The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture won’t open until 2015, but it is already mounting exhibitions. Next up, the museum announced on Tuesday, is an exhibition on Thomas Jefferson and slavery, organized with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.
The exhibition, which will examine the lives of six slave families at Monticello, will open Jan. 27, 2012, in a gallery at the National Museum of American History. It will include artifacts in the Smithsonian’s collection, including a lapdesk that Jefferson used to write the Declaration of Independence, as well as objects that have been discovered through excavations at Monticello like marbles, tools, a brass shoe buckle and a bone toothbrush.
The exhibition will also discuss evidence suggesting that Jefferson fathered children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.
Jefferson’s world view was shaped by owning slaves, said Lonnie G. Bunch III, the museum’s director, who noted that in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence Jefferson described King George III as treating the colonists like slaves.
“To help people understand how Jefferson was shaped by slavery is another way to help them understand how they’re shaped by slavery,” Mr. Bunch said. Monticello itself is in the midst of restoring the area of the plantation known as Mulberry Row, which included slave dwellings, manufacturing workshops, and other buildings. There are only two surviving structures, a weavers’ cottage and a stable, but Monticello plans to recreate a slave cabin.