September 1, 1802: an article is published in a Richmond
newspaper. In it, a disgruntled, hot-headed former Thomas Jefferson supporter,
James T. Callender, claimed that Jefferson had taken one of his slaves, named
Sally, as a concubine and fathered several children by her. By the time
Callender wrote these words, he had already published the sordid details of
Alexander Hamilton’s affair with Maria Reynolds, lambasted George Washington
for self-promotion, criticized the Senate as not being representative since, at
the time, it was not directly elected, claimed the presidency was also
undemocratic due to election by the electoral college, and had been jailed and
fined under the Sedition Act for his anti-Federalist pamphlets. A staunch
supporter of Thomas Jefferson, Callender expected to be rewarded with a
position as Richmond’s postmaster. When he did not get it, Callender took to
the press and published his revenge. His words were the first shots fired in an
ongoing, centuries-long controversy about POTUS #3 and his slave, Sally Hemings.
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A cartoon depicting Jefferson and Hemings that circulated
during the election of 1804. The cartoon criticized Jefferson both for his
relations with Hemings and also for his support of the French Revolution.
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Sally Hemings was born in 1773, the daughter of a slave woman (probably mixed race) named Elizabeth Hemings. It is not known for sure who Hemings’ father was, but some speculate that it was Jefferson’s father-in-law, John Wayles, making Sally Hemings the half-sister of Thomas Jefferson’s wife. Hemings came to live at Monticello in 1774 with her mother and siblings when Jefferson inherited the family following Wayles’ death. (Gross, right?)
In the
1780s, when she was a teenager, Hemings joined the Jefferson family on their
travels to Paris, where Thomas Jefferson was serving as Ambassador to France.
Sally Hemings was brought along to be a Ladies Maid to Jefferson’s daughters,
and her brother James Hemings was brought as Jefferson’s personal chef. Both
Hemings siblings were paid a small salary whilst they resided in France,
probably due to pre-Revolutionary France’s unusual slave laws. Although slavery
was the backbone of France’s international economy and was essential to produce
that extremely lucrative cash crop, sugar, in Saint Dominque (present day
Haiti), slavery was illegal in France itself. As a result, slaves who were
brought to France by their masters could, and often did, sue for freedom –
although, neither of the Hemings children ever did. (For more information on
the slave laws of France and its colonies, I highly recommend Tom
Reiss’ The Black Count.)
There were
no paintings or drawings ever made of Hemings (other than the cartoon shown
earlier) and practical photography was still a few years away when she died in
1835. She left behind no written record of her own thoughts and feelings, and
Jefferson never wrote anything about her other than what was necessary for his
records. What we know of her appearance and character comes purely from short
descriptions of those who knew her. Abigail Adams, who met Hemings when the
Jeffersons stopped in London en route
to Paris, described her as a “good natured child.” Later, in 1847, one of
Jefferson’s other slaves described Hemings as being very pretty and “mighty
near white.” These two details are important because they a) support the
speculation that both Hemings and her mother were mixed race, and b) Hemings’
apparent attractiveness would have made her a likely target of sexual
exploitation (see my earlier post on Harriet
Jacobs).
There is
little we can know for sure about Jefferson and Hemings’ relationship: when it
started, how long it continued, if in fact Jefferson was the father of her
children. But we do know one thing for absolute certain: Hemings would have had
no power in this relationship, because she was Jefferson’s property. To those
who have speculated that Hemings and Jefferson may have had a companionate or
loving relationship, journalist Britni Danielle had this to say in
a recent Washington Post article:
Jefferson could have forced Hemings
into a sexual relationship no matter what she wanted, though. And it’s
impossible to know what Hemings thought of Jefferson. As with many enslaved
people, her thoughts, feelings and emotions were not documented.
Sally Hemings first child was born
after her return from Paris, leading many to believe that Jefferson’s sexual
exploitation of her (it seems wrong to call it a relationship) began while he
was still ambassador. However, DNA evidence suggests that her first child might
not have been Jefferson’s. Jefferson never freed Hemings, however, her children
were all freed upon reaching the age of twenty-one. Observers described
Hemings’ children as being quite pale: three of them passed as whites and lived
in white society in Charlottesville as adults after they had been freed. Some
of them were described as bearing a strong resemblance to Thomas Jefferson.
Hamilton fans
have certainly caught Sally Hemings’ cameo. If not – listen closely around 2:00
minutes.
