Atop a hill in Virginia stands Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s architectural masterpiece, a symbol of enlightenment ideals and American ingenuity. The house itself is a marvel—a neoclassical vision brought to life by one of the most complex figures in American history. Walking its grounds, I saw firsthand the contradictions of Jefferson’s legacy: the soaring ideals of liberty and the brutal reality of slavery, entwined like the branches of Monticello’s trees.
I took the From Slavery to Freedom tour, which does not soften the past but lays it bare. Here, the stories of the enslaved are not footnotes but central to the narrative. We walked past the dependencies, the kitchen, the nailery—places of labor, where enslaved people like John Hemmings, who crafted Jefferson’s furniture, and Jupiter Evans, Jefferson’s personal servant, spent their lives in bondage. These were not just "servants" or "workers," as the language of old tours might have suggested, but human beings denied their freedom while Jefferson, the author of all men are created equal, lived in comfort above them.
The tour made it impossible to view Monticello as merely a grand estate. It is a place of both brilliance and cruelty, an architectural marvel built on the backs of men, women, and children who had no claim to the ideals that Jefferson championed. The Hemings family looms large in this story, particularly Sally Hemings. The guide did not shy away from the complexities of her life—a woman who was both enslaved and the mother of Jefferson’s children, whose reality was shaped by power imbalances we still struggle to fully comprehend.
Standing on Mulberry Row, looking out at the same landscape that enslaved laborers once saw as they worked, I felt the weight of history. The contradiction of Monticello is not just Jefferson’s, but America’s—a nation built on freedom and slavery, ideals and injustice. To visit here is to confront that contradiction and to remember those whose stories were long erased from the grand narratives of history.
Monticello is not just a monument to a Founding Father; it is a place where history breathes, where the past demands to be seen, and where the echoes of those who lived in bondage still linger in the Virginian air.