Jefferson and Haiti

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, marking the beginning of the American Revolution, and the establishment of a new nation: The United States of America. It may seem strange that the man who wrote so eloquently about the rights of man, and how each human being was invariably born free, could in fact be the owner of his fellow human beings, but it was true. Thomas Jefferson, while a true believer in the principles of the Enlightenment: liberty, self-determination, freedom, etc., his views on slavery were more pragmatic than idealistic. Jefferson may have been a man who personally felt that the institution of slavery should be ended, but he never took any real concrete steps toward that goal. And when the slaves on the French island of San Domingue rose up and gained their independence, Jefferson, fearing that this could become an inspiration to...
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