To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. – Thomas Jefferson

After reading this text, I was able to infer that Thomas Jefferson did not view African nor African Americans as human beings. This was evident throughout the text; it was made impeccably clear in the fourth paragraph however. Thomas stated, “…we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history” this line made me realize that blacks and native americans weren’t viewed by society as human beings; they thought that they weren’t “natural”. Reading this made me very uneasy because the tone of this paragraph was very nonchalant. There was also another line that read “It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications”, In my opinion Jefferson was trying to say that it doesn’t take a genius to realize that two different races can posses different characteristics and that one can be superior to the other. I think that Jefferson was wrong in what he was saying, I think that he is very heartless. Maybe his thoughts were influenced by the time period, or maybe he really felt this way. We will never know for sure.

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