Stamped from the Beginning: Chapter 7: Enlightenment Summary & Analysis

In 1747, Peter Jefferson embarks on the grueling task of surveying land untouched by European settlers in order to expand colonization westwards. Upon returning home, he entertains his 4-year-old son Thomas with stories of his adventures. During the mid-1700s, a shift takes place wherein religious leaders no longer “completely dominat[e] the racial discourse in America.” This is the Enlightenment, a time in which racist beliefs are both intensified and secularized. The era began with the scientific revolution of the 17th century, which births a philosophical movement in the 18th. The word “Enlightenment” on one hand refers to religious obscurity giving way to rational clarity. At the same time, this is also the period in which the concept of whiteness—and with it white supremacy—is properly consolidated and enforced.

During this period, the slave trade massively escalates, propelled by the booming trade in cotton cloth. The enormous economic engine of the British Empire is built on the foundation of racist ideas, which enables the slave trade to persist and expand. It is racist ideas that define the intellectual environment of the Enlightenment—antiracist ideas are practically nowhere to be found. Scholars devise a hierarchy of human groups with white Europeans at the top and Africans at the bottom. Enslavers also create internal rankings of different African ethnicities, which affect the price placed on enslaved people. This is a form of “ethnic racism” that ultimately reinforces white supremacy, as the African ethnicities deemed superior are those that are supposedly nearest to whiteness.

At times, Africans internalize and reproduce ethnic racism themselves. This can create divisions among the enslaved, who should be “natural allies,” which benefits enslavers as it lessens the likelihood of resistance. French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire is another supporter of the idea of racial hierarchy, asserting that Africans are inferior to white people and animalistic, yet in this sense are also physically “hardy” and fierce. With these ideas, he adds weight to the polygenesis theory, suggesting that Africans and Europeans do not emerge from a common ancestor. This is a segregationist view and one that enslavers embrace. At the same time, Voltaire is against slavery, a typical position within the intellectual climate of the Enlightenment.

Of course, if Black people and white people are truly two different species, it wouldn’t make sense that they could have children together. Yet segregationists and polygenesists are not so easily swayed by this argument. The supposed wrongness and aberration of biracial people is captured in the word “mulatto,” which emerges in the 18th century and is derived from the word “mule.” 

Peter Jefferson owns a tobacco plantation, Shadwell, and 1,200 acres of land in Virginia. Cherokee and Catawba dignitaries often stop at the Jefferson household on their way to conduct diplomatic business in Williamsburg. Meanwhile, Thomas grows up surrounded by enslaved Africans, coming to associate slavery and Black people with his comfort and care. Like other white people at the time, he finds slavery completely normal and familiar, “as customary as prisons are today.” His father, Peter, has the second highest number of slaves of anyone in the county. Unlike other enslavers at the time, Peter does not allow them to be converted to Christianity.

In 1746, New Jersey Quaker John Woolman writes the influential abolitionist tract, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes. In it, he characterizes white Christians as having a superior position, which bestows them with the duty to act benevolently toward enslaved Africans. Woolman waits until 1754 to publish the essay, choosing a moment in which Quakers appear to be becoming more sympathetic to abolition. Woolman’s essay jumpstarts a powerful Quaker abolitionist movement, although many Quakers are still enslavers and remain hostile to abolition. After traveling around the country and meeting with both abolitionists and advocates of slavery, Woolman publishes an updated version of his essay in 1762. This new version emphasizes racial equality rather than a paternalistic view of white benevolence. Woolman’s antiracist position is “ahead of its time.”  

Peter Jefferson dies at 1757, making 14-year-old Thomas the official head of the household. In reality Thomas’ mother oversees the running of the plantation, where 66 people are held in bondage. In 1760, Thomas begins studying at the College of William & Mary, where he is exposed to abolitionist Enlightenment philosophy. Following this, he trains as a lawyer and then takes a role as a political leader representing Albemarle County in the House of Burgesses. However, he has only occupied the role for 10 days when the royal governor of Virginia closes the House over a dispute about colonial taxes.

After this, Jefferson takes the case of a Samuel Howell, a self-emancipated second-generation biracial man. Jefferson argues that Howell should be granted freedom, arguing that “under the law of nature, all men are born free.” He loses the case.