39. Id.
40. E-mail from Dr. Eugene Foster to Professor Robert F. Turner, Subject: Jefferson-Hemings, Oct. 1, 2000, 9:02 PM, on file with author.
41. Id.
42. Id. (Emphasis added).
43. See, e.g., id.
44. E-mail from Dr. Eugene Foster to Professor Robert F. Turner, Subject: More TJ-SH, Oct. 3, 2000, 11:59 AM, on file with author (emphasis added.).
45. No admirer of Thomas Jefferson could credibly argue that Dr. Foster’s medical expertise should preclude him from participating in serious discourse involving other disciplines. What a price we would have paid if Thomas Jefferson’s expertise in architecture or agriculture had kept him from offering us his thoughts on politics, diplomacy, or even meteorology.
46. E-mail from Eric Lander to Herbert Barger, 27 Dec. 1998 00:48:34, Subject: “RE: JEFFERSON/HEMINGS DNA STUDY,” a copy of which is on file with author (emphasis added).
47. The President Again, RICHMOND RECORDER, Sept. 1, 1802, reprinted in Monticello Report, Appendix E. It is perhaps noteworthy that the term “sable” was also used to describe Thomas Woodson.
48. I apologize to any readers who find this term as offensive as I do, but it is the term used at the time.
49. ANNETTE GORDON-REED, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 67–68 (1997).
50. Id. at 69–70.
51. Id. at 70–71.
52. FAWN M. BRODIE, THOMAS JEFFERSON: AN INTIMATE HISTORY 248 (1974).
53. Richmond Examiner, PHILADELPHIA AURORA, Oct. 1, 1802, at 2.
54. Thomas Jefferson’s wife Martha did inherit a slave named “Tom Shackleford,” who first appears on the 1774 slave roster at Bedford and passed away in 1801. He is often listed simply as “Tom,” and thus could cause confusion. See, e.g., THE GARDEN AND FARM BOOKS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 259, 267, 290, 296, 298, 301 (Robert C. Baron, ed. 1987). I am indebted to Cynthia Harris Burton for this observation. By 1810 there were no fewer than three “Toms” among Jefferson’s slaves (“Tom,” “Tom Buck,” and “Tom Lee.”) Id. at 406. A slave named Ursula had a “Thomas” on Oct. 1, 1813. Id. at 386, 399.
55. Monticello Report, Appendix K at 2. There are at least four pages from the Farm Book that have been removed and, in some cases, may be on deposit as separate documents in other libraries. For example, the list of “Negroes Alienated, 1784–1794, inclusive” on deposit at the American Philosophical Society may be page 25 of Jefferson’s Farm Book.
56. See, e.g., MICHAEL DUREY, WITH THE HAMMER OF TRUTH: JAMES THOMSON CALLENDER AND AMERICA’S EARLY NATIONAL HEROES 159–60 (1990).
57. It may still be theoretically possible that Jefferson was Woodson’s father. But this would probably mean either that Thomas Jefferson was of illegitimate birth (a theory now being suggested by A President in the Family author Byron Woodson) or that the same man illegitimately fathered sons by the wives of three of Thomas Woodson’s sons over a period of more than a decade.
58. GORDON-REED, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 67.
59. When I first wrote this in 2000, I believed that it would be useful to pursue DNA testing from William Hemings’ grave. Candidly, I am now much less sure of that. As I have reflected on the issue, there are important ethical implications that my eagerness to get to the truth led me to overlook. At the same time, I’m not sure—given the paucity of the case for Thomas Jefferson’s paternity as I see it now—that any results from such a test would make much difference.
60. In reality, a number of other Jefferson relatives might have been at Monticello when Eston was conceived. George Jefferson, for example, served as the President’s agent in Richmond, and presumably visited Monticello often to discuss business or simply for a family visit. While the Monticello Report asserts there were no known visits by George Jefferson to Monticello, Cynthia Burton’s research reveals that is not the case. See Jefferson to Callender, Sept. 6, 1799, in 9 THE WORKS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 82 (Fed. Ed. 1905) (“Mr. Jefferson happens to be here . . .”—a clear reference to George Jefferson.) Another letter, ironically also involving Callender, places George Jefferson back at Monticello in April 1801. In a letter dated April 27, 1801, Callender informed James Madison that George Jefferson had hand-delivered a letter from him to Jefferson at Monticello earlier that month. Quoted in Worthington Chauncey Ford, Thomas Jefferson and James Thomson Callender, 51 NEW-ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER 153–54 (Apr. 1897). But it is correct that, in the absence of some other purpose, Thomas Jefferson did not normally make a record of the visits to Monticello by close friends and relatives.
