Thomas Jefferson
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| Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson near Charlottesville, Virginia (photo from our visit in 2023) |
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| Jefferson’s statue at the University of Virginia, which he founded. He designed both this building (The Rotunda) and Monticello, which is several miles away, outside of the city on a hilltop. |
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| View from a window of Monticello, The rooms, we learned from our tour leader, have camouflaged doors to enable slaves to come in and out and avoid being seen by the white inhabitants. |
The Fourth of July is a splendid holiday, which most Americans celebrate with fireworks, picnics, and outdoor get-togethers with friends and family. I think that the central theme of the holiday— American freedom — is genuinely remembered along with the founders of the nation and their great works: the Declaration of Independence (July 4) and the Constitution.
However, there’s another side of things to remember: that the vile institution of slavery enabled the comfortable and contemplative lives of many of the founders, particularly Jefferson and Washington. Their luxurious and pleasant estates, which are maintained as monuments to the men and their lifestyle, memorialize both the lives of masters and of slaves, and remind us both of slavery and of the remarkable struggle for freedom from tyranny and colonialism.
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| From The Guardian (source) |
“I wish he would have done more to free the enslaved people and practise what he actually preached,” LaNier, 47, says by phone from New York. “I know he tried to but he was the most powerful man in the country and he could have done more and he was living a double life so it’s unfortunate.
“‘Sometimes I appreciate what he’s done for this country and how much of a genius he was,’ Lanier continues. ‘Other times I hate what he did and that he didn’t do more, and the hypocritical aspects, because we could have been so much further along as a society if he would have done what was right instead of what was profitable.’”
Jefferson in Paris
George Washington
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| Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington — also an impressive estate enabled by slave labor. |
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| Slave cabin at Mount Vernon |
“I never mean (unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it) to possess another slave by purchase: it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by the legislature by which slavery in the Country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees.”
An Uncomfortable Truth of History
For example, I’m thinking of Frederick Douglass, a former slave and one of the effective opponents of slavery before the Civil War. On July 5, 1852, he addressed an Independence Day celebration titled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” … It was a scathing speech in which Douglass stated, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine, You may rejoice, I must mourn.” (source)
Blog post © 2026 mae sander
