Jefferson and slavery-Week 1

            In American Studies, we read over "Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia", and the text surprised me. After the Declaration of Independence was written is 1776, the Congress had agreed that all men were created equal and all slaves should be emancipated. But Thomas Jefferson's thoughts disagreed with that popular opinion. He believed that blacks should be deported back to Africa after their slave term was over. Jefferson believed that when slaves turned 45 they should be colonized back in Africa. Thomas also supported the notion of slaves being black since they have body characteristics that helped them with the heat and extreme workload. This surprised me because Jefferson had agreed with and written the Declaration of Independence. This led me to believe that maybe some other congressmen also had differing thoughts and just agreed with the popular vote of emancipating slaves. In American Literature class, we also read the text of Equiano, a slave who traveled to Europe and eventually became a European. The text gave us an insight of what slaves went through and gave a standard to compare to when talking about Jefferson. That is one of the many interesting and surprising things we discussed in the American Studies class and I hope to learn and talk about even more interesting texts and ideas