USA - "All men are created equal"

"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." These words were written by Thomas Jefferson, as part of the US Declaration of Independence.

Today I am in Charlottesville, Virginia, a town that has recently been in the news due to a debate over a statue that has sparked civil unrest but the town was also home to Thomas Jefferson and his estate, Monticello, is on its outskirts.

The house is on a hill overlooking the Virginian countryside, the views are stunning, the house is lovely but it's what's "round the back" that causes some interest - for while Thomas Jefferson was penning those famous words, he had up to 200 enslaved people working on the estate which as well as his home was a tobacco plantation.

I have to say that the guides both inside and outside the house were fantastic and those doing the "slave tours" were particularly good at describing and handling questions on a very difficult subject. How could the man that wrote "all men are created equal" possibly keep slaves? His initial draft of the Declaration included a piece attacking slavery but this was removed because several states would not agree to it being left in. He knew that leaving it in would mean that the new country would fall at the first hurdle and the British would use the divisions to regain power. The issue was therefore, in true political fashion, "kicked into long grass" for a later generation to sort out. Of course we now know that the country did in fact split apart during the Civil War over this very thing. 

A reconstructed slave dwelling

Monticello is surrounded with forested areas where there are really some good hiking trails which of course I went for a walk on. The weather was hot and sunny and the cicadas were being noisy. For those of you that don't know what cicadas are, they are the insect that makes that loud buzzing/humming noise in the trees here. There are annual ones, but some types only emerge every 13 or 17 years. They are completely harmless to man but the noise they make (which is a mating cry) is the loudest noise in the natural world in relation to the size of the creature that makes it. You either love them or hate them. The wildlife here, of course, is different anyway - look what I came across as I wandered along.

The cream tea issue had appeared again folks. Monticello is a very important place to visit, the home of the 3rd president and writer of the Declaration of Independence but there is still no cream tea. The sandwiches in the cafe were very good but to be honest the cling film wrapped cake offering was pretty poor. I am sure that the Founding Fathers when they decided to go it alone 1776, did not intend for their new country to be deprived of scones and clotted cream - The Mayflower with the Pilgrim Fathers did after all put in at Plymouth on the way, so all the first settlers must have had a cream tea before they left England.