Episodes |
- Abdy, Edward Strutt. Journal of a Residence and Tour in the United States of North America, from April, 1833, to October, 1834. London, 1835. II, 232.
- Less than a decade after Jefferson's death, Abdy makes a matter-of-fact statement about Jefferson freeing his children at his death and the need for an Act of Assembly to enable them to stay in Virginia -- as if his paternity were common knowledge and uncontested. Curiously, though, he quotes Jefferson from the Notes on the State of Virginia about a master's dependence on his slaves and his vulnerability from them as well.
- Candler, Isaac. “Political Parties.†Summary View of America: Comprising a Description of the Face of the Country, and of Several of the Principal Cities; and Remarks on the Social, Moral, and political Character of the People. London, 1824. 403-7.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=j9dEAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA403
- In the post-revolutionary struggle between England and France, the Federalists sided with England, the Democrats with France: "Washington tended to allay the hostile feeling occasioned by the revolutionary contest towards the mother country, that of Jefferson fostered and increased it." Jefferson, in fact, detested the English and "was as inconsistent as Robespierre respecting liberty," that is, "denouncing George III. as a tyrant, while he himself continued to hold slaves." Washington, who freed his slaves, "will be revered by posterity," Jefferson "with less esteem."
- Cooper, James Fenimore. Gleanings in Europe. England: By an American. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837. 264-65.
- Cooper describes "a clergyman of the true English school," an "epitome of the national principles, and, in some respect, of the national character," "who cracked his jokes daily about Mr. Jefferson and Black Sal, never failing to place his libertinism in strong relief against the approved morals of George III, of several passages in whose history it is charity to suppose he was ignorant." It turns out the clergyman was living with another man's wife!
- Cox, Francis Augustus, and James Hoby. The Baptists in America: A Narrative of the Deputation from the Baptist Union in England, to the United States and Canada. New York: 1836. 41-42.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=Usc-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41
- Hoby, one of the Baptist deputies from England, visited the University of Virginia and was happy to report that though it didn't flourish "so long as infidelity was the presiding genius of the place" under Jefferson, "Now that there is no longer any systematic hostility against 'the truth,' this temple of science promises to rival the most prosperous of the literary institutions of the land." And there is much to moralize at Monticello, whose ownership has passed to a Jew and from which at no great distance is the "humble abode" of the mother of his slave children.
- Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London, 1844. 354. [Chap. XXI, "More American Experiences"]
- http://books.google.com/books?id=_ucPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=dickens+chuzzlewit&as_brr=1#PPR46,M1
- In a novel replete with snipes and swipes at the pretensions of democracy, Jefferson is the "noble patriot, with many followers!–who dreamed of Freedom in a slave's embrace, and waking sold her offspring and his own in public markets." This example of egregious contradiction and hypocrisy shows Dickens' familiarity with Thomas Hamilton, who in turn got the line from Thomas Moore.
- Dickens, Charles. American Notes. London, 1842.
- Faux, William. Memorable Days in America: Being a Journal of a Tour to the United States. Part 1. London, 1823.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=UPU0AAAAIAAJ&pg=PP1
- Faux, William. Memorable Days in America: Being a Journal of a Tour to the United States. Part 2. London, 1823.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=FNowXuOvDQgC&lpg=PA6&dq=Faux%2C%20William&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=true
- Fearon, Henry. Sketches of America: A Narrative of a Journey of Five Thousand Miles. London, 1818.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=GT4wAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1
- Felton, Mrs. American Life: A Narrative of Two Years' City and Country Residence in the United States. Leeds, 1843. 52-63.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=rZEDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA52
- The negroes, though free, are regarded "with feelings of hatred mingled with contempt, and as a class far below the rest of the human species, in point of moral rectitude and intellectual power. I was not prepared to find this in a nation who are taught to lisp, with their infantile breath, that monstrous falsehood --" 'All men are born free and equal.'" This maxim is Jefferson's, "Yet it is well known here, that this sublime character had, by his Quadroon slaves a vast number of children of both sexes; whom he retained on his plantation in a state of vassalage, and dying left them so!!" This is not just a matter of politics, but humanity: "This despised class, the Negroes, seems to be regarded as being destitute, not only of mental endowments, but also of the sensibilities of our common nature. They are considered as fair subjects for the bitterest sarcasm and contempt. Children, catching the contagion by example and sympathy, regard them as beings that may be annoyed and insulted with impunity; dogs are encouraged to bark at them; and, as a crowning point, parrots are taught to curse them." "Until the Americans consent entirely to loose the yoke and let the oppressed go free, they should cashier the stars and stripes" and, says Felton, "adopt the following device and motto, which would more effectually represent the piebald character of their Republic. Let this device be, the representation of a man wearing the cap of liberty, and brandishing a slave whip in his right hand, while his left displays the Declaration of Independence; his right foot, at the same time resting on the naked back of a prostrate negro."With this motto: 'All men are born free and equal.'"
