Founding “Father”
What do you know about Thomas Jefferson and how do you know it? In high school history class in the early 1970s, I learned that Jefferson was brilliant, a polymath with a stunning list of accomplishments. Jefferson was expert on natural history. He hoped that the Lewis and Clark expedition would bring back mastodon bones. Jefferson was deeply versed in Enlightenment Philosophy; he read John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. As a scientist, Jefferson was interested in meteorology—his meticulous measurements of weather are used by modern day scientists—and agriculture, cultivated the tomato and helped make it popular in America where the fruit had been viewed (understandably in my judgment) with suspicion.
In short, a Renaissance Man’s Renaissance Man, well-read, a deep thinker. My mom always loved that Jefferson, writing his own epitaph, didn’t even mention having been president. His tombstone reads, Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. Talk about modest. I was taught that Jefferson was arguably the smartest of the Founding Fathers, all of whom were brilliant. Jefferson was the brightest bulb in a shimmering chandelier.
My favorite reference to Jefferson was made by President John Kennedy at a dinner of 49 Nobel Prize winners in 1962: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Wow.
The modern view of Jefferson is more nuanced, “nuanced” being a polite word for “the rest of the world considers Jefferson a monster, a liar, a rapist.”
In 1999, a year in which I was admittedly no longer a high school student, incontrovertible DNA evidence proved that someone from the Jefferson male line was the father of six children with Sallie Hemmings. Sallie was, in addition to being the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife Martha, an enslaved person.
Sallie was with Jefferson when he was in France as Secretary of State. In Virginia, Sallie’s room was next to Jefferson’s on the estate at Monticello.
And Sallie was a teenager, probably only 14 years old, when Thomas Jefferson first started forcing himself on her.
Sallie could not “consent.” She was property. She had no rights; she had no autonomy; she had no authority over her own person. The imbalance of power could not have been more pronounced. Nor could the contrast between “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all man are created equal” and the unending brutality of Sallie’s enslavement. Sallie was one of 600 people whom Jefferson “owned” on his properties.
As an educator, I am intrigued how the biography of Thomas Jefferson has been addressed in schools over time. From intellectual giant to hypocritical criminal.
Our perception of Thomas Jefferson has changed. what is known, what is taught have morphed. What remains true is that parents remain the first and best teachers for our beloved children. Attempting to change the curriculum is a worthwhile if unlikely endeavor. The school system is not waiting for you to point out that historical pedagogy is fraught. Indeed there are those politicians who would suggest that Jefferson’s perfidy should not be addressed. Their reasons for omitting this critical aspect of our country’s past is beyond my limited understanding. I wouldn’t let my kids grow up without knowing the full story, that two things can be true at once, that Jefferson’s words resonate 250 years on, but that Jefferson’s actions were—even by the standards of the time—reprehensible.
I am indebted to Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook and their brilliant, evenhanded podcast, “The Rest Is History” for everything that is cogent in the above essay. If you agree that their research is as balanced as it is insightful, you could do worse than to sit down with your kids and listen to an episode each week. I can attest to learning more from Holland and Sandbrook than I did in all of high school history.
If you too are underwhelmed by curriculum to which your children are exposed, it might be time to ignore some cat videos and influencers in favor of spending time with your kids learning that which you feel is critical to their education.
