Jefferson and his slaves topic at July 13 talk

FALLS VILLAGE — Robert Forbes will present a picture of Thomas Jefferson as a man trying to theorize his way out of the contradiction between being the author of the Declaration of Independence — and a man who believed that blacks are an inferior race, or even a separate species.

Forbes, assistant professor of History and American Studies at the University of Connecticut in Torrington, will discuss “Thomas Jefferson and the Imperative of Race� as part of the Tuesdays at Six lecture series July 13 at the South Canaan Meeting House.

While historians have written at length about the contradictory nature of Jefferson’s beliefs and writings, Forbes said, he sees it as a rhetorical strategy, a way to justify the seeming incoherence — and avoid going down in history “as the greatest monument to hypocrisy.�

Jefferson attempted to make his own slaveholding “irrelevant to his position by rendering slaves as not really deserving of attention and concern.�

Forbes said as attitudes toward blacks began to change in the 1770s and 1780s, and black writers such as Phillis Wheatley (in the U.S.) and Ignatius Sancho ( in England) began to refute the notion that Africans were intellectually inferior to Europeans, Jefferson had to scramble to keep his theories intact, reintroducing ideas about race that were starting to lose currency.

“He took folk prejudices and elevated them to the level of scientific truth,� said Forbes.

“And because he was Thomas Jefferson he had extraordinary influence.�

Forbes said the direction his research has taken him is “not pleasant� at times, “but I am not at all concerned with current political or social dogma.�

Rather, he’s concerned about “where Jefferson fits in among his contemporaries.�

The July 13 lecture is a preview of a forthcoming book, which will probably cause a stir. “I’ve been advised to visit the South, or at least Virginia, before it comes out,� said Forbes with a laugh.

The Tuesdays at Six lectures are free and open to the public. The program starts at 5:45 p.m. with a musical interlude; the program runs from 6 to 7 p.m.

The South Canaan Meeting House is located just south of the junction of routes 7 and 63 in Falls Village (behind the Crossroads Deli).