Identity and
the
Declaration of
Independence
INTRODUCTION TO
AMERICAN STUDIES
 National identity
 What is it based on?
 Which of these hold for the United States?
LANGUAGE?
 What is the national
language of the United
States?
 Pennsylvania Dutch
(Amish/Mennonites)
 1736, 225,00
 Cajun French
(Louisiana)
 1760s, 400,000
 Spanish
 1598, N. New Mexico
 San Miguel Chapel–1610
 Chinese
 1849, originally California
 Chinatown, San Francisco
NON-ENGLISH SPEAKERS, 2000
LEADING LANGUAGES SPOKEN AT HOME
STATES WITH ENGLISH-ONLY LAWS
 What other languages is the written or audio test available in?
 Besides English, the basic Class C written driver license exam is
also available in the following languages:
 Amharic Arabic Armenian Cambodian
 Chinese Croatian French German
 Greek Hebrew Hindi Hmong
 Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese
 Korean Laotian Persian/Farsi Polish
 Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian
 Samoan Spanish Tagalog Thai
 Tongan Turkish Vietnamese
 Besides English, the basic Class C audio driver license exam is
also available in the following languages:
 Armenian Chinese/Mandarin Hindi Hmong
 Japanese Korean Portuguese Punjabi
 Russian Spanish Vietnamese
INFORMATION ON DRIVER’S LICENSE EXAMS IN
CALIFORNIA (WWW.DMV.CA.GOV)
WEBSITE FOR THE CHICAGO BOARD OF
ELECTIONS
FOOD?
 Regional diversity that
reflects local history and
immigration
 South: cornbread, grits,
biscuits and gravy, barbeque
 Midwest: German, Polish
(kielbasa), Greek
 Northeast: Jewish (bagels),
Italian
 West: Mexican (tamales,
tacos, burritos, enchiladas),
Asian food
ETHNIC ENCLAVES IN THE U.S.
THANKSGIVING
Tradition goes back
to the seventeenth
century
“Pilgrims”
Fourth Thursday in
November
Dated fixed by
Abraham Lincoln
during Civil War
THANKSGIVING DINNER ORGANIZED
BY ASIAN STUDENTS
 So if these other things don’t seem to work,
what is American identity based on?
 Flag
 “Patriotism”
 “Charters of Freedom”
 Declaration of Independence
 Constitution
 Bill of Rights
AMERICAN NATIONAL IDENTITY
NO PRESIDENTIAL PORTRAIT(S) IN
US CLASSROOMS
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the
United States of America and to the
Republic for which it stands, one Nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
 Originally written by Francis Bellamy in 1892
 Words “under God” added in 1954
THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
AN ILLINOIS PRIMARY SCHOOL
MICHIGAN AVENUE BRIDGE IN CHICAGO
ORDINARY HOUSES
OUTSIDE A CONFUCIAN TEMPLE IN
CHICAGO
A CHINESE GROCERY IN CHICAGO
NEW YORK: ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL
& SAK’S FIFTH AVENUE DEPT. STORE
RELIGIOUS INTERIORS: CATHOLIC,
PROTESTANT AND JEWISH
FLAG CONTROVERSY IN LAWRENCE,
KANSAS
 The 600-square-foot (55 sq.
m) brightly illuminated U.S.
flag flying outside Heritage
Baptist Church is causing a
stir among church
neighbors, some of whom
say the lights are a
nuisance. The church has
no intention of giving up
the display. “As far as I’m
concerned, the people
complaining are unAmerican,”
said Rev. Scott
Hanks, right, pastor at the
church.
WHAT IS THIS BUILDING?
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES ARE LOCATED
ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE
 Copy of the original kept at the National Archives
 Visited by more 1 million annually
 Building built in 1952 specifically to house these documents
 Together with the Constitution and Bill of Rights they form the
“Charters of Freedom”
 The next slide contains more images of the National Archives’
interior and the specially designed storage case holding the
Charters of Freedom
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
PRESIDENT & MRS. BUSH AT THE
REOPENING OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
THE ORIGINAL PARCHMENT COPY FROM
1776: TOP HALF
THE ORIGINAL PARCHMENT COPY FROM
1776: BOTTOM HALF
The 1823
facsimile of the
parchment
(engrossed)
copy
THE CON-
STITUTION
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it
becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
INTRODUCTION
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.–That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the
governed, –That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
PREAMBLE (1)
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn, that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms
to which they are accustomed. But when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their
future security.–
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
PREAMBLE (2)
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and
such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their
former Systems of Government. The history of the present
King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of
an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts
be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and
necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he
has utterly neglected to attend to them.
