Jefferson’s inferiority doctrine required ignoring abundant evidence of enslaved skill

Evidence

With Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson emerged as the preeminent American authority on Black intellectual inferiority. This status would persist over the next fifty years. Jefferson did not mention the innumerable enslaved Africans who learned to be highly intelligent blacksmiths, shoemakers, bricklayers, coopers, carpenters, engineers, manufacturers, artisans, musicians, farmers, midwives, physicians, overseers, house managers, cooks, and biand trilingual translators—all of the workers who made his Virginia plantation and many others almost entirely self-sufficient. Jefferson had to ignore his own advertisements for skilled runaways and the many advertisements from other planters calling for the return of their valuable skilled captives, who were “remarkably smart and sensible,” and “very ingenious at any work.” One wonders whether Jefferson really believed his own words. Did Jefferson really believe Black people were smart in slavery and stupid in freedom? — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s goal of testing Kendi’s inversion: here the racist idea (Black inferiority) is contradicted by Jefferson’s own lived evidence of Black skill, showing idea held against evidence — relevant for testing whether policy always precedes ideas.