this is what Thomas Jefferson saw from Monticello the view as perfect as his high ideals well I'd like to welcome you to our slavery at Monticello tour but at Monticello today it is the imperfect Jefferson we see Monticello was a plantation and must judge for ourselves Jefferson professed a hate slavery called an abominable crime but he held on to his slaves he freed only seven the author of the Declaration of Independence who wrote that all men are created equal owned six hundred slaves over his lifetime and in addition to his legitimate children almost certainly fathered at least six other children with his slave Sally Hemings for generations descendants of Sally Hemings have been telling stories implicating Jefferson his father of her children DNA proof of a connection came in 1998 is Thomas Jefferson any less great because the understanding we have of him now is three-dimensional most human beings I know are quite capable of denial and hypocrisy and I think that Jefferson's virtues were enormous and his vices were equally enormous Pulitzer prize-winning author Jon Meacham has just published a best-selling new biography of our third president look dad in full you find a man whose life was made possible by slavery who had misgivings who as a young man attempted however feebly to reform the institution but in the end he was ultimately someone who was trapped by allowed himself to be trapped by the economic political and cultural circumstances into which he was born Jefferson said that his earliest memory was of being handed up on a pillow as a toddler to a slave on a horse and we know that his last words were asking burl Cobert to adjust his pillow here in this room Jefferson's but Burrell Tolbert was also a slave there would have been an intimate relationship really from from birth to death Elizabeth Chu is curator at Monticello now are there pieces of furniture in this room that were made by slaves yes in the the joinery or the furniture making woodshop in Jefferson's later years was run by a slave named John Hemings and Hemings ran the joinery and made many pieces of furniture that are in Monticello today this is an example he was very highly skilled and he was freed by Jefferson in his will and given the tools of his trade John Hemings is remembered because of his craftsmanship unlike so many other Jefferson's slaves to be able to sort of have an image of Jefferson that we all know and behind him the names of the 600 people that he owned in his lifetime really means that we have to understand slavery in order to understand Jefferson Lonnie bunch heads the Smithsonian's National Museum of african-american history and culture sponsor of a traveling exhibition about slavery at Monticello and what's powerful is quite candidly we only know the first things and there are some that we just have is unknown Lucy Lucy it's almost any old name that's exactly right this is Thomas Jefferson's laptop desk this is the desk upon which he wrote early drafts of the declaration independence the first of those drafts attacked Britain slave trade Jefferson writing that King George the third has waged cruel war against human nature itself the Continental Congress took the phrase out alongside the rejected passage the financial reality next to it is his farm book and here is where he would list the births and deaths of the slaves he would list the work that they did so in some ways it really gives us a full picture of the totality of Jefferson which at times contradicts the popular image of Jefferson as a benevolent slave holder the male reoccupied one half of this site inside there were four forges one example what went on at Jefferson's extremely profitable nail making workshop at Monticello as the young child your job was to move the nails around but by the time of year 12 13 14 your job is to make these nails the boys were routinely whipped to force them to be more productive that happened while Jefferson was on Monticello it happened when he was gone because in the 18th century you couldn't run a plantation without using violence a man of his time Jefferson thought he was benevolent but even his plan for ending slavery would be considered racist today his view was that at best there could be an emancipation but then there would be repatriation there would be colonization African American slaves would leave the United States he did not foresee a biracial integrated Society one of the many ironies of his life because he created a biracial Society at Monticello this is an artist's imagined portrait of Sally Hemings sister of John Hemings the furniture maker she was also believed to be Thomas Jefferson's wife Martha's half-sister the entire Hemings family ended up at Monticello but it was in Paris in the 1780s while Jefferson by then a widower was u.s. minister to France but he supposedly began a nearly 40-year sexual liaison with Sally who was there with him by law she was free in France before agreeing to return to Virginia to slavery she set conditions according to her descendants she said I will go back with you if any children we have are allowed to be free to 21 Jefferson must have been totally flummoxed by this strong-willed I think quite courageous woman in September 1802 a Richmond Virginia newspaper outed Jefferson say by this wench Sally our president has had several children after that the Jefferson Hemings story was whispered from one generation to the next for nearly 200 years by descendants of Sally Hemings many of whom passed for white it's been an interesting journey for me because it started out when I was a kid me standing up in class and saying Thomas Jefferson is my great-great-great great-great-great grandfather and being so happy and proud to brag about it you know when we're studying the presidents but then when the teacher says sit down and stop telling lies and all the kids laugh at you by the mid-1990s the laughing had stopped historians even at Monticello were becoming believers television reporter Shannon Lanier is a direct descendant of Sally Hemings through her son Madison Hemings before that reunion I had only known the Hemings descendants from Madison line of the family I didn't even know the Jefferson line Shannon Lanier right in front there was 19 when he attended the controversial first ever combined Hemings Jefferson family reunion at Monticello in 1999 afterward he and Jane Feldman the photographer who took this picture traveled the country interviewing four generations of Hemings and Jefferson's for a book Jefferson's children our journey in the Jefferson's story kind of acts as a catalyst for people to be able to discuss the topic of slavery we had a family Bible a great big thick number and my mother inherited it from an uncle and in there was an entry among others Brown Colvard in 2006 Bill Webb's wife doing some research found Brown Kolbert listed as a Monticello slave it turns out he was the brother of Jefferson's Butler Burrell Kolbert and as a boy worked at the nail making workshop which Webb decided he had to see Here I am standing on the very same land where my ancestor had worked as a young preteen and now that's heavy it was something that brought tears to my eyes to say my god my god Thomas Jefferson is buried at Monticello inscribed on his monument the achievements he wanted to be remembered for including the Declaration of Independence but he will be remembered as well for the legacy that is not written here