…
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
INDICTMENT OF GEORGE III (1)
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his
Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries
to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already
begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in
the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a
civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high
Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the
executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by
their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the
merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
…
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress
in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been
answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus
marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the
ruler of a free people.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
INDICTMENT (2)
 In the original draft this last complaint is followed by one
further charge leveled against George III.
 Here it can be seen in the original draft in Jefferson’s own
hand:
THE MISSING INDICTMENT
JEFFERSON’S ORIGINAL DRAFT:
AMERICAN HANDWRITING (CURSIVE)
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who
never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in
another hemisphere, or to incure miserable death in their
transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium* of infidel
powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain.
[determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and
sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative
attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [determining
to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold]: and that
this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he
is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to
purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, by murdering the
people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former
crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes
which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
*Opprobium -- something that brings disgrace, public disgrace or ill
fame that follows from conduct considered grossly wrong or vicious
TEXT OF THE MISSING INDICTMENT
 Thomas Jefferson, quintessential Enlightenment figure
 Author of Declaration of Independence
 University of Virginia (1825)
 Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom
 Monticello
 Notes on the State of Virginia
 The Thomas Jefferson Memorial
in Washington, D.C. (1943)
WHO WAS
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826)?
JEFFERSON PORTRAIT AND TOMBSTONE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
Jefferson even
designed some of
the buildings,
including this
Rotunda
MONTICELLO
Jefferson not only
designed all the
buildings but ran the
estate as a model
farm
Estate covered more
than 5000 acres
(2000 hectares)
NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA (1781)
 Inherited more than 2,000 hectares and between 20-40 slaves
in 1757 from his father
 This land included the Monticello estate
 Owned more than 600 individuals over the course of his life
 Inherited first at the age of 14
 Sold more than 110 slaves during his life and gave a further
85 as gifts
THOMAS JEFFERSON, SLAVE OWNER
 Jefferson’s
“Memorandum Book”
for 1773:
 January 29.:
sold Sandy to Colo
[Colonel] Chas [Charles]
Lewis for £100 paiable
[sic] in June. From
which deduct £9.4.8.
my present debt with
him; leaves £90.15.4.
to be sec’d [secured]
ISAAC JEFFERSON (1775-1850) IN
1845
 Sally Hemmings
 As early as 1802 rumors existed that Jefferson had
fathered children by one or more of his slaves
 In 1802, the journalist James Thomson Callender wrote in the
newspaper The Richmond Recorder, “The PRESIDENT AGAIN. It is
well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor,
keeps, and for many years past has kept, as his concubine, one of
his own slaves. Her name is SALLY. The name of her eldest son is
TOM. His features are said to bear a striking although sable
resemblance to those of the president himself. The boy is ten or
twelve years of age…We hear that our young MULLATO PRESIDENT
begins to give himself a great number of airs of importance in
Charlottesville, and the neighbourhood…By this wench, Sally, our
president has had several children. There is not an individual in
the neighborhood of Charlottesville who does not believe the
story, and not a few who know it…The AFRICAN VENUS is said to
officiate, as housekeeper at Monticello.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON, FATHER OF SLAVES
A PHILOSOPHIC COCK
‘A philosophic cock’
attributed to James
Akin, Newburyport,
Massachusetts, ca.
1804.
“Tis not a set of
features or
complexion or
tincture of a Skin
that I admire”
 Joseph Addison (1672-
1719), Cato, Act 1
 1873 memoirs of Sally’s son Madison claimed that Jefferson was the
father of at least three of her children
 Sally Hemmings children were light-skinned, and three of them
(daughter Harriet and sons Beverly and Eaton) lived as members of
white society as adults.
 According to contemporary accounts, some of Sally Hemmings children
strongly resembled Thomas Jefferson.
 Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemmings children: Beverly and
Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eaton
were released in Jefferson’s 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no
other nuclear slave family.
 DNA analysis has shown that Thomas Jefferson and one of Sally’s
children (Eaton) share their Y-chromosome
 A male Jefferson other than Thomas (e.g. his brother Randolph) could also have been
the father
WHO WERE HIS SLAVE CHILDREN?
THE DESCENDENTS OF THOMAS
JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMMINGS
Jefferson discussing
the Missouri question
and slavery to John
Holmes April 22,
1820:
“But as it is, we have
the wolf by the ear,
and we can neither
hold him, nor safely
let him go. Justice is
in one scale, and selfpreservation
in the
other.”
JEFFERSON’S OWN RECOGNITION OF
THE PROBLEM