Understanding

One of the places PH and I revisited on our trip to Virginia was Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson was a strange man.  He is mostly known by most people as the author of our Declaration of Independence and yes, he did do that but it was just a task of a few days.  

In reality, he was an observer and thus an inventor, a statesman, a farmer at heart and in order to have the life he lived, he was a slave owner.  

People don't like to think of that.  After all, he did say "all men are created equal" and pontificated that owning slaves was completely and totally wrong.  Yet he had oh, so many slaves of his own.  

For a couple hundred years that part was glossed over.  Even though his slaves dug by the shovelful the top off the mountain his home sits on.  If you are there you can see it clearly.  His slaves built this house, you can see hand prints in some bricks.  They tended his gardens, cooked his food, gave birth to some of his children. Only in the past few years have the interpreters started to mention the slaves.

and while Mr. Jefferson lived like this

His slaves lived like this.  And oh, my, this is all cleaned up for company.  The floor is still dirt. The archaeologists believe these 'nicer' cabins housed the Hemings family.  They are closer to the house and larger and Sally was 'special' to Mr. Jefferson.

Colonial Williamsburg has people who they call the Nation Builders, the early residents who were all part of the movement for independence from Britain are interpreted by these people.  George Washington (young and old) Martha Washington, Patrick Henry (young and old), Lafayette, Rochambeau, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson (young and old), Mrs. Vobe, and a few I can't think of at this moment.  We loved their programs and went to all of them. 

This is the man who assumes the identity of Thomas Jefferson after he retired to Monticello (he started out at Colonial Williamsburg for many, years but ten years ago went to Monticello and left the younger TJ at CW.  This man has been Jefferson for over 30 years.  The Nation Builders give a talk and then take questions.  They know absolutely everything about the person they portray, the times they lived in and  you can't trip them up. Many have tried.  We've watched it happen. 

This TJ has had to answer many slave questions lately and he claims it boils down to Virginia law at the time. He claims the slaves COULDN'T be freed because under Virginia law they were property, just like your dishes and pillows, and as such had to be inventoried and accounted for to the state and none of these people had the money to pay the state for the value of their slaves.  In essence TJ died deep in debt.  Washington had no money.  And besides, Washington's slaves didn't belong to him, they belonged to Martha. 

When we try to reason with a 20th century mind we have to remember when talking to these people they are interpreting the 18th century and what was legal then.  Moral is a whole other matter.

I am trying to learn.  I'll never understand but I'm trying to learn.  When we go into a gift shop I go straight past the mugs and t-shirts for the bookshelves.