Burwell Colbert, who started his working life as a child in Monticello's Nailery, was later promoted to the supervisory position of butler.[374]
Jefferson felt slavery was harmful to both slave and master but had reservations about releasing slaves from captivity, and advocated for gradual emancipation.[375][376][377] In 1779, he proposed gradual voluntary training and resettlement to the Virginia legislature, and three years later drafted legislation allowing slaveholders to free their own slaves.[78] In his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he included a section, stricken by other Southern delegates, criticizing King George III for supposedly forcing slavery onto the colonies.[378] In 1784, Jefferson proposed the abolition of slavery in all western U.S. territories, limiting slave importation to 15 years.[379] Congress, however, failed to pass his proposal by one vote.[379] In 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, a partial victory for Jefferson that terminated slavery in the Northwest Territory. Jefferson freed his slave Robert Hemings in 1794 and he freed his cook slave James Hemings in 1796.[380] Jefferson freed his runaway slave Harriet Hemings in 1822.[381] Upon his death in 1826, Jefferson freed five male Hemings slaves in his will.