![]() Aaron Burr was a slave owner, as were generals Philip Schuyler and Horatio Gates, first chief justice of the United States John Jay, the famous artist Charles Willson Peale, and one-third of the members of the Continental Congress. ![]() William Smith, owned at least two African Americans: Pheby and Tom. Interestingly, Abigail Adams grew up in a slave-owning household. Ten of our first twelve presidents owned slaves, the notable exceptions being John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams. I am a proud and patriotic American and I could not reconcile my love of country and admiration for the Founding Fathers with the fact that so many of them owned people who had been kidnapped from their homes in Africa, or were descended from people who had been kidnapped.īecause it wasn’t just Franklin. In the beginning I was disillusioned and disheartened. I spent years rummaging through archives, visiting museums, and pestering historians with relentless questions. I realized that I did not understand the extent of slavery in colonial America. How could he own slaves? This rocked me to my core. I knew about the slaves of Jefferson and Washington, but Ben Franklin? I loved Franklin, I adored him. It was Benjamin Franklin who set me on the path to write Chains.īenjamin Franklin held people in slavery his entire adult life. ![]()
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