Monticello Seen From the Other Side

Just in time for this historic moment when the first Afro-American President will enter the White House, Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses Of Monticello: An American Family is published by Norton. It’s quite a different story about the second family of a historic President.

Obviously, Thomas Jefferson is in this story which sheds light on his two families. First there was his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton, daughter of a fellow slave owner. With her came her slaves, one of them her half sister by her father, Sarah ‘Sally’ Hemings. It makes you wonder what fathers thought owning and selling their own children as slaves.

[1]

Image credit: pingnews

Sarah was nine when Martha died, and later became the mistress of Jefferson. Jefferson took her along to Paris when he was posted there as ambassador to France. Abigail Adams, wife to John Adams and predecessor to Jefferson as President, warned him not to do it, writing from London where her husband was ambassador to the throne of the United Kingdom at that time.

When Jefferson was called back, Sarah felt disinclined to follow, as slavery was outlawed in France and she therefore was legally not a slave anymore. She also was pregnant with his child. Only upon being promised that her children would be freed at the age of 21 did she agree to go back with him.

Jefferson didn’t take great care to conceal this relationship which produced four children and held unto his death. This relationship also laid him open for political and other base attacks. The high point would be reached during his Presidency when rabid racists constantly attacked him over it.

[1]

Image credit: earlyamerica.com

He eventually freed their children as promised, two of them in his will. Sarah was not freed in his will, neither was she sold in the estate auction with the ‘130 valuable negroes’ mentioned in the auction report. It seems she was given ‘free time’ to spare her from having to leave Virginia. As a freed slave she would have been bound to leave the state within a year.

The book covers the whole time period of Jefferson’s adult life. It contains a lot of information without being boring. It also makes you wonder about the thoughts of that time, when the same man who wrote ‘All men are born free and equal’ would keep slaves including his own children.