"25
Books That Changed the History of
African-America"
Book
2: De la Litterature des Negrès by Henri Grégoire (1808)
On
March 4, 1809, in the final hours of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson
wrote one last thank you note to Henri Grégoire of France for
a copy of his book, "De la Litterature des Negrès."
"Whatever
be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights...
I pray you... accept my thanks for the many instances you have
enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race
of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the day
of their relief."
Whatever
be Mr. Jefferson's credibility on liberty, given his willingness
to deprive others of theirs, his letter, preserved in books of
his collected letters, does great service. A book that might otherwise
have been lost lives on. In the fact of its publication two hundred
years ago even as the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the colonization
of Africa raged on is proof of a sufficient body of Black literature
to have compiled and critiqued in book form. Just think of the
bounty yet to be recovered!
Today,
Grégoire's presentation copy to Jefferson is housed in the Library
of Congress in Washington, DC.
