Not only would the evacuation of Blacks from the Old South lessen the dangers they were perceived as posing to whites in the heartland of Jefferson’s beloved Virginia, as well as make good money both for Virginian slave owners and, via taxation, for the state, but the slaves sold to the southwest would work for those yeoman whites, furnishing Jefferson’s grand imperial vision with a practical foundation: forced Black labor. And from Jefferson’s perspective, this was just in the normal order of things.