61. See Chapter Eleven.
2
The Enigmatic Sally Hemings: So Few Facts, So Much Fantasy and Speculation
* * *
Several books have been written about Sally Hemings, and Hollywood has provided us with movies and a miniseries showing a beautiful young slave girl and the dashing American diplomat and President dancing across the social scenes of Paris and embracing in the White House. The miniseries portrays a powerful Sally Hemings ordering Monticello overseer Edmund Bacon to escort unwanted white visitors off the plantation.
Is this fact or fantasy? The truth is that we really do not know, but there is not the slightest bit of reliable historical evidence to support a finding that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings ever so much as held hands in Paris or anywhere else, nor is there any evidence Sally Hemings ever got within fifty miles of Washington, D.C.
The 1998 DNA tests discussed in Chapter One have undermined the 1802 James Callender charge that there was a twelve-year-old slave child named “Tom” at Monticello, conceived by Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in Paris in 1789 and closely resembling President Jefferson in physical appearance. There is not a single eyewitness account by anyone clearly linking Thomas Jefferson romantically to Sally Hemings, not from one of the hundreds of slaves who were owned by Jefferson over the years,1 nor from any of the thousands of visitors who swarmed over Monticello when Thomas Jefferson was home. Both Thomas Jefferson and his family denied the allegations. No one has found any record in which any person claimed that Sally Hemings ever alleged that her relationship with Thomas Jefferson ever went beyond that of master-slave, even during the years after Jefferson’s death, when she lived for nearly a decade as a free woman in Charlottesville; nor did any but one of her children leave a record of making such an assertion, and in that instance he waited until Jefferson had been dead nearly fifty years, and the statement attributed to him is clearly inaccurate on several key points.2 Edmund Bacon, the Monticello overseer during most of Jefferson’s presidency and retirement years, both denied the allegations of Jefferson’s paternity and stated that he had often personally witnessed another man leaving Sally’s room early in the morning while he was arriving for work.
But one could, of course, also argue a different conclusion from the same absence of material evidence. There is no clear proof that “Tom and Sally” did not dance in Paris or Washington. There is no proof she was not pregnant when she returned to Virginia in 1789. Other than the case of Thomas Woodson, the slave child alleged to have been born to Sally shortly after she returned from France (who has been positively excluded as the child of Thomas or any other Jefferson male by a half dozen DNA tests), there is no proof that Thomas Jefferson did not father all of Sally’s children. We have almost no information about Sally Hemings, and this has permitted speculation to run rampant and to replace the normal tools of scholarly research.
Indeed, the most remarkable fact associated with this entire inquiry is probably how little we really know about Sally Hemings.3 If we exclude the various lists of slaves in Jefferson’s records—recording such things as the distribution of food, bedding, and clothing over the years (in which Sally and her children are treated exactly like other members of her family)—everything we reliably know about Sally Hemings can be printed on an index card (see Figure 5 on the next page).
Daughter of Betty Hemings • born 1773, inherited by Jeffersons 1774 • arrived at Monticel
lo c. 1775 • stayed with TJ’s in-laws after TJ went to Paris until she accompanied Mary (Polly) to Paris in 1787 at age 13 or 14 • ship captain said she was immature, and Abigail Adams added Sally was “wholly incapable” of babysitting 8-year-old Mary without supervision and “wants more care than the child,” but was “good natured” • TJ purchased clothes, a smallpox vaccination, and gave Sally a small salary while in France • spent 5 weeks boarding with Mrs. Dupré in 1789 • returned to Monticello with Jeffersons in 1789 to become house servant • often spoke of her trip to Paris • away from Monticello and said to have been ill in Sept. 1790 • had 5 known children (perhaps as many as 7), four lived to adulthood, youngest fathered by man with Jefferson family Y chromosome • TJ’s distribution lists (for food, clothing, etc.) and other records show no “special treatment” as compared to other Hemingses and house servants • said to be “mighty near white,” “decidedly good looking,” and “very handsome” with “long straight hair” by two witnesses • alleged to be mistress of married man and “near relation of Mr. Jefferson’s” • unidentified man other than TJ was reportedly witnessed leaving her room early many mornings • not freed in TJ’s life or will, but listed as “free” person in 1833 and perhaps 1830 censuses • may have died around 1835. 1873 newspaper claimed Madison Hemings and a friend said TJ fathered all of her children.
