Reply to Thomas Jefferson - How do people feel about him today?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Jefferson started sleeping with Hemmings when she was 14.  I can't even with these "he was a complicated man" posters.  FOURTEEN.[/quote]
In Shakespeare's time people were married at 14.  FOURTEEN.  Yeah, imagining time used to be different is difficult for some people.  My great grandfather used to work at 7.  SEVEN - and that's why this country implemented labor laws.  Geez, times were different.  Did you know women used to be treated like property?  I know history is crazy.  In the future we will be the crazy ones.[/quote]

She was his slave, his wife's slave (and half sister) that he inherited when his wife died. I don't care if it was 1787 BC, all of it is disgusting and the Jefferson worship is awful.

Do you think you're witty, downplaying this crap?[/quote]

Put that way, it sounds almost biblical.

We have had words for these relationships forever, which means these relationships have been around forever.  Mistress, leman, affair partner, less charitably adulteress.  Consort, concubine, placee.  Etc.[/quote]

Here’s the word you’re missing: slave. She was his slave. She was his 14 year old slave. [/quote]

She had a relationship very similar to a placee, although not as formal.  You can erase that, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen. [/quote]

She was not a free woman. He literally owned her, as if she were livestock.

Nothing in her life was truly her own choice, including her sexual relationships. Or pregnancies. 
[/quote]

IOW, she had slightly fewer options than his wife.  But she wasn't powerless, she had options and made decisions.  [/quote]

She was powerless. If she stayed in France she would never see her mother or other siblings again. She was 16 at the time. She traded her future children’s freedom to return as a slave where she lived in a room under the porch. Jefferson wanted her back with him so he could keep having sex with her. He didn’t love her. He never freed her. Not in France, manipulated her with a false choice to come back, she had 6 more kids with him, she slept under the porch, until HE died.

She was 75% white. She was a child. Didn’t matter. Jefferson was vile. [/quote]

She had choices which means she had power.  More than most other enslaved people (and more than some white women).  When you dismiss that, you are denying her agency.  (And Jefferson was also restricted in how he could treat her, as well.  He was not free from the rules of society either.)[/quote]

She didn’t truly have choices or rights. She was 100% at his mercy. [/quote]

She had a far better life by being Jefferson's concubine.[/quote]

Ok. And? She got lucky that he didn’t treat her even more like sht?

If he loved her he should have freed her and her family. Nothing stopping him. Instead he chose to [u]own[/u] her. She had no agency. No power. She was not a free woman making her own decisions. 
[/quote]

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