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Slave Quarters Discovered at Monticello
Archaeologists digging at Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, Virginia, have discovered slave quarters used at the time he was living there.
The remains were found at Tufton, one of Jefferson's farms a mile from the actual house. Jefferson owned several farms around Monticello that were worked by his many slaves. The artifacts dating to Jefferson's time include everyday items such as a button and fragments of ceramic, as well as a slate pencil, which raises the question of whether one of the slaves was literate. A more sobering find was a padlock. The slaves appear to have lived in small, single-family homes.
Jefferson's views on slavery were complex. He correctly predicted that it would divide the nation, but that didn't stop him from owning slaves himself, and while Jefferson wrote against race mixing, DNA evidence indicates that Jefferson fathered several children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.
A second slave quarter site was also found, dating to the middle and end of the nineteenth century. Jefferson had died in 1826 and his family sold his 130 slaves to pay off his many debts. Monticello itself was sold in 1831. The family that bought the Tufton farm also worked it with slaves until the end of the Civil War.
Photo courtesy Stefan Volk.
Filed under: History, Learning, North America, United States
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kap10 Apr 30th 2012 2:26AM
Most scholars agree that the allegation that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings' is false.
"They (the allegations) originated from the pen of a disreputable journalist named James Thomson Callender in October 1802 and were picked up by Federalist editors and abolitionists in the United States and abroad. Most serious Jefferson scholars and many of Jefferson’s political enemies dismissed them, in part because the notorious Callender lacked credibility and in part because the charge seemed so out of character for Jefferson."
"The public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people" and only indicates a Eston Hemings (Sally's youngest son) was fathered by someone with the same Y-chromasome as Jefferson. There were about 25 men in that area of Virginia at the time who could have been the father.
http://www.tjheritage.org/newscomfiles/front_matter_and_report.pdf
Sean McLachlan Apr 30th 2012 2:36AM
The website you cite appears to be more interested in applying its image of Jefferson to modern politics than looking at historical fact. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which has managed Monticello for almost 90 years, has this to say:
"Based on documentary, scientific, statistical, and oral history evidence, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF) Research Committee Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (January 2000) remains the most comprehensive analysis of this historical topic. Today TJF and most historians believe that, years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson was the father of the six children of Sally Hemings mentioned in Jefferson's records, including Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings."
http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/appendix-h-sally-hemings-and-her-children