The historian’s goal is often to say: as bad as things look in the news today, the United States has been here before and survived. That’s the theme of my feature article about the political riots of 1795. President George Washington and his former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had become political enemies and their feud helped spawn our divisive two-party political system.
While researching that story, I bumped into this political cartoon from the early 1800s. It depicts Thomas Jefferson as a preening rooster and his enslaved African servant Sally Hemmings as a hen. We now believe Jefferson fathered up to six children with Hemmings, who was pregnant at age 16 when she returned from living in Paris with Jefferson after his term as ambassador to France. Four of their six children – Beverly, Harriet, Madison and Eston – survived to adulthood and lived at Monticello. DNA studies have since proven the once controversial theory that Jefferson fathered most or all of Hemming’s children while she remained enslaved.
The Jefferson-Hemmings relationship was known during his presidency. This satirical illustration titled “A Philosophic Cock” was created by American artist James Akin (1773-1846) who was active in nearby Newburyport, Massachusetts, from 1804 to 1807. According to research by the American Antiquarian Society that archives this rare bit of our political history, the illustration was part of a collection of images owned by Portsmouth, NH, bookseller and publisher Charles Peirce (1770-1851). Following the practice popular in London, Peirce apparently bound together his collection of lively illustrations into a book. Peirce then offered Portsmouth residents the chance to rent this collection of “beauties” for 20 cents per hour. Another Akin illustration in the book shows President Jefferson, explicitly depicted as a male hounddog, vomiting up $2 million in coins to Napoleon Bonaparte during the Louisiana Purchase.
Charles Peirce advertised his book of satirical caricatures in a local newspaper, the Portsmouth Oracle. The book could be rented by the hour, the day or the week, according to the newspaper, as “Entertainment for Tea Parties, etc.”
The bound book included “handsome figures, pleasing likenesses; ugly but necessary positions” for the titillation of local viewers. Besides his bookstore on Daniel Street, Peirce also operated a lending library before the creation of the Portsmouth Athenaeum or the public library. The Charles Peirce Collection of Social and Political Caricatures and Ballads with detailed background information, can be seen at www.AmericanAntiquarian.org online.
Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.
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