President Thomas Jefferson Was a Slave Owner

Who said: "We believe that all men are created equal"? I suppose it all comes down to what definition you apply to "men." One of the first presidents of the United States was a well-known slave owner. Meanwhile, we have the first Afro-American President in the White House. Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses Of Monticello: An American Family was published by Norton as it a timely reminder of a second family of a historic president.

Thomas Jefferson

American President Thomas Jefferson is the lynchpin in this story shedding light on his two families, a white one and a slave one. Firstly, there was his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton who was the daughter of a fellow slave owner in Virginia. Her dowry consisted of slaves, of which at least one was a half sister: Sarah ‘Sally’ Hemings. It makes you wonder how it felt owning and selling your own children as slaves.
 
Sarah Hemings was nine when Martha Wayles Skelton died. Later, she became the mistress of Thomas Jefferson. She accompanied Thomas Jefferson to Paris when he was posted there as US ambassador to France. The French looked at these affairs differently and would not object, and the fellow slave owners in Virginia might think it normal, if a bit eccentric, to take your slave mistress on an assignment of such importance. 

American political circles frowned on such antics as inappropriate. Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams who would precede Thomas Jefferson in the White House. Writing from London where John Adams was ambassador to the court of King George of the United Kingdom, she admonished him not to commit such an outrage. Keeping slaves was quite in order, but having an affair was completely unthinkable.
 
When Jefferson was called back to the United States, Sarah Hemings felt disinclined to follow him there. Slavery was outlawed in France;  legally, she wasn't a slave but a free woman as long as she didn't return to the United States; the same principle would apply to all her children. She was pregnant with his child when the recall came. Being promised that her children would be freed at the age of 21 made her agree to go back with him to the country of the free.
 
Thomas Jefferson didn’t take great care to conceal their relationship when they returned to the United States. Their relationship produced four children and endured unto his death. It also laid him open to political attacks and other base and abusive vituperation. The high point in abuse would be reached during his Presidency when rabid racists constantly attacked him and his policies over it.
 
Eventually, he freed their children as promised, two of them by deed of will. Sarah was not freed in his will. She was also not sold in the estate auction when the other ‘130 valuable negroes’ mentioned in the auction catalog were sold off. It seems that she was given ‘free time’; this would have spared her from having to leave Virginia. As a freed slave, she would have been bound to leave the state within a year of being freed.
 
Annette Gordon-Reed’s book covers the whole of Thomas Jefferson’s adult life. It contains a lot of historical information without being boring at any point. It also makes you wonder about the thought processes of the men who founded the United States.

Further reading
Abolition of Slavery: A Purely Financial Decision
The White Sex Slaves of 1874
Sex Workers of Georgian London

Carl Hirschmann Jun. Died of Cancer

A speaker of the Hirschmann family announced the death by cancer of Carl Hirschmann Jun. at the University Hospital in Zurich. He also said that no statements would be made by his sons Michael and Carl Hirschmann on the occasion. Addressed specifically to the media, he stated that the funeral would be a family affair and that no media representatives were welcome to attend. 

Carl Hirschmann

Carl Hirschmann Jun. was one of the children of the founder of Jet Aviation Carl Hirschmann Sen. He served in the company under his father until he was chucked out in 1983. The affair behind the boot was so ridiculous, it is hardly credible. Carl Hirschmann Sen. had ordered a driver and car to take him from Basel to Baden-Baden in Germany. But driver and car were already on their way to Nice in the South of France to pick up Carl Jun.’s wife. Carl Hirschmann Sen. took this rather personally and chucked his son out of the company.

Carl Hirschmann Jun. was succeeded as crown prince by his brother Thomas Hirschmann. Carl spent the following years waging a war of attrition against both his father and his brother culminating in denouncing them for tax fraud. Carl Sen. and Thomas were found guilty and had to pay over 24 million pounds in taxes and fines.

Carl Hirschmann Sen. died in 1995 leaving Thomas in command of Jet Aviation. This changed in 2003, when a shareholder coup supervised by Carl’s widow Rita replaced the existing board of directors with herself and three of her cronies. Thomas was fired the same day. In 2005, the family sold the majority of shares to private equity firm Permira Funds and Carl Hirschmann Jun. replaced Rita on the board while retaining his shares. He even acted (oh irony) as CEO ad interim for a while until the company was sold to General Dynamics in 2008.

