No. I don't think that keeping slaves was a policy of Deism. Rather, it was a commonplace for people of all religious beliefs to be racist. Atheists such as Paine led the anti-slavery movement against the Christian South.
There is only evidence that Jefferson had sex with ONE of his slaves. Although it was probably "consensual", I have no problem in categorizing it as rape considering that she was, after all, a slave.
Although Jefferson was enlightened for his times (but not nearly as enlightened as Thomas Paine) he still lived in an age where science (and society) was at sea regarding racial knowledge and issues.
“They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning.
“They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites."
“Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."
Thomas Jefferson |
