Friday, December 18, 2020

Thomas Jefferson and Hemings

 Reading "Most Blessed Patriarch:Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination" by Gordon-Reed and Onof.  It reads well, discusses his ideas more than his deeds.  

I'm just part way through it, but I wanted to note an observations which struck me:  the authors write that in his own time, his contemporaries viewed his relationship with Sally Hemings as one of love, which was dangerous to the social structure;  while in our time most critics refuse to believe it was love, rather a relationship of power which was the essence of slavery.

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