Edward Rothstein’s Jan. 27 review in The New York Times of the new National Museum of American History’s exhibit, “Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty,” notes that American Indians, indentured servants and women need a separate historical examination than that offered by the Smithsonian exhibit, which is also opening at Monticello.

How I wish Mr. Jefferson’s University of Virginia would heed Rothstein’s advice. At the University, the study of American Indians does not receive, as Rothstein advises, “different qualifications and examinations”; far from it. There are no formal academic programs or degrees at the University devoted to American Indians. There are also no tenured faculty members who are American Indian. 

The largely black-and-white lens of the Smithsonian and Monticello exhibits fails to see the cultural context of Virginia, in which the African-American and American Indian communities were often intermingled and shared a “colored” classification in Virginia’s rigid and segregationist racial classification system.

Another mystery is how the exhibit managed to separate Monticello Slavery from University of Virginia Slavery?

Anthony G. Lopez
CLAS ‘09