Carl Hirschmann Jun. died of cancer at the University Hospital of Zurich on July 30th, 2010 at the age of 61. His son Carl Hirschmann’s speaker Sacha Wigdorovits made it quite clear that the media would not be welcome at the funeral. Carl Hirschmann had a permanent media presence over the past year thanks to several scandals instigated by him.

The name Carl Hirschmann still seems to bring forth the worst in media sloppiness. Most of the headlines and articles pertaining to the death of Carl Hirschmann Jun. confuse him with his father. Accordingly, they credit him with having founded Jet Aviation. Considering the amount of capital needed for that, it would have been an extraordinary feat for an 18 year old.

Add this sloppiness to the earlier usually incompetent media coverage pertaining to Carl Hirschmann and his scandals, the pointed barb against any media presence at the funeral is highly understandable.

The article was originally published on Triond on 07/08/10.

Further reading
When a Sassy Headline Becomes an Embarrassment
The Hirschmann Family Saga
Carl Hirschmann Repeat Performances

The Hirschmann Family Saga

The saga of the Hirschmann family’s fortune and misfortune started in 1967 with the acquisition of a hangar on Basel Airport by Carl Hirschmann Senior. He founded Jet Aviation and earned the fabulous fortune the family now enjoys. 

Carl Hirschmann, David and Philipp Degen

In 1967, Carl Hirschman Senior bought a hangar on Basel Airport (then Airport Basel-Mulhouse; now Euroairport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg). He started a business for the maintenance of company owned jet aircrafts. Through careful acquisitions and expansion first into Saudi-Arabia and later into the US he established Jet Aviation as the world’s leading private maintenance company.

The establishment of the company in Basel with its premises on the airport was intentional. The airport in Basel is bi-nationally owned by Switzerland and France. With this placement, the company was able to hire people for its operation that under Swiss or French law wouldn’t have received work permits. All it took was some squiggling around.

Carl Hirschmann Sen. was very thrifty in his business dealings. His human resources department came up with a ploy whereby British citizens could be employed without paying taxes in either Switzerland or France. These employees usually only found out about the draw-backs when they returned to Britain and faced huge tax bills. But Jet Aviation had been able to employ them with cut throat low wages.

When Carl Hirschmann died in 1995, a full page obituary was placed in the Wall Street Journal. If you have led a life free of blame, you normally leave the writing of an obituary to the living. Carl Hirschmann Sen. didn’t take any chances, though, and had it ready for the day. It contained the revealing sentence ‘I do not choose to be a common man.’ Charmed, I’m sure.

What he left behind was a very common, rich, and divided family. The company was run by his son Thomas Hirschmann, a competent administrator without much vision. His obvious successor Carl Hirschmann Jun. had been kicked out of the company in 1983 over the trifling dispute over the use of a company car. The company’s shares were divided between his widow and his five children opening interesting vistas for all kinds of alliances in a family at odds.

In a first alliance, Thomas Hirschmann finally managed to get rid of the old board of directors of his father’s cronies in 2005 and to replace them with business people from the aviation sector. The new board was headed most notably by Moritz Sutter, founder of Crossair (signing these days as Swiss). The board’s business was to streamline the company into the success it had been under Carl Hirschmann Senior. The unwelcome news of the new boards for the family was that this would mean no dividends for some years to come.

As all the family constantly lived above their income, namely the widow with houses and estates scattered over half of Europe, this was simply impossible to bear. What cheek! A new alliance formed, and the new board was sacked after only six weeks in office and replaced with the widow herself and her cronies. For good measure, Thomas was kicked out as CEO as well.

The new board finally came to an agreement with Permira Funds over the sale of the company, whereby Carl Hirschmann Jun. retained his part of the shares. It is thought that the family cashed in almost a billion dollars for their 90 percent share (without Carl’s part). With Permira, Carl Hirschmann Jun. entered the board and even had a go as CEO ad interim during a crisis. Permira Funds sold the business in 2008 for 2.25 billion dollars; Carl Hirschmann Jun. was amply rewarded for his waiting. Three years had more than doubled the worth of his shares.

Carl Hirschmann Jun.’s son Carl Hirschmann is a walking calamity in his own right. I have followed his exploits in many articles. 

Originally published on Triond on 17/08/10.

Further reading
When a Sassy Headline Becomes an Embarrassment
Carl Hirschmann: Poor Rich Boy
Carl Hirschmann Repeat Performances