Thomas Jefferson -- no hero for us
Wow - I had of course always known that Jefferson was a slaveowner, with all the hypocrisy that implies, but only am now learning the details of how directly he was involved him in the treatment of the slaves. And how much he prized money, and elegance, and luxuries and all that crap above the treatment of human beings. His writings are all conflicted also on the issue -- while at times he talks about being lenient and whatnot, at the core he's just an out and out racist in how he thinks about Black people, and NO, NOT everyone of that era was, to that degree. The only reason he was with Sally Hemings was because she was 3/4 white -- and at least he had the decency to treat his offspring OK, but his daughter Martha Jefferson (by his wife who had died earlier, in 1782), was pretty miserable to the slaves as well. Mostly I gathered all these things from the Wikipedia pages on Jefferson, his relation to slavery etc., but this particular long detailed article is quite damning: