AT In the Spirit of Chartres, I talked a bit today with Judith Sharpe about the history of slavery. I hope to have more on the subject in the future. We only scratched the surface.

The above photo is of Isaac Jefferson, a slave of Thomas Jefferson’s whom I mentioned today and who was born in 1775. Isaac shared his memories of his slave days at Monticello, Virginia with Charles Campbell in the 1840s. Campbell collected them in the book Memories of a Monticello Slave. Isaac’s account does not fit the popular narrative of slavery in America or the views conveyed to visitors to Monticello today, where more than $20 million was recently spent to diminish Thomas Jefferson’s legacy and reputation by making slavery the central fact of his life and presenting it in a harshly negative light, with a 60-foot-long, steel sculpture created to help visitors solemnly reflect on the suffering of slaves at Monticello. Isaac seemed to have only tender memories of his master. From the book:

Mr. Jefferson always singing when ridin or walkin: hardly see him anywhar out doors but what he was a-singin: had a fine clear voice, sung minnits (minuets) & sich: fiddled in the parlor. Old master very kind to servants.

And:

Mr. Jefferson bowed to everybody he meet: talked wid his arms folded. Gave the boys in the nail-factory a pound of meat a week, a dozen herrings, a quart of molasses & peck of meal. Give them that wukked the best a suit of red or blue: encouraged them mightily. Isaac calls him a mighty good master.

Thomas Jefferson deplored the institution of slavery but depended on slaves to run his estate and farmlands. He was the epitome of the paternalistic, benevolent master. The story of his fathering children by one of his slaves is nothing but that — a story maliciously spread by those ever jealous of kindness and success. It is likely that his brother, whom Isaac Jefferson mentions in his short memoir as enjoying partying with the slaves at Monticello through the night, was the father of the children in question of Sally Hemings.

It’s all par for the course. Slavery is used as a whip to distort and falsify, to create distraction and discord — and to make Americans, both black and white, despise their own country and those who sacrificed for it.

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