Monticello and Charlottesville

Soldier had to be in Charlottesville for a class this week (which is the whole reason we went on this trip anyway) so the boys and I stayed there for a few days before coming back home.  

Let me just say: I love Charlottesville.  

It's a college town, on the small side, but big enough to have a Chipotle and some decent shopping.   (And isn't that all that really matters?) Anyway, it's quaint and charming and easily walkable/bikeable, with historical sites on the side.  Most of the houses are on the older side; I'm sure there are newer ones somewhere, but we kept fairly close to the middle of town, which is largely old. There are three presidents' homes in the area: Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe.   We only had time to see Jefferson's Monticello.  You aren't allowed to take pictures inside the house itself, and the boys were rushing me through the outside parts, so I don't have any pictures to share.  

There are stables, the kitchen, wine and beer cellars, and various other "dependencies" as Jefferson called them, underneath the house.  It's not really a basement, as it's exposed to the outdoors (it's really on ground level and the house is built above it), but I imagine it would be plenty dark and shadowy at night.  I wish I had taken pictures of the kitchen, because at first glance I couldn't tell that it WAS one.  First of all, it wasn't in the actual house.  If you think about it, I guess this makes sense, because when you're cooking with a wood or coal stove, it gets pretty sooty and smoky, not the kind of thing you want to see and smell inside your house.  I was equally taken aback to see that the only things in the kitchen were shelves for the dishes and cookware, a hearth, and a long, multi-burner brick stove.   It was considered the most advanced and best-equipped kitchen of its time.  Again, upon further consideration, I have to admit that the absence of a sink, oven, and icebox, all of which I would have expected to see, was probably in line with the technology of the period.  Sinks require plumbing, which still hadn't been invented yet, along with ovens.  There was an icehouse, however, on the opposite side of the house, so I still don't know why there was no place to store cold foods in the kitchen if there was ample ice to do so.  

Monticello was a little underwhelming in some respects.  I though it would be a lot bigger than it was.  I suppose back in the 1800's it was considered enormous, but it really isn't that much bigger than the house we're currently in (which, while large, isn't a mansion by any means.) We didn't tour the gardens, which were no doubt impressive, but we didn't have time.  The house was interesting; I wish we could have poked through it more but of course you aren't allowed to touch anything and are required to stay with your group, which means no exploring narrow hallways or nooks and crannies.  I was impressed by all the scientific and mathematical things Jefferson worked on, and the way the family lived back then.  The tour guide was a very round man who liked to think that if he didn't know the answer to something, it wasn't important anyway, which was mildly annoying.  Soldier tried to take him up on the contentious point of the Jefferson/Hemings  issue, but the man simply stated what "their" position was, and wouldn't consider any others.  I personally don't contend the fact that Jefferson fathered her children (she had six, by the way), but I found it ridiculous  that historians have tried to imply that the two of them loved each other and had a consensual relationship.  Anyone with even a shred of knowledge about slave culture at the time, however, would understand the concept of forced consent.  Thomas Jefferson's wife died relatively young. He never remarried, instead bringing his daughter and her family to live with him at Monticello and help run the place.  Sally Hemings' was 3/4 white herself, very light-skinned, good-looking, and was also the half-sister of Jefferson's wife.  Yes, the half-sister of his wife.  Sally's mother was a concubine of Martha Jefferson's father, so it's not a stretch to assume that Sally herself was Jefferson's concubine.  (A concubine is someone who is involved in an ongoing, marraige-like relationship with a man whom she cannot marry, usually because of social status.)   So to recap: Sally was his wife's sister AND his personal property, to do whatever he pleased with.  I really do not think that Sally loved Jefferson or that he loved her, as historians have tried to imply.  When you are literally the property of a master and he controls every aspect of your life, including whether you live or die, you are probably going to go along with whatever he does to you, whether you like it or not.  I think it was more a situation of him being widowed and wanting sex, she was white enough and even his deceased wife's sister, (therefore he was attracted to her, presumably) and thus he chose her to literally be his sex slave.  I think it is also significant that he freed the children he had by her, but did not free her.  Supposedly this is because she first became pregnant while in Paris, and refused to accompany him back to America unless he freed her children.  That is possible, but I think it is more likely that he freed their children because they were HIS, and they were 7/8 white, which at that time meant they were entitled to live as free persons if their masters acquiesed.  I do not think that, as a slave, even a pretty, white-looking one, she would have been in a position to issue an ultimatum like that to her master.  She undoubtedly not only knew he controlled her fate, but was also at least a little intimidated by him - he was, after all, wealthy and incredibly intelligent, not to mention persuasive. So if he freed her children, why not her? Because if she was free, she could leave, and presumably, wouldn't be so readily available for sex at his whim.  Makes perfect sense to me.  But historians like to gloss over the particulars and just say they had a "relationship."  Well, sure.  But it was a slave/master relationship, not necessarily a love affair. 

Since I have no pictures of either Charlottesville or Monticello, here is one I took of the Virginia countryside, right off the highway.   Much of rural Virginia looks like this.