You have your opinion which you're entitled to. It's obvious you won't change your mind, I'm not going to change mine. We can agree to disagree on some things but not the definition as to whether Jefferson clearly broke. He missed his promise to Beverly by a mere three years. I've never been a slave and neither have you but I have to believe an extra three years is a significant thing. Just like the extra year for Madison which was only a year because Jefferson died.
James was trained as a chef but his release was contingent on him teaching younger brother Peter his skills. You assume Jefferson wouldn't have split up a family out of spite. That was exactly the criteria he used when staffing the President's House with some of his own slaves from Monticello. He split up families so that complete families couldn't escape together, the ones he brought would have to return to Monticello to see their families again. Admittedly he only had two weeks before his inauguration to staff the President's House because of the delays in naming him President but the splitting up families was on purpose.
Jefferson isn't the man you think he is, the teen boys that worked in the nailery were beaten to improve productivity. He had other women at Monticello forcibly bred and raped to increase production. Is it somehow not rape when he does it? I've been to Monticello where they downplay the number of slaves he owned, quoting the 400 that lived at Monticello without mentioning the other 200 he owned at other locations. His brother Randolph had the run of the slave quarters for breeding purposes, but at least he danced and played the violin. He probably convinced himself the slave women came to him freely from desire.
Yes, there is a lot I could say about Thomas Jefferson, that's why I call him a piece of shit, that was also a rapist. A lying racist.
It wasn't I who dehumanized Sally Hemings. How about the man who took her to Paris at 14, raped her, hid their relationship during the day but had a connecting room at night so he could continue raping her. She could not willingly give consent, he owned her and had a power differential she couldn't hope to overcome. He controlled not only her fate but that of her siblings, extended family and ultimately her children. I'd say their children but did he publicly acknowledge them, keep his promise to free them (I'll grant that Harriet might have been let go while 21, what are the chances it was on her birthday?
Not being pursued isn't the same as being manumitted. There were slave patrols who at any time could snatch them up as they had no papers granting them freedom. To avoid that, the children pretended to be white, under those circumstances they lived in fear of being exposed, not exactly freedom. It isn't me changing her life to fit my narrative, it's you who cannot accept the reality of her life.
