Literature
Thesis Statement
Thomas Jefferson’s Query XIV Laws is quite different from Phyllis Wheatley’s Poems, in that, while both of them targeted slavery and its abolishment, Jefferson’s views are expressed by a person from the outside, while Phyllis’ views are personal. While Jefferson makes comparisons to show that slavery in America was not as bad, Phyllis makes a direct appeal to abolish slavery.
President of the United States, President Barak Obama, in one of his speeches said that he thought the need of the hour for all Americans, black or white, was to shun their differences and work together to make America the greatest democracy in the world. In his speech, Obama said that America had seen a bloody past where black slaves were treated shabbily, and slavery in the name of color and creed was left unresolved for future generations to resolve. The time has come for this issue to be addressed and for all Americans, despite their background to come together and live in peace and harmony in the interest of this great nation, he ended.
American society has for long been a mixture of compassion and racism. The Black Americans have always had a difficult time with their white counterparts. By 1800, a body of literature in opposition to slavery in America had evolved into a coherent pattern of anti-slavery sentiment based largely on religious and constitutional grounds It comes as no surprise that white Americans believed that it was their birth right to rule over the blacks, and by reading Jefferson’s [Slavery] Notes on the State of Virginia, and Wheatley’s poems from the eighteenth and nineteenth century literature, it is evident that America was a dominant white state during eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Though they may write about the same aspect of American identity, they do not do so it in the same way. The comparisons end where they begin. Jefferson’s views can be construed to be that of a person giving his opinions from the outside, while Phyllis’ views can be said to be that of a person from the inside. Therefore, there is sure to be a lot of difference in their approach and means. Jefferson had said that Phyllis Wheatly could not be considered a poet, because the compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism (p.674). Whatever reason it may be, Phyllis Wheatly was a poet in her own right, and saw slavery distinctly different from how Jefferson saw it.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), when he said that he wished to be remembered for three things, he didn’t anticipate that they all testified to his lifelong passion “to liberate the human mind from tyranny, whether imposed by the state, the church, or our own ignorance.” During Jefferson’s time, there was a lot of discrimination and disparity in who could, and who couldn’t go to church. The American church was no place for blacks, and when Jefferson saw the kind of discrimination that was taking place in religious places in the name of color, he wrote in support of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786). What America was before colonization and the coming of European settlers was a land that belonged to native Indians. It was to change soon, as the settlers took possession, by force, the lands that belonged to the Indians. America became a country of emigrants, and the majority of settlers came from far places of Europe and Britain. This is evident from Thomas Jefferson’s claim that of the three close friends he had, “Dr. William Small, an emigrant from Scotland,” was among them. Dr. Small must have travelled from Europe to America to start a new life. However, Jefferson had his difference with the British Monarchy, and made no qualms in saying that “America was not the land of the British Monarchy, but belonged to people of all kind.” In 1774 he wrote an influential and daring pamphlet called A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which many believe was a direct attack on the emigrants who settled in America and tried to stamp their authority over Americans; arguing “ties with the British Monarchy were voluntary and not irrevocable.”
In Query XIV Laws, Jefferson makes a comparison between white and black slaves, and says that black slaves would after a hard day’s work, would jump at the slightest thought of entertainment, and stay awake till midnight; even though they knew that they would have to start work the first dawn of morning (p.670). The whites on the other hand were lethargic and didn’t respond to orders as blacks would. The blacks, noted Jefferson, “were at least as brave and more adventuresome” than the white slaves. In addition to writing about white and black slaves in America, Jefferson writes an entire paragraph describing the good qualities of the black slaves, and how they differed from the slaves of ancient Rome. Jefferson takes time to look at the differences between races. In this paragraph one sees a number of metaphors and tropes that represent the national character. When Jefferson talks of “this greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold than the whites” for example, Jefferson is in fact acknowledging the fact that the black slaves of Africa are more suitable to work the tillage, unlike the white slaves, who couldn’t stand the heat and dust of working in the open. When he writes “in memory they are equal to whites; in reason much inferior,” (p.670) Jefferson suggests that they are extremely tolerant and understanding, but when it came to analyzing a situation, they were far inferior to the whites. It was obvious that the whites were better than the blacks when it came to decision-making. Jefferson, while being a staunch supporter for the abolition of slavery, has two thoughts about black slavery. According to him, the blacks suited the work they were given because they were physically stronger and suited to the hard work they were doing, while the whites were physically weak but mentally strong. It was because of this observation that Jefferson felt “Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave?” (p.669) Slavery is nothing new; in ancient Egypt for example, when a pharaoh died, he along with a number of his slaves were buried together. Similarly, in Jefferson’s Query XIV Laws, “when a master was murdered, all his slaves, in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death.” In comparison to the slavery in ancient Egypt and Rome, and in comparison to the slavery in British colonies across the world, Jefferson believed that the black slaves in America were a happier lot. However, white slaves were better than the blacks because of their reasoning capabilities. Substantiating this view, Jefferson quotes the role of white slaves in the Roman Empire; “Notwithstanding other discouraging circumstances against the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled in science insomuch that, they were employed as tutors to their master’s children; Epictetus, Terence, and Phaedrus, were slaves” (p.672). However, because they were white slaves, their reasoning was far superior to those of blacks.
Jefferson was undoubtedly against slavery, but after reading some of his views on the advantages the black slaves provided in comparison to white slaves, Jefferson’s fight against slavery is not convincing. While he felt that the British Monarchy’s influence was the reason behind slavery in the United States, and was against the Monarchy’s influence dominating American society, he welcomed the black slaves who worked for him. In 1809 when Jefferson returned to Monticello, he argued for the freedom of slaves, and “evinced the same prejudices as most of his contemporaries in the colonies and then the United States,” (p.661) he still had Sally Hemings and her children with him, who were black slaves. For a person who only saw and had black slaves to tend to him, his advocacy for abolition of slavery is not very convincing. Had he been a true preacher for abolition of slavery, he would have removed his slaves from home, which he didn’t.
