It is impossible to know for sure whether Jefferson meant to include his enslaved laborers (or women) in his “all Men.” Was he merely emphasizing the equality of White Americans and the English? Later in the document, he did scold the British for “exciting those very people to rise in arms among us”—those “people” being resisting Africans. Did Jefferson insert “created equal” as a nod to the swirling debate between monogenesis and polygenesis? Even if Jefferson believed all groups to be “created equal,” he never believed the antiracist creed that all human groups are equal. But his “all Men
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