Jefferson's Faulty Math: The Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution

Abstract

In London in April 1786, Thomas Jefferson found himself in the awkward position of negotiating with British merchants to whom he owed a great deal of money. On more than one occasion, Jefferson excused his incapacity to pay by claiming that General Charles Cornwallis had off thirty of his slaves, useless and barbarous injury he did me in that instance was more than would have paid your debt, principal and interest. Writing from Paris to a putative historian of the Revolution, Jefferson 'amplified this claim, saying Cornwallis carried off also about 30. slaves: had this been to give them freedom be would have done right, but it was to consign them to inevitable death from the small pox and putrid fever then raging in his camp. This I knew afterwards to have been the fate of 27. of them ... I supposed the state of Virginia lost under Ld. Cornwallis's hands that year about 30,000 slaves, and that of these about 27,000 died of the small pox and camp fever. When he was Secretary of State, Jefferson took the part of his fellow Virginians to argue they should not be obliged to pay their debts because the British made the first infraction of the Paris Peace Treaty by refusing to return their runaway slaves. Virginia, the state that had incurred the greatest debt, also had incurred the greatest loss, he reasoned.