Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
After the Revolutionary War, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris then
remained in France as the American Minister (1785–1789). Returning to America,
he devoted his public life to national aairs. He served as the rst secretary of state
(under George Washington), the second vice president (under John Adams), and then
the third president. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was made during his presidency,
and he funded the exploratory expedition of Lewis and Clark (1803–1806).
In 1793, he retired from political life to live at Monticello, the home he designed.
Although he had hoped to include a statement against slavery in the Declaration
of Independence, he nevertheless held slaves at Monticello, fathered children
there by his slave Sally Hemmings, and ultimately advocated for the colonization
of blacks outside of America. He also founded the University of Virginia upon
Enlightenment tenets of education. The buildings he designed for this university
make it to this day one of the most beautiful campuses in America.
He had put on his gravestone at Monticello the accomplishments for which
he most wanted to be remembered: Author of the Declaration of American
Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the
University of Virginia.
Image 3.13 | Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
Photographer | Martin Falbisoner
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | CC BY-SA 3.0
3.9.1 From Notes on the State of Virginia
(1785)
Query VI
A notice of its Mountains?
For the particular geography of our mountains I must refer to Fry and
Jeerson’s map of Virginia; and to Evans’s analysis of his map of America for a
more philosophical view of them than is to be found in any other work. It is worthy
notice, that our mountains are not solitary and scattered confusedly over the face
Page | 481