Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

by Robert K. Massie

Because of the compromises imposed by the demands of her new role as empress, Catherine had to reconcile Russian serfdom and the Enlightenment concept of the Rights of Man. She had no contemporary European example to guide her. The Encyclopedists condemned serfdom in principle without having to confront it; a remnant of feudalism, it still existed only in scattered enclaves in Europe. In George III’s England, king, Parliament, and people looked the other way as English participation in the African slave trade resulted in the shipping of twenty thousand men and women every year as slaves to the West Indies. The American colonies—and soon the new American republic, whose leaders often used the language of the Enlightenment—offered flagrant examples of hypocrisy. The Virginia gentlemen and landowners who advocated American independence were mostly slaveholders. George Washington still owned slaves at Mount Vernon when he died in 1799. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” and have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” was a lifelong slave owner. For thirty-eight years, Jefferson lived with his slave Sally Hemings, who bore him seven children. Washington and Jefferson were far from alone in this presidential hypocrisy. Twelve American presidents owned slaves, eight of them while in office.