Jefferson’s Revolution

This is the type of history–you know, exploring what really happened instead of repeating bullshit myths–that leads to Chris Rufo demanding personal control over all of higher education. Because, you see, the idea that the British destroyed Norfolk in the early days of the American Revolution turns out to not be true. It was the Patriots who did and they did so in part to protect slavery from British forces who were happy to accept runaways and it happened at the urging of Thomas Jefferson.

As for his own enslaved people, Jefferson made clear during that year he was not going to free anyone. Jefferson placed an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette seeking the return of an enslaved 35-year-old carpenter. “Run away from the subscriber in Albemarle, a Mulatto slave called Sandy,” Jefferson wrote in the ad. He offered a reward of 40 shillings for the return. Sandy was captured and Jefferson kept him for four years before selling him for 100 pounds.

Jefferson said that he sought to treat his enslaved people humanely and no evidence has emerged that he personally whipped them. But his overseers performed that practice, sometimes at his direction. In one such case, a runaway was captured and placed in irons and, as Jefferson wrote, “I had him severely flogged in the presence of his old companions.”

The enslaved were forced to live in small dirt-floored cabins that in some cases were just steps from Jefferson’s mansion, and threatened with separation from their families. In cold language, Jefferson recounted how he enslaved people from childhood until old age: “Children till 10 [years old] to serve as nurses. From [10 to 16 the] boys make nails, the girls spin. At 16, go into the ground or learn trades.” He boasted that his nail-manufacturing business, which made up to 10,000 nails daily, operated “with my own negro boys now provides completely for the maintenance of my family.” As for his eldest slaves, he wrote, “could they not make a good profit by cultivating cotton?”

Of course we know that that Jefferson was a huge hypocrite. But again, protecting slavery and supporting genocide were among the most importnat issues in why this nation was founded and that included Jefferson too:

Plantation owners placed ads saying the penalty for any enslaved person who ran to Dunmore was death. Patrick Henry, who had called for militia action against Dunmore with his supposed cry of “liberty or death,” urged Virginians to “counteract this dangerous Attempt” to free the enslaved people.

Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment had its response. They wore sashes across their uniforms that played upon Henry’s words and said, “Liberty to slaves.”

Jefferson and the other members of Virginia’s rump legislature issued a statement saying that arming enslaved people “against their masters, and destroying the peace and happiness of his majesty’s good and faithful subjects … has broken the bonds of society.”

Dunmore also sought to gain support from Native Americans by assuring them that Virginians would not take their land. He wrote to Koquethagechton, the leader of the Lenni-Lenape tribe (also known as Captain White Eyes of the Delaware), promising that the British would protect them. “You may rest satisfied that our foolish young Men shall never be permitted to have your Lands but on the Contrary the Great King will Protect you and Preserve you in Possession of them,” Dunmore wrote, in what seemed a marked change from a year earlier, when he had waged waragainst other tribes.

For Jefferson and many others, the idea that enslaved people would be freed and that Indian lands would be sealed off from White settlement were key ingredients fueling revolution. Jefferson believed that the lack of representation for colonists in Parliament had led to this. Taxes and tariffs and trade restrictions were part of the problem. But from the viewpoint of Jefferson, Washington and other founders, these actions by Dunmore compounded a crisis that now spiraled out of control in Norfolk.

So you know, how about just teaching that AMERICA RULES. All of this actual history makes people feel uncomfortable because Americans can’t handle the truth.