundred slaves, he sold about two hundred and he kept one hundred and thirty to work on his plantations and gave the rest to family members. Jefferson’s slaves were all together worth forty-six thousand dollars. Jefferson gave twenty-five slaves to his daughter Martha, and twenty-six to his daughter Maria. Not only did he own these slaves to work on the plantations, but Jefferson says “I consider a [slave] woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. What she produces is an addition to the capital.” Jefferson has also stated that he “believed that his slaves were safe under his