Thomas Jefferson's Fight Against Slavery

Before taking this course, my knowledge about Thomas Jefferson was limited. I used to live in another county, and my History classes were about Simon Bolivar and Francisco De Miranda. Now, after these readings, and additional research, I could say that Thomas Jefferson was known as more than one of the American Founding Fathers; today people would call him a human rights activist. He fought for slaves seeking their freedom, and during his second period as president, he signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves. However, there are inconsistent histories that make me believe that he was not against the slavery as he used to proclaim.

Jefferson wrote vast numbers of letters, and it appears that in the majority he mentioned something about his fight for the freedom of slaves, for example, he said in a letter to the Marquis De Chastellux that he had for the Nation two great purposes in view. First, the emancipation of the slaves, and second, the settlement of the constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis. Jefferson in the same letter wrote that he believed that Indian and White man were equal and that Black man might not be so, however, he considered hazardous to affirm that he would not become so. Thomas
He owned more than 600 slaves; some of them were bough, and others born in his lands, and some of them were even sold to solve economic issues. Testimonies tell that he was a kind owner, he gave some benefits to his slaves never seen before, however, at the end of the day, they were still slaves. While George Washington freed his slaves because slavery disgusted him, Thomas Jefferson noted that the enslaved were yielding him a bonanza, which represented a four percent profit every year on the birth of black children. It was called Jefferson's 4 percent theorem. That finding drew the back away from the antislavery speech and the beginning of his silence toward the