Figure 5. What We Believe We Know about Sally Hemings. Virtually everything that we believe we know about Sally Hemings—from Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, Memorandum Books, letters, and from surviving accounts of eyewitnesses like overseer Edmund Bacon, former slave Isaac Jefferson, and other members of the Monticello community—can be recorded on a 3 × 5 index card. I have excluded allegations from people like Callender and Gibbons (who had no direct knowledge when they labeled Sally a “slut” and a “prostitute”), as well as the 1873 assertions attributed by Samuel Wetmore to sixty-eight-year-old Madison Hemings about events that could only have occurred more than a decade before Hemings’ birth. For reasons of credibility discussed in Chapter Four, I’ve also excluded Israel Jefferson’s alleged statement to Wetmore that Sally was Thomas Jefferson’s “chambermaid.” But even if we included those and I’ve missed a few other references, they could easily be included on the reverse side of the index card. I’ve also excluded known information that tells us little of relevance to our inquiry, such as the names of Sally’s children, siblings, and other known relatives.
Sally’s Birth and Arrival at Monticello
The most reliable evidence suggests that Sally Hemings was born on an unknown date in 17734 to Betty Hemings, a slave belonging to Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law John Wayles, and became Jefferson’s property the next year following Wayles’ death. These facts are recorded in Jefferson’s Farm Book.5
It is commonly asserted today that Sally’s father was John Wayles himself, which would have made her half-sister to Jefferson’s wife Martha. There is nothing in the Jefferson records to document this,6 but it is the type of delicate matter that might well not have been recorded on paper. The issue is not critical to our inquiry,7 but if true it might provide additional reasons for Thomas Jefferson to give favorable treatment to Sally, her siblings, and presumably their children.8
We know essentially nothing else about Sally until 1787. Jefferson’s wife Martha died four months after giving birth to their daughter Lucy in 1782, and, when Jefferson was appointed U.S. Minister to France and set forth across the Atlantic in July 1784, he was accompanied by his eleven-year-old daughter Martha and a single slave (James Hemings, older brother to Sally).
One of the challenges when studying the Jefferson family is keeping track of the players. Martha, the President’s eldest daughter, not only shared her mother’s first name (also the name of one of Thomas Jefferson’s sisters) but was also known as Patsy. Daughter number two went by Mary, Maria, and Polly at various times. From entries in the Farm Book, there appear to have been nearly a dozen different slaves named “Sally” or “Sal” over the years at Monticello9; and, in 1815, a slave identified as “Will’s Sal” gave birth to a daughter named “Harriet”10—the same name Sally Hemings gave to two of her own daughters. Although none of them came close to fitting the description provided by James Callender in 1802, over the years there were several “Toms” among Jefferson’s slaves.11
It is believed that Sally and her family moved to Monticello around 1775, and by 1787 she was living at “Eppington,” the Chesterfield County home of Martha Jefferson’s sister Elizabeth and her husband Francis Eppes. They had agreed to care for Jefferson’s daughters Polly and Lucy while their father was serving as U.S. Minister to France. When Thomas Jefferson learned that two-year-old Lucy had died of whooping cough, he instructed the Eppes to send Polly to Paris in the company of someone like Isabel Herne, a much older slave than Sally Hemings, to care for his eight-year-old daughter on the five-week voyage across the Atlantic. However, Isabel was suffering from complications from childbirth at the time and the Eppes decided instead to send thirteen- or fourteen-year-old Sally Hemings to accompany Polly.
