How did Thomas Jefferson clarify his beliefs on the racial inferiority of blacks?

Answer 1

In Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia" he makes it clear that he feels African Americans are "inherently inferior" saying things like they have a distinct smell, they weren't as intellectual as Europeans, weren't as musically talented.

Answer 2

This was a common belief, that black people and white people shouldn't live together. Jefferson thought that black people "smelled different", which is certainly possible, given that body odor is highly dependent on your diet. And Jefferson and his family did not eat the same food that his servants did.

Similar sentiments prompted James Monroe to establish a "reverse colony", an American colony in Africa, to be peopled by former slaves who would return to their ancestral homelands. Named "Liberia" from the word "liberty", it was widely considered to be a failure, as only a few hundred former slaves wanted to go back to Africa.

But Jefferson did believe, contrary to many of his contemporaries, that black people were HUMAN, and that black peoples' human rights were no less important than his own. In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, there was a strong anti-slavery passage that was removed during the debate. (The fictionalized account in the movie "1776" is probably not too far off the truth.)

Answer 3

there looks