The numerous shortcomings of the 1873 statements attributed to Madison Hemings and Israel Jefferson are addressed in Chapter Four. As will be shown, there are enough problems with both statements to warrant serious skepticism about allegations that are not consistent with other evidence. Even Professor Brodie admits that Jefferson’s “body servant” or “valet” was always a male: “Jupiter, who accompanied him to William & Mary; James Hemings, his valet in Paris; and Burwell, who attended him to his death. … ”63
Does this mean that Sally Hemings could not have been a “chambermaid” at Monticello? Of course not. We know so little about Sally’s role at Monticello that it is theoretically possible that she was a blacksmith. Further, it seems clear that other slaves besides Burwell Colbert had at least occasional access to his bedroom. Jefferson’s grandson refers to “the person who cleaned and made his bed,”64 and perhaps that could have been Sally Hemings or one of her sisters. We will probably never know.
One might speculate that, given the Callender stories and the constant stream of strangers visiting Monticello most of the time Thomas Jefferson was at home, neither he, nor Martha, nor Burwell would have wanted to encourage further rumors by assigning Sally to make his bed. Even if the Sally story were true, and Thomas Jefferson was engaged in a long-term secret love affair with his slave, one might think he would have had enough discretion to assign a different servant the task of making his bed given the large numbers of relative strangers staying in the house at any given time. But all of this is mere speculation, and, unless new evidence surfaces, we may never know the truth.
Thomas Jefferson’s Known Statements
about Sally Hemings
Thomas Jefferson was a prolific writer with a refined sense of history. Long before the world had computers, photocopying machines, or even carbon paper, Thomas Jefferson painstakingly copied most of his letters in longhand to preserve a record for posterity (or, perhaps, for his own future reference). His burden was eased when he acquired a “polygraph” machine that made simultaneous copies of his letters with a duplicate quill. When he died, he left behind some 65,000 documents, including approximately 50,000 letters he had written or received over the years.
In 1997, Princeton University Press published two volumes of Jefferson’s Memorandum Books containing more than 1400 pages of notes made during the last six decades of his life. Some of the entries are so trivial as to be almost amusing—recording insignificant financial transactions of a dollar here or a quarter there. It is tempting to assume that Jefferson kept a record of every event in his life, but that is not close to being true. Some of his financial notes seem so trivial as to defy any rational attempt to explain his criteria for inclusion, but in general he presumably tended to record or write about things he found interesting or remarkable. He made copious notes in his Garden Book and Farm Book, and yet visits to Monticello by close friends and family members often went unrecorded—a situation we will address in more detail in Chapter Ten.
The Hemings family played an important role in Jefferson’s life, and this is reflected in his numerous references to them in various documents. Sally’s brother James Hemings, for example, is mentioned 175 times in the Memorandum Books and references to James take up 33 lines in the index.65 Her brother Robert is included roughly half as often.66
In contrast, Sally Hemings is far less prominent in the Jefferson Memorandum Books. There are three references to Jefferson buying clothes for her in Paris,67 a notation of two dollars spent on a midwife for Sally when Harriet was born,68 a reference to a payment to a “Dr. Sutton” for inoculating Sally for smallpox after she arrived in Paris,69 and a payment in 1789 to a Mrs. Dupré for “5. weeks board of Sally.”70 (As noted, one can only speculate about the reason for this expense, but it may have been so Sally could be trained to care for fine French fabrics, as Martha Jefferson was becoming more active in French society and was acquiring a more sophisticated wardrobe.) In addition, Sally’s name is included in five lists of Jefferson’s Paris servants who received wages paid through Adrien Petit, the maître d’hôtel Jefferson had inherited from John and Abigail Adams; but it is noteworthy that Sally’s wages were only half that of her brother James and one-fifth that of the average French servant.71 But that is it, as far as the Memorandum Books go, and they ultimately tell us very little about Sally Hemings.72
Jefferson’s Farm Book provides little additional insight. Sally Hemings and her children are included on many lists of Jefferson’s slaves, ranging from records prepared for tax purposes to lists noting which slaves received blankets, clothing, or other supplies at a particular time. The only clear conclusion we can draw from this is that Sally was treated exactly like the other members of the Hemings family, which is to say she received significantly better treatment than most Monticello slaves.
Nor do we learn about Sally Hemings from Thomas Jefferson’s voluminous correspondence. In literally tens of thousands of letters, Jefferson made reference to Sally Hemings only four or five times. Professor Gordon-Reed mentions three of these. In 1799 Jefferson informed his son-in-law John Wayles Eppes that “Maria’s maid” (possibly Sally Hemings, but I believe this unlikely73) had given birth to a child,74 and three years later he wrote two letters during a measles epidemic saying that “if Bet or Sally’s children” came down with the illness they should be sent to stay with their grandmother Betty Hemings further away from the big house.75
Professor Gordon-Reed missed at least76 two other letters. Around November 1790, Jefferson wrote overseer Nicholas Lewis that his two daughters, and Martha’s husband Thomas Mann Randolph, “are to be furnished with whatever the plantations will furnish. … ”77 After a[[AR 79]] list of examples (“corn, fodder, wheat …fire-wood,” etc.), he adds: “They are to have also the use of the house-servants, to wit, Ursula, Critta, Sally, Bet, Wormeley and Joe. So also of Betty Hemings, should her services be necessary.”78 (See Figure 6 on the next page.)