Abigail Adams’ Observations about Sally Hemings
About the only credible information we have about Sally’s maturity and talents comes from two letters written by Abigail Adams to Thomas Jefferson after Polly and Sally arrived in London en route to Paris in the summer of 1787. Polly and Sally lived with the Adams family for three weeks. Mrs. Adams, whose husband was serving as U.S. Minister to Great Britain and whose “sharp intellect” is acknowledged even by champions of the “Sally” story,12 wrote Jefferson on June 26 that Polly had arrived safely and was accompanied by a “Girl” who was the sister of the servant (James Hemings) Jefferson had taken to Paris.13
The following day, Mrs. Adams wrote again, this time advising Thomas Jefferson that Andrew Ramsay, the ship captain who brought Polly from Virginia, had expressed the view that Sally was not a capable caregiver: “The Girl who is with her is quite a child, and Captain Rams[a]y is of opinion will be of so little Service that he had better carry her back with him. But of this you will be a judge. She seems fond of the child and appears good natured.”14 After having had ten days to observe the two children, on July 6 Abigail Adams added in another letter: “The Girl she has with her, wants more care than the child, and is wholly incapable of looking properly after her, without some superiour to direct her.”15
The only surviving observation by someone who had been in a position to directly observe Sally Hemings’ behavior (a qualification excluding the allegations of James Callender and Federalist activists who had apparently never even seen Sally) to comment upon her abilities was thus Abigail Adams—a woman of remarkable intelligence and judgment, who certainly had no sympathy for slavery—and she recorded that at the age of thirteen or fourteen Sally Hemings needed more care than an eight-year-old16 who was so emotionally distraught she was clinging to all around her.17 From her letters, it is clear that Captain Ramsay—in whose judgment Thomas Jefferson also apparently placed confidence18—shared that view.
That’s basically it. Other than listing her name among other slaves for the distribution of blankets, food, and the like, and a few passing references in letters or other documents, the only other known surviving accounts of Sally Hemings focus on her physical appearance.
In 1847, Charles W. Campbell took down the recollections of a former Monticello slave and blacksmith named Isaac, who provided the following account of Sally Hemings:
Sally Hemings’ mother Betty was a bright mulatto woman, and Sally mighty near white; she was the youngest child. …Sally was very handsome, long straight hair down her back. She was about eleven years old when Mr. Jefferson [sic] took her to France to wait on Miss Polly. She and Sally went out to France a year after Mr. Jefferson went. Patsy went with him at first, but she carried no maid with her. Harriet, one of Sally’s daughters, was very handsome. Sally had a son named Madison, who learned to be a great fiddler.19
About fifteen years later, Monticello o
verseer Edmund Bacon recalled his memories of nearly two decades at Monticello and mentioned Sally Hemings. He wrote:
Sally Hemings went to France with Maria Jefferson when she was a little girl. Mr. Jefferson was Minister to France, and he wanted to put her in school there. They crossed the ocean alone. I have often heard her tell about it. When they got to London, they stayed with Mr. Adams, who was Minister there, until Mr. Jefferson came or sent for them.20
It may (or may not) be significant that Bacon does not praise Sally for her competence or the quality of her work. When he writes of Martha Jefferson Randolph’s slave nurse, Ursula, he speaks of how much Jefferson’s grandchildren were attached to her, calling her “Mammy.” Sally’s brother John Hemings was praised as “a first-rate workman” who “could make anything that was wanted in woodwork.”21 Sally’s nephews Joe Fossett and Burwell Colbert were, respectively, described as “a very fine workman”22 and “a fine painter.”23 But Sally—who Hollywood and some scholars would have us believe was Thomas Jefferson’s constant companion and closest confidant—is remembered only as someone who once traveled to Paris and later spoke about it.
The only other first-hand description we have of Sally Hemings is from President Jefferson’s favorite grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who in 1852 reportedly commented to historian Henry Randall that Sally and one of her sisters24 were both “light colored and decidedly good looking.”25
Edmund Bacon’s recollection that Sally liked to talk about her voyage to France is also the only surviving record that clearly recounts any statement ever made by Sally Hemings. Beyond knowing that Sally often mentioned Paris, there is not a single scrap of paper known to contain anything ever written by Sally Hemings (indeed, there is serious doubt about whether she was literate26), and there are “no accounts of any statements made by her.”27 It is reasonable to assume that Sally might28 have been the source for some of the statements attributed to her son Madison in the 1873 story in the Pike County Republican, which is discussed in Chapter Four. But Madison does not attribute the information specifically to his mother, and both some of the vocabulary used and the identical misspelling of a name suggest that James Callender’s or Thomas Turner’s writings may directly or indirectly have been the source for some of the statements attributed to Madison Hemings.29
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 13