Science and Technology

Thomas Jefferson's Thoughts

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote Notes on the State of Virginia in response to a questionnaire from the French government, reflects this sentiment. He states that repatriation of freed Africans is the most appropriate solution to the question of race in the New World. For one, he finds it unlikely that enslaved people will forgive the mistreatment of their masters and equally unlikely that whites will be able to overcome their deep-seated prejudices. In addition to these problems, however, he explains that there are physical differences between the races that cannot be ameliorated. Suggesting that mixing white and black always results in a black progeny, Jefferson states that Africans are a distinct race. He enumerates several common stereotypes of people of African descent in this section, concluding that the mental and emotional development of the African population is markedly inferior to the race of Native Americans.

To his credit, in the true skepticism of the Enlightenment, Jefferson holds no truth to be fixed. In the discussion of Virginia limestone [Page 1889]in Query VI, he is compelled to add that he has found petrified shells unlike those found on the coast high above sea level. He tries three explanations of why he would find shells there: the biblical explanation of rising seas, a rise in the bed of the ocean, and the geological formation of shell-like shapes. Jefferson reasons that proof of any of these three hypotheses is unsatisfactory and suggests that the height of wisdom would be to admit that the question was unsolved, saying that the person who does not come to a conclusion is closer to the truth than someone who holds to a mistaken belief. With a similarly open mind, when he responds to a letter from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson remains open to the idea that he was wrong. After reviewing Banneker's almanac, he forwarded it to a correspondent in France. Such was the conduct of science in this era: a network of correspondents working as disinterested amateurs sometimes referred to as the “republic of letters.”

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