Several comments may be in order about this note. If Sally Hemings was Thomas Jefferson’s true love who had recently given birth to his child, would he have included her in this list of servants to be assigned to wait on Thomas Mann Randolph and others? Would he not have at least listed her name first, if she were in some way special to him? From what we know about the house servants, Ursula was important.79 The list is neither alphabetical nor chronological by birth, and may well reflect Jefferson’s perception of the importance of each slave. (Equally possible, he listed their names at random as they came to his mind, or perhaps listed the ones he thought might be of most use to his relatives first.) The one person on the list who is clearly given preference is not Sally Hemings but her mother, Betty, who is only to be made available “should her services be necessary.” Again, if Sally Hemings was the love of his life, would Jefferson not at least have given her the distinction of being made available only if her services were “necessary?”
Figure 6. Instructions from Thomas Jefferson to Monticello Overseer Nicholas Lewis (undated). Library of Congress, The Thomas Jefferson Papers, Series 1, image 486.
Finally, there is another letter in which Jefferson writes from Philadelphia to his daughter Martha that he had shipped James Hemings’ bedding that had finally arrived from Paris back to Monticello, and in the margin he adds: “Sally’s do [ditto].”80 Not exactly the stuff of love letters.
While Jefferson corresponded extensively with some other members of the Hemings family, there is no record of any written (or oral, for that matter) communication by Thomas Jefferson to Sally Hemings. The reverse is implicit in the fact that no verbal or written communication by Sally Hemings to anyone has survived. As revisionist scholar Andrew Burstein observed in the William & Mary Quarterly, “Nothing he [Jefferson] wrote even remotely supports the existence of a physical connection with Sally Hemings.”81
Sally Hemings’ Known Statements about
Thomas Jefferson
There are no known documents or statements clearly attributable to Sally Hem
ings about Thomas Jefferson or any other subject.82
Sally Hemings’ Children
Other than the Callender charge and the oral history of the descendants of Thomas Woodson, there is no evidence that Sally gave birth to a son named “Tom” in 1790. There is also no clear proof that she was not the mother of Thomas Woodson, and the fact that at least one Jefferson defender at the time seemed to acknowledge the existence of the twelve-year-old “Tom,” and none of his defenders appear to have denied there was such a child, may strengthen the Woodsons’ claim. The decisive fact about Thomas Woodson is that six different DNA tests of descendants of three of Thomas Woodson’s sons showed that he could not have been fathered by any member of Thomas Jefferson’s immediate family.
From Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book and other records, we know that Sally gave birth to a daughter on October 5, 1795,83 who was named “Harriet” or “Harriot.” She died on October 5, 1797,84 and is often referred to as “Harriet I” to distinguish her from a later child given the same name who lived to adulthood. On April 1, 1798, Sally gave birth to a son named Beverly85; and in early December 1799, she may have produced a daughter who did not survive infancy and may have been named “Thenia.” I have serious doubts about this assertion that will be addressed at the end of this chapter.86
The Farm Book informs us that Sally gave birth to a second daughter named Harriet in May 1801.87 Like Sally and her other children, there is very little in Jefferson’s records about Harriet. Indeed, Jefferson made no reference to her in his extensive Memorandum Books.
Sally’s sons Madison and Eston were born, respectively, on January 19,88 1805, and May 21, 1808. Sally Hemings is not believed to have had any more children after 1808, when she would have been about thirty-four years old.
An undated Farm Book “Roll of the Negroes according to their ages”—which includes an entry for August 1804, but may well have been maintained over a period of many years—includes this entry under slaves born in 1801: “Harriet. Sally’s run. 22.”89 In addition, we have this apparently credible account by former Monticello overseer Edmund Bacon about Harriet Hemings: “When she was nearly grown, by Mr. Jefferson’s direction I paid her stage fare to Philadelphia and gave her fifty dollars. I have never seen her since and don’t know what became of her.”90 Among other possible interpretations of these data are: (1) Jefferson arranged for Harriet to be informally freed and sent to Philadelphia in 1822 (the year she would have turned twenty-one) and covered his action by falsely documenting that she had “run”; or (2) Harriet ran away in 1822, was returned, and Jefferson—perhaps fearing Harriet might face harm if she fled again—arranged for Bacon to put her on the stage. One might hypothesize another dozen or so explanations, but the reality is that we are unlikely to know the truth with any certainty.
The same list noting that Harriet had “run” in 1822 said next to Beverly Hemings’ name: “run away 22.”91 This has led some to speculate that perhaps the siblings left Monticello together. While in the absence of more detailed records one cannot rule this out completely, it is not clearly92 consistent with Edmund Bacon’s account of Harriet’s departure.
