Posthumous (1827-1830)
At his death, Jefferson was greatly in debt, in part due to his continued construction program. The debts encumbered his estate, and his family had to sell 130 slaves from Monticello to pay his creditors. Jefferson freed five slaves in his will, all males of the Hemings family. In addition to his two natural sons, he freed Sally's younger half-brother John Hemings, and her nephews Joseph (Joe) Fossett and Burwell Colbert. He gave Burwell Colbert, who had served as his butler and valet, $300 for purchasing supplies used in the trade of "painter and glazier". He gave John Hemings and Joe Fossett each an acre on his lands so they could build homes for their families. His will included a petition to the state legislature to allow the freedmen to remain in Virginia to be with their families, who remained enslaved under Jefferson's heirs.
Because Jefferson did not free Fossett's wife or their eight children, in the ensuing sale of slaves, they were sold to four different men. Fossett worked for years to buy his family members to provide for their freedom. While Jefferson made no provision for Sally Hemings, his daughter gave her "her time", enabling her to live freely with her sons in Charlottesville, where they bought a house. She lived to see a grandchild born free in the house her sons owned.
In 1827, an auction of 130 slaves took place at Monticello. The sale lasted for five days despite the cold weather. The sale attracted national attention. According to a 2008 history by Graham Russell Hodges and Gary Nash,
"a small-town editor in a Susquehanna River town asked how Jefferson, 'surely the champion of civil liberty to the American people,' left 'so many human beings in fetters to be indiscriminately sold to the highest bidder.' In biting words, the editor wrote: 'Heaven inspired Jefferson with the knowledge 'that all men are created equal.' He was not forgetful—in his last moments he 'commended his soul to God, and his daughter to his country;' but to whom did he commend his wretched slaves?'"
The slaves brought prices over 70% of their appraised value. Within three years, all of the black families at Monticello had been sold and dispersed. Some were purchased by free relatives, such as Mary Hemings Bell, who worked to try to reconstitute the families.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Jefferson And Haitian Emigration
Famous quotes containing the word posthumous:
“Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. It is virtue gone to seed: it is a kind of posthumous honor. It does not often caress the great, but the children of the great: it is a hall of the Past.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)