Hope and Heritage

Hope and Heritage: Myth of Thomas Jefferson Throughout countless books, stories, and articles that depict Thomas Jefferson he is placed on a pedestal as a nearly perfect man. The books all tell of his great achievements, but never do these books speak of his true manner and thought process pertaining to slave trade. Gordon Wood takes a deep dive into Jefferson’s personal life, plainly showing who he truly was.
Just as people have done since the beginning of time, they are still doing it today. People look for the bad in everything possible thing they can. People knew Thomas Jefferson was a good man, but they had to find something wrong with him. When the historians finally researched the subject the results were rather shocking. First off, it is apparent that Jefferson did not care for the basic civil liberties of others and also that he had a ruthless self-righteous attitude. The main odd portion of Thomas Jefferson’s life was his view on the African American people. During Jefferson’s lifetime, the slave trade was a massive argument that lasted many years. This argument would eventually end in the abolition of slavery in America. Reading of Thomas Jefferson in the children’s story you would hear nothing but great stories. For example he is widely known for writing the document named the Declaration of Independence. When it came to the slaves, Jefferson not only embraced the slave trade culture, but he partook in it as well. People had a hard time seeing Thomas Jefferson proclaim freedom and equality to all while in fact he was always controlling his African American slaves at the same time. It seemed to most people that Thomas Jefferson was being a hypocrite in plain sight. To put it into perspective, Thomas Jefferson once said that he never even thought that African Americans should be living in the same country as whites. Though he might have sincerely wanted to have all man free, he also portrayed that the African American race was not good enough to