Whether they left together or separately, there is credible evidence that Thomas Jefferson allowed both Beverly and Harriet to leave Monticello. In an 1854 letter to her husband, Jefferson’s granddaughter Ellen Randolph Coolidge wrote:
It was his principle (I know that of my own knowledge) to allow such of his slaves as were sufficiently white to pass for white men, to withdraw quietly from the plantation; it was called running away, but they were never reclaimed. I remember four instances of this, three young men and one girl, who walked away and staid [sic] away. Their whereabouts was perfectly known but they were left to themselves—for they were white enough to pass for white.93
Later in the same letter, she makes it clear that these almost white slaves included children of Sally Hemings:
One woman known to Mr. J. Q. Adams and others as “dusky Sally” was pretty notoriously the mistress of a married man, a near relation of Mr. Jefferson’s, and there can be small question that her children were his. They were all fair and all set free at my grandfather’s death, or had been suffered to absent themselves permanently before he died. The mother, Sally Hemmings [sic], had accompanied Mr. Jefferson’s youngest daughter to Paris and was lady’s maid to both sisters.94
Unlike the children of some of Sally Hemings’ siblings, Sally’s own children received very little attention in Jefferson’s extensive Memorandum Books. Beverly is mentioned once,95 daughters Harriet I and Harriet II are not mentioned by Jefferson at all,96 and sons Madison and Eston share a single entry noting they were paid two dollars for 100 cabbages on December 11, 1824.97 This was the same sum he had paid another slave for the same number of cabbages about two years earlier.98
Substituting Speculation for Scholarship
In the absence of meaningful information about Sally Hemings, proponents of the “Sally story” have resorted to the most bizarre speculation and fantasizing. There is not the slightest evidence that Sally Hemings spoke more than a few words of French or had any formal training in the language,99 yet Professor Brodie takes the established fact that brother James had a French tutor and asserts that “one could expect that Sally would likely have been included.”100 Having thus established this “fact,” she goes on to write: “Jefferson had under his roof in Paris two slaves who were learning to speak French, who counted themselves free, and were thinking of becoming expatriates.”101 This would have been a reasonable statement had Dr. Brodie used “might have been” instead of “were”—but as written it is unsupportable nonsense. From what little we know, it is equally likely that Sally Hemings cried herself to sleep at night praying to be reunited with her mother and siblings.
Most historians would presumably examine the available records and conclude that Sally Hemings and her children were relatively minor figures within the important Hemings family at Monticello. But Professor Brodie recognizes a classic cover-up when she sees one:
The necessity for secrecy concerning Jefferson’s liaison with Sally Hemings pervaded every aspect of their relationship. Even in his Farm Book she remained surprisingly anonymous. Though he wrote Sally’s name many times, on the slave inventories, the distribution lists for fish, beef, blankets, and linen, he never included her last name, as he did that of her mother and several of her brothers. He listed her often just below that of her sister Critta, and there is no indication in the Farm Book that she was singled out for special treatment.102
To be sure, Sally Hemings’ absence from Monticello records could be the result of a cover-up. But Occam’s Razor would guide us to consider first the more simple explanation—that Sally Hemings really was a minor figure at Monticello. Yes, as the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s Lucia Stanton has asserted, Sally Hemings did have an “enduring connection”103 with Thomas Jefferson. But I am persuaded she is mistaken about its character: for more than fifty years, Sally Hemings was one of Thomas Jefferson’s many slaves.
If one excludes Hollywood productions and writings openly identified as fiction, perhaps the most remarkable conclusions drawn by a scholar from the near total absence of information about Sally Hemings comes from David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University. In his Preface to Lucia Stanton’s Free Some Day, he asserts that “Sally Hemings …knew Thomas Jefferson at least as well as did any of his white friends and relatives.”104 I find not the slightest bit of historical evidence to support such an assertion by such a distinguished scholar.
Was Sally Hemings Monogamous?
Ironically (since the original version of the allegation portrayed her as a “slut” and “prostitute” who had no fewer than fifteen lovers105), much of the circumstantial case against Thomas Jefferson is premised on the assumption that Sally Hemings had to be monogamous. Candidly, I personally place very little weight on anything James Callender wrote, and my strong sense is that Sally Hemings was but an innocent victim
of his racism and his vendetta to harm Thomas Jefferson. The irony has less to do with Callender’s veracity than with the fact that some revisionists seek to employ him as a reliable source to show the alleged sexual relationship occurred, but then conveniently ignore him in assuring us that no one ever suggested that Sally Hemings was not monogamous.
As discussed in Chapter One, the basic scientific conclusions from the DNA testing were that Eston Hemings was almost certainly fathered by a Jefferson male and Thomas Woodson was not. Based upon those findings, it would be fairly easy to identify half a dozen Jefferson males106 who might well have been at Monticello when Eston was conceived and nearly another twenty107 who arguably might have been there. But identifying other suspects who are likely to have been there when all five or six children were conceived is obviously more difficult, and since Thomas Jefferson lived at Monticello, he quickly becomes a prime suspect once one postulates that Sally had to have been monogamous.
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 15