“To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act” (p.669) is how Jefferson reacted to slavery in America, in Query XIV Laws. Jefferson advocated the abolition of slavery and wrote this to the legislatures before the bill was to be taken up. It was during this period that a number of states in the U.S began to move toward a more liberal society, ending slavery. Till then, slavery was viewed as something that was an inherent part of colonial dominance. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, several American states had abolished slavery as repulsive and insignificant to their economic development. Gradually, there was a movement, where states in the south of the country saw slavery die. During the years of colonization, the British and Europeans brought Africans to work in their farms and household as slaves. Traders would bring Africans to America and sell them to the Americans, who would make them work as bonded labourers in the farms. The bonded blacks became the property of that family that bought them for a price. Even when the blacks gave birth, the babies would have to follow the tradition of serving their white masters for the rest of their lives. There was no freedom, because as soon as they are bought, they became the property of the white’s who bought them. This is mentioned in Query XIV Laws (p.669), where Jefferson says “they (the children) would continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expense, to tillage, if they were poor readers, or sent to study arts or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females became eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age.” Once they became adolescents, the children would be colonized and sent to “such place as the circumstances of the time deemed most appropriate, which could be; sending them out with arms, implement household; to make handicraft arts, or tillage, or even domesticating animals.”
On talent, Jefferson writes that the black slaves were gifted musicians, “with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch” (p.670). Music has no language and no barriers, and can be heard by anyone who enjoys melodious sound. However, this changed when young African Americans started a new wave of music that has again taken the world by storm. Hip-Hop, and reggae were distinctly different and sang to the sound of African singers like Bob Marley, who used music to spread the voice of the underprivileged and economically poor to the rest of the world. Finally, Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, (p.674), says “religion produced a Phyllis Wheatly, but it could not produce a poet, because the compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.” Instead, Ignatius Sancho has a better approach to merit composition, says Jefferson (p.674). What made Jefferson comment on Phyllis Wheatley’s poetry is unknown, but it does suggest that Jefferson did not see eye-to-eye with Wheatley, a black slave.
The Romans treated their slaves more shabbily than the blacks on the American continent. When Phyllis Wheatley’s poems were published in 1773, she was a person of considerable public attention. She was a black slave born in Africa and brought to Boston in 1761 (p.763). Phyllis was lucky enough to be bought by a wealthy tailor as a companion for his wife, Susannah. The Wheatley’s introduced Phyllis to a community that challenged the keeping of slaves as incompatible with Christian life (p.763). Thanks to her education, largely because of the magnanimity of Susannah Wheatley, she went to London to publish her poems. Phyllis’ poems stand refreshingly different from the articulated views of Thomas Jefferson because she was a black slave talking against black slavery, and was sure to express them directly in her poems. Her views and opinions are genuine, and unlike Jefferson’s statements, are direct and to the point. In one poem of hers; On Being Brought from Africa to America, Phyllis writes:
Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understandRemember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refined, and join the angelic train (p.764).
Phyllis, in writing this poem, acknowledges the greatness of the people who brought her to America. Had it not been for John and Susannah Wheatley, she wouldn’t have understood that not all white people were bad. There were saviours like God and she wouldn’t have understood the meaning of redemption had it not been for them. However, she knows that she was one of the few lucky ones, as most blacks were brought as slaves and scorned because of their dark skin color. She grew up understanding the law of the church, which was against slavery, and says that whether they were Christians or Negroes, God could forgive them and lead them to a better life. By using the word ‘sable,’ Phyllis is juxtaposing the color of the blacks to that of evil. In the eyes of the whites, blacks were bad, and the color matched that of those who were in mourning. In saying, “Negroes, black as Cain,” Phyllis recollects the event in the Bible, where it was the people from Africa who were linked as the first murderer. However, as she experienced in her time with the Wheatley’s, Phyllis says that even though only a Christian would know this to make the claim, true Christians would never link an entire race, millennium years later, to a biblical event as justification for perpetrating new sins on blacks.
On reading Thomas Jefferson’s Query XIV Laws and a poem from Phyllis Wheatley, it is very much evident that, Jefferson was quite indirect and unconvincing in his effort to state his reservation on slavery, and for its abolition, while a part from Phyllis’ poem made a direct plea for abolition of black slavery. While Jefferson could only relate to the emotions and struggles of slaves from the outside, Phyllis could easily relate her personal struggle and view.
Today, America has gone through a transition, with slavery abolished for good, and blacks playing a vital part in the great democratic process. While the twentieth century witnessed an uprising for justice and equality, America today, is a nation of diversity. All kinds of religious practices are encouraged and accepted, and discrimination in the name of race, religion, color or creed is unacceptable, and punishable by law.
Since the mid-1990s, the world has seen the emergence of a cult that has taken it by storm. The rise of African-American music has not only instigated many other youths, including white Americans, to use this form to spread contemporary social issues through music, but has also become a major advertising tool for multinational corporations. While young African-Americans sought to address the pitfalls of today’s society; racism, education, sexism, drug use, and spiritual uplift, corporate use their style of music to attract and influence young customers. Such cultural activities and social promotions using African music would have been taboo during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as no one would have even given a black a second look.
Works Cited
Jefferson, T, Notes on the State of Virginia: Query XIV Laws
Wheatley, P, Poems
