Jefferson's Pillow

In Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism (2001), historian, civil rights leader, and journalist Roger Wilkins examines the conflicting racial attitudes and moral contradictions of four of America's Founding Fathers. Few can argue the impact that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, and George Washington had on the birth of the nation. However, often glossed over in many historical accounts is the deeply entrenched racism of these men and the nation they built on the backs of slaves. The focus of Wilkins's investigation, the book reveals important truths about popular notions of liberty and patriotism, the history of the country, and some of the key men credited with founding it.

The title of the book comes from a specific memory Jefferson had of his youth. He remembered being carried around on a pillow by one of his family's slaves. This sets the stage for the central contradiction at the heart of the nation's founding story: How could so many men who were so passionate and vehement about the imperativeness of freedom and liberty also be vocal supporters of slavery and slaveholders themselves?

Wilkins sets out to answer this question from a variety of vantage points. In some regards, he considers men like George Mason—the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the precursor to the Declaration of Independence—and George Washington to be slaves to the mindset of their times. They were born into, grew up in, and became prominent figures in a society where the notion of not owning fellow human beings was unfathomable.



In Mason's case, he inherited his wealth from his family. As one of Virginia's largest slave owners, Mason's fortune, social standing, reputation, and success depended on him continuing the legacy he was handed. However, instead of making the bold and compassionate decision to question the value of owning other humans, he enslaved hundreds while writing publicly about the inherent value and worth of all people. A bold and compassionate decision, Wilkins suggests, would never have even crossed Mason's mind.

There was, however, some awareness, albeit slight, of the incongruity of the Founding Fathers' thinking. Wilkins explains that, in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson did indeed broach the subject of slavery; but, instead of exploring the immorality of slavery and the paradoxical thinking of his and his fellow founders, Jefferson blames England for the continued existence of slavery in the Colonies. Wilkins discusses how ludicrous this notion is and how Jefferson just uses the subject of slavery as a political volleying point. Still, the very idea that Jefferson considered slavery in some relation to impending American freedom suggests that the subject at least crossed his mind. Eventually, the passage about slavery was deleted from the final draft of the Declaration of Independence out of concern it would offend Southern slave owners.

Wilkins's portrayal of Washington is at odds with the popular notion of the first President as a selfless leader. He "was a disciplined member of the landed gentry…[and] could be haughty and distant and overly fond of pomp," Wilkins writes. "He could also be worshipful of wealth and jealous of his property—including his human property." Washington did not allow blacks to fight in the War of Independence, even though it was a black man—Crispus Attucks—who was the first American killed in the Boston Massacre, the first to sacrifice his own life for the nation's independence and thereby triggering the American Revolution. As the war went on, Washington had to set his racism aside because there simply were not enough able-bodied white men to fight. This, Wilkins says, was only done reluctantly.



Wilkins also presents Madison as a man of his time who favored any agreement that kept the South united to the North, which meant, of course, continuing the slaveholding tradition.

However, Jefferson’s hypocritical nature is on brightest display here. While he wrote the words that essentially made America free, he owned an entire plantation populated with slaves. Their labor allowed him to have the space, time, and resources to do all of the writing that would become crucial to the bedrock of a (supposedly) free nation. Moreover, his dependence on his slaves was not just for economic purposes; Jefferson took personal liberties with them as well. He fathered children with his slave Sally Hemmings. These children were the only slaves that Jefferson freed upon his death. "He was a dizzying mixture of searing brilliance and infuriating self-indulgence, of idealism and base racism, of soaring patriotism and myopic self-involvement," Wilkins writes. "He was America writ small."

Ultimately, Jefferson's Pillow demythologizes the lives and characters of Jefferson and his cohorts. By just stating historical facts, Wilkins shines a light on the paradoxical natures of these men, men who espoused the virtues of freedom while denying it to the people who farmed their fields, cooked their food, raised their children, and kept their homes. The advantages that their lives of privilege afforded these men blinded them to the reality of their own brutality—a phenomenon that has reverberated throughout the generations and continues today.