After Thomas Jefferson’s death in
1826, his daughters did not officially free Hemings, but did allow her to leave
Monticello to go live with her adult children. In an 1830 census, she was
mistakenly recorded as a free person of color. She died in 1835.
The Jefferson-Hemings controversy
far outlived Jefferson’s presidency, and has also outlived both Jefferson and
Hemings. Sally Hemings’ children publicly claimed that Thomas Jefferson was their
father, while Jefferson’s legitimate grandchildren claimed that Hemings’
children were fathered by Jefferson’s nephews, Peter and Samuel Carr, who had
spent much of their lives at Monticello. For the next century and a half,
historians debated the circumstantial evidence, until advances in DNA research
in the 1990s brought new evidence to light.
After conducting tests on the Y
chromosomal DNA of known male descendants of both Hemings and Jefferson,
geneticists could conclusively prove a genetic link between the families:
Hemings’ children were definitively fathered by someone with a Jeffersonian Y
chromosome. This refutes the claims by
Jefferson’s grandchildren that either of the Carr brothers were responsible:
being the children of Jefferson’s sister,
they did not have the appropriate chromosome. Given both the DNA evidence and
the earlier testimonies and circumstantial evidence, most historians now accept
that Thomas Jefferson had six children with a woman that he owned.
Some historians remain doubtful:
most notably, William G. Hyland, Jr. and M. Andrew Holowchak have both published
books in which they refute the claim, pointing out that the DNA evidence only
proves that Thomas Jefferson is a possible
candidate for the father of Sally Hemings’ children, and view the
corroborating circumstantial evidence as dubious at best. While it is true that
the DNA evidence alone does not definitively prove that T.J. himself sexually
exploited Sally Hemings, this scientific evidence in tandem with other evidence
might have been enough proof if Jefferson had been Joe-Average Slaveholder and
not a beloved founding father. Even if it turns out that Thomas Jefferson was
not the father of Sally Hemings’ children, the DNA evidence does prove that
some close male relative of Jefferson’s – a brother, a fraternal nephew – did
sexually exploit the woman whom Jefferson considered his property. (Jefferson’s
only legitimate children to survive into adulthood were two daughters. Another
possible scenario would be if Jefferson or one of his close male relatives had
a son by another slave woman who was a consensual sexual partner of Sally Hemings
– but that still means that somewhere along the line, one of the Jeffersons was
sexually exploiting an enslaved woman. Thomas Jefferson’s paternity seems like
the simplest and most logical answer.)
So, what does this mean for
Jefferson’s legacy? Can we still admire him for the Declaration of Independence
and his progressive attitude towards religion, when he owned six hundred human
beings, and may have repeatedly raped and impregnated one of them, possibly
starting when she was a teenager? There is no simple answer to this question. I
do believe that in order to successfully move forward as a country, we must
approach the more sordid moments of our past with greater honesty and openness.
This does not necessarily mean national self-flagellation, but nor should we
excuse the barbarity of the founding fathers on the merits of their other
accomplishments.
I think that the new National Museum
of African American History and Culture has done a good job of this with their
statue of Thomas Jefferson that combines an honoring of his words on equality,
with the names of those people he had enslaved.
I also believe that the historians
of Monticello are doing their best to address this history by building up
replicas of slave quarters along the Mulberry Road, and making the slave
experience a more central part of Monticello’s exhibitions – while also still
celebrating Jefferson’s achievements.
History is complicated: but that’s
why we do it.
Sources:
The various pages from Monticello’s website that I read:
Books:
The
Black Count, by Tom Reiss – This Pulitzer-winning biography of Alexander
Dumas’ father has nothing to do with the Jefferson-Hemings controversy, but it
does discuss French and Haitian slave laws at length. Plus, it’s a great book.
Eight
Flavors by Sarah Lohman – In her chapter on vanilla, Lohman briefly
discusses Jefferson’s tenure in Paris, and the culinary training that Sally’s
brother James Hemings received while there. In addition to the Declaration of
Independence, UVA, the Louisiana Purchase, and religious freedom, we can also
thank TJ for bringing vanilla ice cream and Mac n’ Cheese to the U.S.
The following are books that are more specifically about the
Jefferson-Hemings controversy. I have to admit that I have not read them, and
two of them argue against Jefferson as being the father of Hemings’ children.
Framing
a Legend: Exposing the Distorted History of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
by M. Andrew Holowchak
