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Israel Jefferson (c. 1800-after 1873), known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for years, and also rode with his brothers as a postilion for the landau carriage. After 1826, Gillette was sold to Thomas Walker Gilmer as part of the sale of 130 slaves from Monticello following Jefferson's death, when many families were broken up. He purchased his freedom from Gilmer in 1844 and took the surname of Jefferson. According to his memoir, this was at the suggestion of a clerk when he registered as a free man.〔("Discoveries about the Family of Isaac Jefferson" ), ''Plantation & Slavery/ African-American Family Histories,'' Monticello Website, accessed 28 February 2011〕 Jefferson and his freeborn wife Elizabeth moved to the free state of Ohio, where he worked on a steamboat. In 1873, he was interviewed and his memoir was published in the ''Pike County Republican,'' the same year as a memoir by Madison Hemings, also a former slave at Monticello. Jefferson's memoir provided detailed information on life at Monticello. In it, he also attested to Thomas Jefferson's fathering the children of Sally Hemings, affirming Madison's account. In 1998, a DNA study helped to confirm his account, as it showed a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Eston Hemings, the youngest son. ==Early life and education== Israel Gillette was born into slavery; he estimated about 1797. His mother was an enslaved woman known as Jane and his father was Edward Gillett. Together, Edward and Jane had thirteen children, all of whom bore their father's surname Gillette.〔("Edward and Jane Gillette" ), ''African American Family Histories'', Monticello, accessed 14 August 2011〕 During his years as a slave at the Monticello estate, Gillette served in a number of capacities, starting as a waiter at the family table at about the age of eight years. Of his service to Mr. Jefferson, he said: “For fourteen years I made the fire in his bedroom and private chamber, cleaned his office, dusted his books, run of errands and attended him about home". He and his older brother Gilly “…were both retained about the person of our master as long as he lived.” He added, "Frequently, gentlemen would call upon him on business of great importance, whom I used to usher into his presence," and "sometimes I would be employed in burnishing or doing some other work in the room where they were.” Among the visitors was the Marquis de Lafayette, who had served in the Revolution. Of that occasion Israel Jefferson recalled: “In those times I minded but little concerning the conversations which took place between Mr. Jefferson and his visitors. But I well recollect a conversation he had with the great and good Lafayette, when he visited this country in 1824 and 1825, as it was of personal interest to me and mine.”〔It was during this frank discussion that Lafayette expressed his concerns about the continuation of slavery in the now independent United States of America. In the book ''Friends of Liberty'', Gary Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges describe this conversation: "Speaking openly in the presence of Israel, Jefferson’s slave who waited on their tables and stood postilion on his master’s carriage, Lafayette lectured Jefferson about the retired president’s continued ownership of slaves and his unwillingness to speak out as a revered American leader on the subject. 'No man could rightfully hold ownership of his brother man,' Lafayette gravely maintained. He had come from France to fight for American independence because he believed they were fighting for a great and noble principle – the freedom of mankind." The account continues, "Now, decades later, he was grieved that instead of all being free, a portion were held in bondage. Rebuked, Jefferson contended that slavery should be extinguished but that the proper time had not yet arrived."〔Gary B. Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges, ''Friends of Liberty; Thomas Jefferson, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull. A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, and A Tragic Betrayal Of Freedom In The New Nation,'' New York: Basic Books, pp. 239-240〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Israel Jefferson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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