We visited a place called Monticello which is the home of the third President, Thomas Jefferson. It's at a town called Charlottesville (Virginia) about three hours from DC. My best friend MB gave me a tour of Monticello as a birthday gift. It was a big day out but as always, a good history lesson and interesting things to see and learn.
But, Thomas Jefferson has not left a nice impression on me. I have felt admiration and respect for Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy and a few others but Jefferson, well he is a 'paradox' to say the least. I read a little before our visit and went in with a low opinion which was further reduced as the tour progressed.
Monticello is Italian for 'little mountain' and is the name of the home of Jefferson as it's built on a small mountain with spectacular views. He was a man of many talents - architect, farmer, mathematician, lawyer and spoke several languages. He loved books, loved reading and his library was bought as the initial collection for the Library of Congress. The guy was clearly intelligent. We learnt he was meticulous and made records on everything from the weather each day, the productivity of his farm and slaves, duplicated every letter he ever wrote which is why they have such great information on the man. The home was impressive, it was built in the over 1768-1809 on 5000 acres of land. There are 20 something rooms in the house with 3 levels above ground and cellars below ground. It was quite interesting to see the different rooms, their features and see the little inventions Jefferson had created. He had spent five years in France as a diplomat and brought back many French inspired designs to his house. We took the Behind The Scenes tour which took us up on the upper floors where the basic tour only lets visitors see the ground floor. The tour guide was excellent and very informative. We also took a slavery tour beforehand where the guide provided an excellent tour of the remains of some of the slave quarters and workshops. She provided fascinating insight into the lives of some slaves and life under Thomas Jefferson on the plantation.
Thomas Jefferson was one of the Founding Fathers and the author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a Vice President first and then President for two terms from 1801 - 1809. The Declaration of Independence was the document that the then 13 US states wrote declaring their independence from British rule back in 1776. This document was approved by Congress on 4 July 1776 thus becoming Independence Day.
Jefferson was a strong proponent of religious freedom, equality among all men and against slavery. He said that education could improve mankind and his love of books proved his passion. The key line in the Declaration that has been used in other independence documents for countries such as India, is as follows:
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The absolute paradox of Jefferson is that what he said and wrote did not reflect in his actions. He owned around 600 slaves for his entire life and treated them like slaves - they were worked like trojans, had no rights and punished by whippings and other terrible ways. He also worked the young slave children so nobody really was 'equal' despite his Declaration saying so. Somebody on the tour asked if he was a 'good' slave owner. She said there was NO such thing as a good slave owner which is entirely true. The tour shared stories of the slaves and it really showed Jefferson to be a control freak with no compassion for treating them equally. I felt he was an egotist, ruthless businessman and control freak. Everything he did was for him and the plantation first, not for the benefit of his slaves. Yes some of the slaves learned a skilled trade but this was part of Jefferson's business cunning.
While Jefferson had six children with his wife Martha before she died after 10 years of marriage, the recent revelation is that Jefferson, later as a widower, had six children to a slave woman called Sally Hemings. While this was known as a controversy from way back in the day, recent DNA tests have proven Heming's children come from the Jefferson bloodline. It was common in the day for white men to take a slave mistress (concubine) but they were to be discreet. I did some reading and one of the shocking things is that the relationship started when he was about 45, she was 15 - falling pregnant at 16 while she was in Paris with him and his daughters for a few years. She returned to the US with him and had more children by him. These children were treated as slaves yet earned their freedom once they reached 21, but this was not as easy as it sounds. I would encourage you to read about Sally Hemings on wiki to get a sense of the story.
So overall, we both left Monticello acknowledging the achievements of Jefferson but, we just couldn't look past the hypocrisy of it all. I certainly feel like the guy is a narcissist, control freak and paedophile. I appreciate it's hard to judge today when the times were very different back then but, I just can't get past the fact that he clearly knew what was equal, fair and right yet he chose to not act upon it. We heard today that he decided that it was not the time to enforce such changes and that future generations would have to do what he had outlaid in his Declaration words. I don't buy it really and I am very disappointed to feel this way towards a former US President. He clearly influenced incredible progress and good things but he also brought about much pain and sadness and terrible behaviour that I don't think were acceptable to any reasonable human even back then.
It seemed as if history prefers to remember him for those three things on his tombstone, as Jefferson had asked. In doing so, the other aspects of his life are overlooked as if the good outweighs the bad. It's interesting to see that. However, the tour guides were very open about Jefferson's 'paradoxic' life and I would expect that in years to come there will be more information about his 'other' life and children to appear in Monticello more than they currently do.
Now, to something on a more lighter not. We passed this KFC store in a small town on the way to Monticello. What do you notice about this store? When was the last time you actually saw the wording Kentucky Fried Chicken on the shop? Years and years because it became not healthy to say 'fried' chicken. But here it is, still in Virginia. It was a blast from the past.
On the home front, I'm enjoying life as a free agent now and keeping busy with cooking and entertaining the dogs. We are both running more and following a speed development program. We ran about 9k on Saturday and increasing each week.
A few final pics to finish with. One is some kelpie gifts Deb gave me for my birthday. Look closely amongst the sheep. And the other is a nice vege quiche I made as part of our better eating plan.
And finally, last post I wrote about Ollie the bobcat getting out of the zoo. Well they caught Ollie bobcat. Phew, he was only free for a few days but he's back safe and sound.
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