- Hall, Basil. Travels in North America, in the Years 1827 and 1828. Vol. 3. Philadelphia: 1829. 154-63; 188-211; 223-47.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=gL01Kb1RuAoC&lpg=PP1&pg=PR3
- Contains at least three longish thoughtful, informative, and reflective sections on slavery. Hall is moderate in his assessment and practical. He finds the slave system generally run as well as one could possibly expect such an evil system to be run. And he doesn't see any plan in the short run that would effectively end slavery. Interestingly, in this major work, there is no mention of Jefferson at all.
- Hamilton, Thomas. "New York." Men and Manners in America. Philadelphia, 1833. 174. Edinburgh, 1843. 184-86.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=lnMFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA184
- Jefferson was inferior to the aristocratic (and Federalist) Hamilton: "We seek in vain in the writings of Jefferson for indications of original or profound thought. . . . During by far the greater portion of his life, the intellect of Jefferson remained stationary. . . . The mind of Jefferson was essentially unpoetical. In his whole works there is no trace discoverable of imaginative power. His benevolence was rather topical than expansive. . . . Jefferson had little enthusiasm of character. Nor was he rich in those warm charities and affections in which great minds are rarely deficient. He has been truly called a good hater. . . . The moral character of Jefferson was repulsive," while preaching liberty he left his enslaved children to be sold after his death.
- "Jefferson's Daughter." Tait's Edinburgh Magazine July 1839. Reprinted William Wells Brown, The Anti-Slavery Harp. Boston, 1848.
- http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/abolitn/absowwba22t.html
- From the headnote in this British newspaper: "'It is asserted, on the authority of an American Newspaper, that the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, was sold at New Orleans for $1,000.'"Morning Chronicle." A poem chastising America for calling itself the Land of the Free when slaves, such as in this egregious case, are "bartered for gold." Brown made use of the poem for abolitionist purposes.
- Marryat, Frederick. "Slavery." A Diary in America, with Remarks on Its Institutions. London, 1839. III, 41-47, esp. 55-57.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=LVxu9Bip-jIC&pg=PA43&dq=marryat+diary+in+america+jefferson#PPA55,M1
- The Americans had the chance to take "measures for the gradual, if not immediate, extinction of slavery" at the time of the Declaration of Independence, "an anomaly . . . as to have made it the taunt and reproach of the Americans by the whole civilized world." Why didn't they? In fact, Jefferson inserted a phrase to that effect. Therefore, the issue was not overlooked; the decision to let slavery exist was deliberate. The Americans can not revile Britain for instituting slavery, then; they had the chance to eradicate slavery and didn't. And the point that renders slavery in America "more odious than in other countries" is the "system of amalgamation which has, from promiscuous intercourse, been carried on to such an extent, that you very often meet with slaves whose skins are whiter than their master's." Jefferson is used to exemplify the horrors of amalgamation in America: "It is a well-known fact" that Jefferson had children with his female slaves and that Jefferson would turn a blind eye if a slave escaped, that he didn't even free his own children when he died, that he even allowed his children to be sold at the auction block.
- Melish, John. Travels through the United States of America, in the Years 1806 and 1807, and 1809, 1810, and 1811. London, 1818. 148-52; 164-83.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=rUgEtO1jl6cC&pg=PR1
- Melish makes an unannounced social call on Jefferson at Monticello, is warmly received, and relates a pleasant interview. In his description of Virginia, Melish quotes liberally from Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, especially, in regard to the "state of society," from the "Manners" chapter (rather than the racially troubled "Laws" chapter), in which Jefferson describes the "unhappy influence on the manners of our people by the existence of slavery among us." He suggests that this "elegant extract. . . . may have produced a considerable effect on assuaging the evils of slavery," whose complete abolishment "must be a work of time." There is no mention or hint of any personal connection between Jefferson and slavery.
