There are many ways to tell the story of Black people in the United States. For example, one can recount that the first human loss of the so-called American Revolution was Crispus Attucks, a former Black slave who died in the Boston Massacre of 1770. The British army opened fire on unarmed citizens (including the Black hero, Attucks), an act that was seized upon quickly by the propagandists who sought to hasten America’s break with George III. This shooting would contribute to the political climate, which, snowballing with the incident, led to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Another way to tell the story of Black Americans is to take a look at the hypocrisy within the Declaration of Independence itself. On one hand, it’s an extraordinary document, full of political principles that were sufficiently modern for the time that we can’t help but admire and praise; on the other hand, we know quite well how the famous proclamation that “all men are created equal” was limited to white men. Women didn’t count; Black people, even less so. An exception was made for the freed slaves who lived in the North, where some states, such as Massachusetts, would abolish slavery within the 18th century.
The author of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was an erudite man capable of discussing practically anything, from methods of conducting archaeological excavation to the formula for ensuring that the republic he helped to found wouldn’t befall the same grim fate as many others before it. It’s no wonder that one of his best friends was one of the most important scientists of the early 19th century: Abbott José Correia da Serra, who was also Portugal’s ambassador to the United States. Those who travel nowadays to Monticello, Jefferson’s mansion, will encounter “The Abbé’s Room,” which today attracts many visitors.
In one of my news stories on the United States, while covering the 2004 presidential elections, I believe, I saw on TV a segment of a show where young people were asked about Jefferson. Almost all of them said that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence, many knew that he was the third president, that he traveled to the Pacific coast in anticipation of the Manifest Destiny of the new nation, which compelled it to extend from one ocean to the other. But none of these young people mentioned Sally Hemings, the lifetime partner of Jefferson, a Black woman (in Portugal we’d call her a “mulata”) who lived with him in Paris while he was an ambassador there. And, while she was technically a free woman in France, she agreed to return to Virginia on the condition that she would be Jefferson’s slave and lover. Hemings gave Jefferson several children, but it took two centuries of legal struggles and DNA tests for this branch of the family to be recognized as true descendants of the illustrious founding father. Sally was the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife, Martha, who left Jefferson a young widower when she died. It was then Martha’s daughter who liberated Aunt Hemings after Jefferson’s death. The children had emancipated themselves, thanks to the will.
Stephen E. Ambrose, a well-known historian, once wrote that Jefferson was “a man of principle (except with regard to slaves, Indians, and women).” It’s a harsh criticism, all the more so because, even in comparison with his contemporaries, Jefferson stood only to lose from the slavery debate. George Washington freed all of his slaves when he died and John Adams, the second president, was a vocal abolitionist. Adams never had a slave and refused to use slave labor.
Jefferson is also known to have believed that slavery was wrong. He was tempted to address the existence of this abominable institution while writing the Declaration of Independence. But, in the name of unity between Northern and Southern colonies (soon to be Northern and Southern states) any resolution regarding the moral dilemma of slavery was tabled for nearly a century.
On a personal level, too, Jefferson elected to delay the liberation of his own slaves. Unlike Adams, from Massachusetts, who was Jefferson’s biggest rival in the elections of 1800 and lived by the book, Jefferson was a Virginian whose well-being depended on the yields of the plantation, which, at the time, depended on slave labor. The long hours of philosophical debate with friends, starting with fellow Virginians and then with Presidents James Madison and James Monroe, and ending with the Portuguese abbot, were only possible because the Black workforce kept Monticello prosperous.
Fast forward two centuries to the surreal year of 2008, which seems like a completely different era in the U.S. compared to the present moment, with extreme racial tension following the death of a Black man, George Floyd, at the hands of a white police officer.
Now, in 2008, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. A Black man (or a mulatto, son of a Kenyan immigrant and a white woman from Kansas) in the White House. I must admit that his victory surprised me quite a lot. In 2000 I defended my master’s thesis in American Studies, which compared Colin Powell and Louis Farrakhan as opposing models for the African American community. Powell, the leader of the armed forces at the height of the Iraq War against Saddam Hussein, would eventually consider a run for president, but his wife was afraid of this idea and advised him not to challenge American norms. Thus it seems that racial integration, so well-instituted in the military branches or in sports and the arts, did not fare as well in the political field, in the kind of republic that Jefferson helped to found.
And then the Obama phenomenon happened. Obama who joked at a campaign rally about one of his cousins on his mother’s side, Jefferson Davis, the man who helmed the southern, slave-holding Confederacy, who was defeated by Union President Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War of 1861-1865. Obama said that Davis must be spinning in his grave.
And Jefferson: What would he say about the America of today, the America of Obama, the America of Donald Trump and the America of George Floyd? We’ll never know. But we know what Obama said about Jefferson: “[As] somebody who not only was an extraordinary political leader but also one of our great scientific and cultural leaders, Thomas Jefferson represents what’s best in America.”
No country is easy to understand, nor Is any society. The United States, of the bold Crispus Attucks and Sally Hemings, is certainly among those that are hardest to read in black and white.
Há muitas maneiras de contar a história dos negros nos Estados Unidos: por exemplo, lembrar que a primeira baixa da chamada Revolução Americana foi Crispus Attucks, um antigo escravo morto no Massacre de Boston, em 1770. Aproveitados pelos propagandistas da rutura com Jorge III, os disparos do Exército britânico naquele dia sobre civis desarmados (incluindo o herói negro) contribuíram para o clima político que, acumulando-se incidente sobre incidente, levou à Declaração de Independência, em 1776.
