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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Happy Birthday, T.J.
  • Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:25:34 EDT

In a message dated 4/13/2005 2:06:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,
genegerue AT ruralize.com writes:


> It would be a stretch to call Thomas Jefferson a homesteader.

Would it? I might have thought that too until a few years ago when I got (at
the library, alas, I don't own it) the book publishing all of Thomas
Jefferson's farming and gardening notes. In the essentials of trying to run
his
plantation on a self-sufficient basis, he was very much the essential
homesteader.

It also published as part of his gardening notes many of what would be
spreadsheets today of how goods were distributed in his household and thus it
gave a
first hand look at the institution of slavery as it was practiced then.
Slaves were refered to in all his notes as 'hands'. Any farm task was
calculated
on the basis of what was the expected labor for a hand as was reasonably (by
their reckoning) due on the basis of the slave/master relationship. Any
work
beyond that was paid in cash to the hand and any produce beyond their quota
was theirs to keep or sale. His lists and ledgers are full of columns of
amounts due to the 'hands' because of enterprise or surplus. In poor years
or
because of poor health the quota was often not met. In the majority of cases
when
an individual went into arrears, as it were, Jefferson noted in the
recievable column "deleted".

I wouldn't have wanted to be one of his 'hands', but then again I wouldn't
have wanted to be the master either.

James




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