According to Clinton, Kemble may have falsified portions of her journal. The historian Deirdre David says some readers have found Kemble's descriptions of slaves' appearances and lives to be racist. But, David notes that Kemble's views on race were "not anomalous" in the 19th-century among English writings on the topic. In that context, David described Kemble's descriptions as "relatively mild and moderately conventional." (Historians of the period have noted such contradictions in many contemporary writings, including those of Thomas Jefferson, who opposed slavery but was prejudiced against blacks.)