Outra forma de contar a história dos negros nos Estados Unidos é olhar para a hipocrisia da própria Declaração de Independência. Por um lado, é um documento extraordinário, cheio de princípios políticos tão modernos para a época que só podemos admirar e elogiar; por outro, sabemos bem como a célebre proclamação de que "todos os homens nascem iguais" se limitava aos homens brancos. As mulheres não contavam, os negros muito menos. Abriu-se uma exceção para os libertos que viviam no norte, pois alguns estados, como o Massachusetts, aboliram a escravatura ainda no século XVIII.
O autor da Declaração de Independência foi Thomas Jefferson, um erudito capaz de conversar sobre quase tudo, desde métodos para fazer escavações arqueológicas até a fórmula para garantir que a república que ajudou a fundar não acabava mal como as outras anteriores. Não admira que um dos seus maiores amigos tenha sido um dos grandes cientistas do início do século XIX, o abade José Correia da Serra, que foi também embaixador de Portugal nos Estados Unidos. Quem for hoje a Monticello, a mansão onde viveu Jefferson, encontrará o Abbé's room, o quarto do abade, aquilo a que chamaríamos hoje um visitante frequente.
Numa das minhas reportagens nos Estados Unidos, creio que para a cobertura das presidenciais de 2004, vi na televisão um programa em que perguntavam aos jovens sobre Jefferson. Quase todos disseram que era o autor da Declaração de Independência, muitos sabiam também que foi o terceiro presidente, houve ainda quem falasse da compra da Louisiana e até da expedição de Lewis e Clark, que foram até à costa do Pacífico, numa antecipação do Destino Manifesto da nova nação a estender-se de um oceano a outro. Mas ninguém falou de Sally Hemings, a companheira de vida de Jefferson, uma negra (em Portugal diríamos mulata) que viveu com ele em Paris quando aí foi embaixador e, embora formalmente livre em França, aceitou voltar à Virginia e à condição de escrava e amante. Hemings deu vários filhos a Jefferson, mas foi preciso uma luta legal de dois séculos, e testes de ADN, para que esse ramo da família fosse reconhecido entre os descendentes do ilustre pai fundador. Sally era meia-irmã da mulher de Jefferson, Martha, de quem enviuvou cedo. E foi depois uma filha de Martha quem deu liberdade à tia Hemings após a morte de Jefferson. Os filhos emanciparam-se graças ao testamento.
Stephen E. Ambrose, um reputado historiador, escreveu um dia que Jefferson era "um homem de princípios (exceto no que respeita aos escravos, aos índios e às mulheres)". É uma crítica duríssima, tanto mais que, mesmo em comparação com os seus contemporâneos, Jefferson fica a perder nesta questão da escravatura: George Washington libertou todos os escravos no momento da morte e John Adams, o segundo presidente, era declaradamente abolicionista, nunca teve um escravo e recusava usar esse tipo de trabalho.
Sabe-se que Jefferson também acreditava que a escravatura era errada. É que se sentiu tentado na Declaração de Independência a escrever sobre a abominável instituição. Mas, em nome da unidade entre colónias do norte e do sul, depois entre estados do norte e do sul, a resolução do dilema moral foi sendo adiada durante quase um século.
Jefferson, também a nível pessoal, preferiu adiar a libertação dos seus escravos. Ao contrário de Adams, filho do Massachusetts, que foi o seu grande rival nas eleições de 1800 e vivia da advocacia, era um virginiano, cujo bem-estar dependia dos rendimentos da plantação e esta, por sua vez, dependia do trabalho escravo. As longas horas de debate filosófico com os amigos, a começar pelos também filhos da Virginia e depois presidentes James Madison e James Monroe e a acabar no abade português, só eram possíveis porque a mão-de-obra negra mantinha Monticello próspera.
Saltemos dois séculos para o futuro. Até ao fantástico ano de 2008, que parece ser outra era nos Estados Unidos quando se compara com o momento atual, com a tensão racial ao rubro depois da morte do negro George Floyd às mãos de um polícia branco.
Ora, em 2008, Barack Obama foi eleito presidente dos Estados Unidos. Um negro (ou um mulato, filho de um imigrante queniano e de uma branca do Kansas) na Casa Branca. Confesso que a vitória me surpreendeu, e muito. Em 2000 defendi uma tese de mestrado em Estudos Americanos que comparava Colin Powell e Louis Farrakhan como modelos antagónicos para a comunidade afro-americana. Powell, chefe máximo das Forças Armadas na altura da Primeira Guerra contra o Iraque de Saddam Hussein, chegara a pensar numa candidatura presidencial, mas a mulher teve medo, aconselhou-o a não desafiar certa América. Parecia então que a integração racial, tão bem-sucedida nos ramos militares ou no desporto e nas artes, não tinha hipótese no campo da política, na tal república que Jefferson ajudou a fundar.
E aconteceu o fenómeno Obama. Obama que chegou a brincar num comício de campanha sobre um dos seus primos pelo lado da mãe, Jefferson Davies, o homem que liderou a Confederação, o sul esclavagista, que a União presidida por Abraham Lincoln derrotou na Guerra Civil de 1861-1865. Dizia Obama que Davies devia estar a dar voltas na campa.
E Jefferson, que diria da América de hoje, da América de Obama, da América de Donald Trump, da América de George Floyd? Nunca saberemos. Mas sabemos o que Obama disse de Jefferson: "Um extraordinário líder político mas também um dos nossos grandes líderes científicos e culturais, Thomas Jefferson representa o que há de melhor na América."
Nenhum país é fácil de compreender, nenhuma sociedade o é. Os Estados Unidos, do bravo Crispus Attucks e de Sally Hemings, certamente estão entre os mais difíceis de ser lidos a preto e branco.
This post appeared on the front page as a direct link to the original article with the above link
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