What can Thomas Jefferson’s accounting records tell us about plantation management, slavery, and Enlightenment philosophy in colonial America?

Abstract

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States of America and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies from Great Britain. Less well known is that he was a meticulous record keeper. He kept daily records of every receipt and expenditure that he made, no matter how small, for a period of over 60 years. Most of these records have survived and are located in various libraries throughout the United States. Two questions are raised in this article: first, what can Jefferson’s accounting records tell us about plantation management in colonial America? Second, what do these accounting records reveal about Jefferson’s perspectives on eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophy? This article investigates original archives in an effort to answer these questions.