Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” and yet enslaved more than six-hundred people over the course of his life.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, owned more than 600 slaves during his adult life. Jefferson freed two slaves while he lived, and five others were freed after his death, including two of his children from his relationship with his slave (and sister-in-law) Sally Hemings.

In his original draft of the Declaration, in soaring, damning, fiery prose, Jefferson denounced the slave trade as an “execrable commerce ...this assemblage of horrors,” a “cruel war against...

Feb 10, 2025 · Unlike most of his fellow Virginians, Jefferson was prepared to acknowledge that slavery was an anomaly in the American republic established in 1776. His two most practical proposals came in the early 1780s: a gradual emancipation scheme by which all enslaved people born after 1800 would be freed and their owners compensated, and a prohibition ...

Jun 29, 2020 · What isn’t widely known, however, is that Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, in an early version of the Declaration, drafted a 168-word passage that condemned slavery as one of the many evils...

Born into Virginia’s plantation society in 1743, Jefferson was surrounded by slavery from an early age. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a Virginia planter, surveyor, and slave owner who relied on the forced labor of at least sixty individuals to support his family’s needs and lifestyle.

Explore Thomas Jefferson’s attitude towards slavery, the practice of slavery at Monticello, and Jefferson’s relationship with enslaved Sally Hemings.

Thomas Jefferson enslaved over 600 human beings throughout the course of his life. 400 people were enslaved at Monticello; the other 200 people were held in bondage on Jefferson’s other properties. At any given time, around 130 people were enslaved at Monticello.

In the nation’s capital, abroad, at his home and nailery at Monticello, how did Jefferson’s views on slavery evolve as he encountered enslaved individuals as a plantation owner, and anti-slavery advocates, politicians, and international correspondents as a public figure?

At the time of Thomas Jefferson’s birth in 1743, slavery was pervasive throughout the Atlantic world. As a member of the General Assembly in 1769, Jefferson was able to influence an older member to propose the emancipation of the slaves.