How central was slavery in Jeffersons life?
His whole life was lived in the midst of slaves over the course of his lifetime. He owned approximately 600 slave persons. At any one time, he owned about 200. And his lifestyle, his standard of living itself at Monticello, were all dependent upon the institution of slavery. He was born as a member of the Virginia planter class, into an institution that was rooted in his world and his country–he called Virginia his country. And he grew up with that as a kind of fait accompli. How thorough was this dependence? Did Jefferson have other means of income besides slavery? In an economic sense, he was almost completely dependent on the institution of slavery. The bulk of his life was spent in public service and as a white planter in Monticello, growing tobacco. It was an ironic form of dependence, because he went bankrupt, as did a significant percentage of the planter class in Virginia, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Slavery in Virginia was not working as an economic insti
