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Thomas Jefferson's writings demonstrate the complexity
of his thoughts and feelings concerning the intellect and educational
potential of black people. This passage from NOTES ON THE STATE OF
VIRGINIA shows Jefferson's ambiguous stance. He firmly maintains the
inferiority of the blacks' capacity for reason and imagination as a
race. At the same time he admits to individual educational
accomplishments, singling out Phillis Wheatley.
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They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the
day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till
midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of
the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But
this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents
their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go
through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are
more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an
eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.
Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render
it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath,
are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their
existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To
this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from
their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at
rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep
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of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and
imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the
whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found
capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and
that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be
unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider
them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are
not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to
make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of
conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them
have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been
confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many
have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the
conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the
handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated
with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived
in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a
considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best
works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will
often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit.
They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove
the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation.
They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as
prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and
elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought
above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait
of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than
the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been
found capable of imagining a small catch. 31 Whether they will be equal
to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated
harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of
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the most affecting touches in poetry. -- Among the blacks is misery
enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar ;oestrum of the
poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the
imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it
could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are
below the dignity of criticism.
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