Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia — Ambivalence on Slavery Made Public

Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, published in Paris in 1785 and widely in America by 1787, contained his most explicit public writing on slavery. He called it a 'moral and political depravity,' predicted it would produce divine retribution, and proposed gradual emancipation with colonization. He also wrote pseudoscientifically that Black people were inferior in reason and imagination. The book shaped American racial ideology while its author continued to enslave over 130 people.