Thomas Jefferson
by Rembrandt
Peale (1800)
On
Wednesday 25th February, the Andrew
Hook Centre was delighted to welcome Dr Nick Guyatt for the penultimate
lecture in the 2014-15 series. Dr Guyatt is the author of Providence and the Invention of the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and the forthcoming Bind
Us Apart: A Pre-History of 'Separate But Equal' (Basic Books, 2015). The topic of the discussion was Thomas
Jefferson’s shifting position on black colonization during the period
1779-1826. More broadly, Dr Guyatt wished to demonstrate that colonization
featured heavily in abolitionist discussions, an argument previously neglected
by historians in the mainstream narrative of anti-slavery in the United States.
In doing so, Dr Guyatt brought to our attention a noticeable gap in the extant
historiography on Jefferson, race and colonization efforts in the early
republic, absent even from Annette Gordon-Reed’s brilliant studies of the
Jefferson and Hemings families - Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (1997)
and The Hemingses of Monticello (2008).
In
discussing his reasons for choosing to examine Jefferson more closely, Dr
Guyatt asserted that Jefferson held an extremely unique position – first as the
Governor of Virginia and then as the President of the United States. Occupying
as he did a prominent and influential place in American society, Jefferson
corresponded with a multitude of high-profile individuals, many of whom were
concerned with the topic of black colonization or the seeds of ‘developmental
separatism’ in the aftermath of slave uprisings. As such, Dr Guyatt identified
three distinct phases of Jefferson’s life, during which time discussions of colonization
had figured prominently. Firstly, in the early 1780s when Jefferson wrote the
(in)famous Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). Secondly, in the
negotiations between Jefferson, James Monroe and John Page (both Governors of
Virginia) in the aftermath of Gabriel’s Rebellion in 1800 and lastly, on
Jefferson’s engagement with colonization during retirement.
Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)
Dr
Guyatt began by pin-pointing the moment in which Jefferson first proposed the
idea of the gradual emancipation of slavery in June 1779. In the years that
followed, this idea fermented in Jefferson’s mind, until he put his views on
slavery and colonization to paper in Notes on the State of Virginia (1785).
In this document, Jefferson was explicit about the physical difference between
slaves and their masters – more so, in fact, than any of his contemporaries.
Where in Europe, slavery opponents believed in the unity of mankind and
attributed the current intellectual inferiority of slaves to the social and
environmental factors of slavery, Jefferson took no such approach. The
inferiority of the black population, he believed, was attributable to ‘the real
distinctions which nature has made.’ Comparing the problem of slavery in the
early republic to that of the Roman Empire, Jefferson wrote:
Among
the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free,
might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second
is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the
reach of mixture.
Thus, Dr
Guyatt highlighted the fundamental difference between Jefferson’s inherent
belief in racial prejudice and accompanying fears of miscegenation, juxtaposed
with those of his contemporaries and enlightened European counterparts whose
argument rested on natural rights. Moreover, Jefferson’s curious emphasis of
black biology over social environment helps to explain why the Notes were
not referenced by anti-slavery advocates thereafter. Nonetheless, close
examination of Jefferson’s slavery ‘query’ is integral to inform an
understanding of Jefferson’s belief that colonization be part of any plan to
emancipate the American slave populace.
Dr
Guyatt then turned his attention to the correspondence between James Monroe and
Thomas Jefferson. The former sought the advice of the elder statesman over the
appropriate response to the slave conspirators, which, up until that point, had
involved multiple executions. Jefferson’s reply asked if it might be possible
to ‘pass a law for their exploitation’ thereby using Gabriel’s Rebellion as a
pre-text for his colonization plan. During the Secret Session of 1800, the
legislative went on to pass a bill, where Monroe proposed that ‘persons
dangerous to the peace of society’ i.e. all slaves, could be sold into Spanish
slavery. After some delay, Jefferson’s response to Monroe’s letter was
accompanied by five possibilities as to the relocation of slaves: north of the
Ohio river, Canada (if Britain could be persuaded), Louisiana (if Spain could
be persuaded), a new U.S. colony in North Africa, or in Saint-Domingue. In May
of 1802, Jefferson contacted the British ambassador, Rufus King, suggesting
that unruly slaves could be sent to Sierre Leone. However, this plan had one
glaring problem, namely, that by securing passage for rebellious slaves, did
such a plan not seem likely to incite widespread slave rebellions? Around this
time, Jefferson appeared to back-peddle on his colonization plans, listing in
his correspondence to Virginian politicians the great obstacles to colonization
and questioning the overall soundness of the proposals.
In the
final strand of the lecture, Dr Guyatt emphasized that during Jefferson’s
retirement years his position on colonization during his retirement was much
changed. Jefferson repeatedly stressed that he had no power or influence to
enact such laws, and that ‘the national mind is not yet prepared’ for such
government action. Interestingly, Dr Guyatt referenced a letter sent by Edward
Coles to Jefferson on 31 July 1814, wherein Cole wrote of the ‘hallowed
principles in that renowned Declaration of which you were the immortal author,’
in what was the sole example of Jefferson being directly confronted with the
idea that the continuation of slavery was an affront to the founding principles
of the republic. In his response, Jefferson lamented that Coles was a lone,
dissenting voice, and that the fight against slavery was ‘an enterprise for the
young,’ thus distancing himself once again from the anti-slavery movement.
Dr
Guyatt thus demonstrated throughout his lecture that Thomas Jefferson had been
an early advocate of colonization whose belief in the plans gradually eroded.
In this way, Dr Guyatt suggested that colonization was Jefferson’s ‘orphan’ or,
in other words, his brainchild - which he failed to execute. By way of
explaining this, Dr Guyatt offered three possible explanations: First, that
Jefferson was at the very conservative end of the anti-slavery spectrum, with
little inclination to engage with the concept of natural rights. Second, that
his lack of enthusiasm for the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816
during Jefferson’s retirement, was in part due to his constitutional issues
with private societies and lastly, that, at the heart of almost all of
Jefferson’s writings on slavery and colonization, lay a deep-rooted fear of
miscegenation. In this line of enquiry, Jefferson’s determination that the
United States avoid a mixed-race citizenry imbued all judgment, irrespective of
the (now proven) racial-mixing of his own family.
Dr
Guyatt’s discussion of Thomas Jefferson’s shifting position on the tangibility
of colonization was both informative and enjoyable. Drawing attention to an
oft-overlooked aspect of Jefferson’s illustrious life, Dr Guyatt exposed the
colonization debate which came to the fore at various stages of Jefferson’s
life and beyond. Jefferson’s unique engagement with the colonization debate
exposes one complex sub-stratum of the anti-slavery movement. Namely, that in
amongst the rhetoric of natural rights and the steadfast belief (held by some)
that slavery was a plague of which the United States must rid itself, lay the
deep-rooted fear, held by one of the nation’s most revered and respected men,
that miscegenation was the curse most likely to befall the republic in the
event of emancipation. Propelled by this fear, colonization was the ‘orphan’ of
Thomas Jefferson’s career – a plan nurtured, measured and debated at length,
though ultimately unattainable and unsuited to a country whose very fabric
rested on the rapid economic expansion made possible through the institution of
slavery.
By Rebecca Dunbar
PGR at The University of Glasgow
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