Jefferson

The image of Thomas Jefferson that I received from my history class and text book this year was that of a good man who helped advance exploration of the West in the United States. My history book didn't shy away from the fact that he also was a slaveowner. Though the book said this, I had already known this about Jefferson from my parents. My parents also told me that he had sex with alot of his black women slaves, so I wasn't really surprsied when I saw the photo of his decendants on page 82. By knowing that Jefferson had slaves, then of course I concluded that he had some form of prejudice against them. But, I didn't know how he really felt about black slaves. Jefferson seemed disgusted by black skin, like he didn't know how the color was formed on a human being, or where it derived from. He referred to the dark color possibly coming from bile or other secretions in the body. He also talks about how blacks smelled really bad because they sweat so much as a result of their black skin. As I read this, and then saw the picture, it made me mad that he would say all of this, yet he obviously was attracted to dark women, no matter how they smelled. Jefferson was against the "mixing" of both races, yet he obviously "mixed" with black women multiple times.