THOMAS JEFFERSON ON APES

Reading Desmond Morris fascinating Men and Apes:
"Thomas Jefferson also believed that apes make a habit of raping Negresses. He consider it to be only natural that apesshould want to be breed with Negresses, just as Negroes should want to breed with whites, since this reflected a struggle upwards towards perfection. In a discussion of the differences between whites and Negroes contained in his Notes on Virginia ,writtten in 1781-1782, he expresses his firm conviction in white superiority, as demonstrated by the Negroes' "own judge in favor of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preferences of the Oran-utan for the black woman over those of his own species". Despite the extraordinary enlightment shown in his plan for the abolition of slavery in America, Jefferson none the less shared many of the prejudicies of his times."