- Moore, Thomas. "Epistle VII." [To Thomas Hume, Esq.] Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems. London, 1806. 209-10. London, 1807. II, 27-28.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=JcwjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27
- This Irish poet toured the United States in 1803 and developed a deeply critical view of Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican party. His anti-American writings, including his views on slavery, provoked considerable outrage. In a footnote to the section of this poem in which Jefferson "dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace," Moore writes, "The 'black Aspasia' [brothel keeper and harlot romantically connected to Pericles] of the present ***** of the United States, "inter Aveniales baud ignotissima nymphas" has given rise to much pleasantry among the anti-democrat wits in America." The "slave's embrace" line later appears in Hamilton and Dickens.
- Playfair, Hugo. Brother Jonathan; Or, The Smartest Nation in All Creation. London, 1844. II, 33-34.
- http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/9056364.html
- "The very man who drew up the declaration of independence, was not only a slave-owner, but he sold his own children by Quadroon women, nearly white--thus making his lust subservient to pecuniary wants, and consigning his offspring to the degradation of the lash, and to the condition of the saleable brute creation."
- Sullivan, Edward Robert. Rambles and Scrambles in North and South America. London, 1852. 202-3.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=Dm2MalXknK0C&pg=PA202
- A ride on a Mississippi River steam boat is the occasion for a lengthy, blistering denunciation of the many inhumanities of slavery, one of which is prohibitions against emancipation, which often leads, as it did for Jefferson's slaves, to the auctioning off of his "illegitimate children" after his death.
- Trollope, Frances. Domestic Manners of the Americans. New York, 1832. 73, 253-54.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=GjcTAAAAYAAJ&dq=frances+trollope+domestic+manners&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=fjQnSrGXAs-Ltgfy94DlBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#PPA73,M1
- Twice Trollope makes Jefferson's "all men are born free and equal" the centerpiece of her criticism of the American ideal through viewing Jefferson as "an unprincipled tyrant and most heartless libertine," "the father of children by almost all his numerous gang of female slaves," "who when past the three score years and ten, still taught young females to obey his nod, and so became the father of unnumbered generations of groaning slaves." This "false and futile axiom," a "phrase of mischievous sophistry," from which common sense revolts, has done and is doing "much harm to this fine country," making of mankind "an unamalgamated mass of grating atoms, where the darling 'I'm as good as you,' would soon take place of the law and the gospel."
- Walsh, Robert, Jr. An Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain Respecting the United States of America. Part First, Containing an Historical Outline of Their Merits and Wrongs as Colonies; And Strictures upon the Calumnies of the British Writers. Philadelphia, 1819.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=DclEAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR1
- Wright, Frances. Letter XIX. Views of Society and Manners in America. London: 1821. 336-37. Ed. Paul R. Baker. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1963. 176.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=HGwFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA336
- Fanny Wright was a pro-Jefferson social reformer who founded the Nashoba Commune in Tennessee as a utopian community to prepare slaves for emancipation and who attracted Frances Trollope to America. Wright, say Sydney and Carolyn Moss, "was the first and last British traveler to attempt to neutralize the legend" of a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings. In Letter XIX Wright discusses the existence and demise of the American Federalist Party and contrasts it to the strength and unity of the nation. Jefferson is praised as a member of the Democratic Party, referred to as a "generous friend of the human race" and is said to have been a "truly wise statesman" for ignoring the angry articles written about him in the press by a member of the losing party. Jefferson's administration is praised for not suppressing the voices of citizens, including political foes, and being a representative government.
- Wyse, Francis. America: Its Realities and Resources. London, 1846. II, 65-67.
- http://books.google.com/books?id=LUQTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP7
- The "more sensible and dispassionate evidence" from "Manners," Query XVIII of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia on the degrading influence of slavery on slave- holders and the threat of apocalyptic wrath, is used to counter South Carolina Governor McDuffie's justification of slavery: "No human institution is more manifestly consistent with the will of God, than domestic slavery; and none of his ordinances is written in more legible characters, than that which consigns the African race to this condition, as more conducive to their own happiness, than any other of which they are susceptible, whether we consult the sacred Scriptures, or the lights of reason, we shall find these truths as abundantly apparent, as if written with a sunbeam in the heavens. Under both the Jewish and Christian dispensation of our religion, domestic slavery existed with the unequivocal sanction of its prophets, its apostles, and finally, its great Master. The patriarchs themselves, those chosen ministers of God, were slave-holders." But Jefferson is chided for not acting in accord with these principles.