The January 2000 Monticello Report summarized the argument thusly:
The committee concludes that convincing evidence does not exist for the hypothesis that another male Jefferson was the father of [all of] Sally Hemings’s children. In almost two hundred years since the issue first became public, no other Jefferson has ever been referred to as the father; denials of Thomas Jefferson’s paternity named the Carr nephews. Furthermore, evidence of the sort of sustained presence necessary to have resulted in the creation of a family of six children is entirely lacking, and even those who denied a relationship never suggested Sally Hemings’s children had more than one father.108
It is creative advocacy, in a setting where there is almost a total absence of relevant information, to argue, in essence, that “I am right because there is no proof that my guess is wrong”; but this hardly proves the proffered fact. Let us look at some of the facts that we can establish by at least a preponderance of the evidence:
Monogamy was certainly not an element in the original story of a Jefferson-Hemings sexual relationship published by James T. Callender and circulated by Jefferson’s Federalist opponents. As Chapter Three will show, Callender described Sally Hemings as “a slut as common as the pavement,”109 and Georgia Federalist Thomas Gibbons, who is relied upon by the Monticello Report on other points, called Sally “the most abandoned prostitute of her color.”110
It is not true that none of Sally Hemings’ contemporaries alleged that she had more than one lover. An 1874 letter from Thomas Jefferson Randolph reprinted in the Monticello Report states, for example, that the paternity of Sally’s children had been “admitted by others.”111 He used the plural “others,” not “another.” Presumably, he was referring to Peter and Samuel Carr, the sons of Thomas Jefferson’s sister Martha.
Professor Brodie tells us that Sally Hemings “had a model in her own mother,”112 who Madison Hemings reportedly said “had seven children by white men and seven by colored men—fourteen in all.”113 The use of the plural “men” in both categories suggests that Betty Hemings had children by no fewer than four men.
Ms. Helen Leary, former president of the “Board for Certification of Genealogists” and a self-proclaimed “leading authority on early families of the Upper South,” adds that it is “a pattern observable in both historical and contemporary life that girls raised in a particular environment tend to grow up accepting that familiar lifestyle as both the norm and their fate.”114
Perhaps more importantly, the assumption that slave women had the prerogative to say “no” to sexual advances in colonial Virginia is not self-evident.
One of the few apparently unbiased eye-witnesses to Monticello life during this period—in the sense that he was not related to either side and, having years earlier moved away from Virginia, was no longer subject to retribution from anyone for telling the truth—was Monticello overseer Edmund Bacon. Bacon not only asserted that young white men visiting Monticello were “intimate with the Negro women”115; but, far more importantly, he alleged that he had personally observed a man who was not Thomas Jefferson coming out of Sally Hemings’ room “many a morning when I went up to Monticello very early.”116
It is possible that “Jeff” Randolph was lying to protect a grandfather he dearly loved. The account published by Henry Randall might be further suspect because of the possibility that Randall might have either misunderstood, forgotten, or intentionally altered what he was told. But the Jeff Randolph account published by Randall does not read like a cover-up. If that were his goal, why would Jefferson’s grandson admit the remarkable similarity in physical appearance between Thomas Jefferson and some of Sally Hemings’ sons? And if his motive were merely to defend his grandfather, why would Jeff Randolph extract a pledge from Randall not to publish his references to the Carr brothers? If Jeff Randolph made no such statement and instead the entire story is a Henry Randall fabrication, why would the famous historian confirm the physical similarities—and how do we explain the account by Jeff Randolph’s sister, Ellen Coolidge, that Jeff had told her as well that the Carr brothers had admitted paternity and Jeff had extracted a similar promise of confidentiality from her?
Occam’s Razor tells us that assuming several witnesses are lying about something in the absence of clear evidence to that effect is not the soundest approach in the search for the truth if there exist simpler explanations—such as that Sally Hemings was not monogamous. Rather than simply making assumptions on such a key issue, we should compare the evidence on all sides and see where it points. Against the evidence already discussed—which includes two eye-witness accounts and various admissions against interest—the advocates of Thomas Jefferson’s paternity rely largely on the fact that Jefferson scholars, who over the years almost unanimously (at least until the Gordon-Reed book was published) rejected the Callender charges, have not denied that Sally was monogamous. One might counter by observing that they also have not expressly concluded that she was monogamous. Finding the Callender allegations without merit, most have simply accepted the Randolph family explanation that one or both of the Carr brothers likely bore responsibility for Sally’s children.
To this they add Madison Hemings’ alleged statement that Thomas Jefferson fathered all of his mother’s children. Obviously, Madison Hemings could not have known the full scope of his mother’s sexual behavior or the actual paternity of children conceived prior to his own birth (which would leave only Eston). In the absence of reason to believe otherwise, it seems normal for children to assume that their parents are good and honorable people—and implicit in that assumption may be a belief that they are sexually monogamous.
Nor is it likely that the Carr brothers, assuming they were sexually involved with Sally Hemings, would have been confident that her children were their own. Like Madison, they might have hoped that Sally was faithful (if they even cared), but sometimes not even the mother can be certain of the paternity of her child. At any rate, the case for the Carr brothers being the fathers of Sally’s children would presumably be much stronger for the older children.117
What other “evidence” of Sally’s monogamy are we offered? The Monticello Report informs us that “[f]ull-sibling relationships are further supported by the closeness of the family, as evidenced by documentation of siblings living together and naming children after each other.”118 At best, this statement is problematic. First, it presupposes that Sally Hemings’ children would know the truth about their paternity. Second, it assumes that “full-sibling relationships” are inherently closer than those of half-siblings, which is at best a stereotype and—based upon my limited observations—may well be false. Most importantly, it is difficult to read the account attributed to Madison Hemings in the Pike County Republican and conclude that Sally Hemings’ children were especially “close.” For example, Madison said of his sister Harriet: “I have not heard from her for ten years, and do not know whether she is dead or alive.” He apparently did not know when his younger brother died, and there is no indication he had been in recent contact with Beverly. This is hardly the kind of “evidence” that overcomes multiple eyewitness testimony to the contrary.
Sally Hemings’ Life after Thomas Jefferson’s Death
One of the many inconsistencies with the theory that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings were “lovers” for decades and any concomitant assumption of rational behavior on the part of the former President is that Thomas Jefferson made no apparent provision for Sally’s welfare at the time of his death. When he wrote his final will he must have known that Sally’s monetary value to his estate was minimal (she was valued at fifty dollars in preparation for the slave auction). Some have argued that to list her in his will would confirm the Callender allegations in the minds of many Americans; but were that his concern, why did he include in his will both of his remaining alleged “sons” by this same slave woman? Surely he knew that would fuel similar speculation.
No one knows exactly what happened to Sally Hemings. Although she wa
s not freed in Jefferson’s will, she was not sold with other slaves in 1829, and by 1830 apparently was listed as a free white woman in the U.S. census for Charlottesville.119 She is also listed as a free person living in Charlottesville in a special 1833 census.120 Yet the following year, in her will, Martha Jefferson Randolph wrote that she wished her children to give “Betsy Hemmings [sic], Sally & Wormley …their time.”121 Giving slaves “their time” was an informal way of granting de facto freedom without running afoul of the Virginia statute requiring manumitted slaves to leave the state within one year.122 But if Martha had not already given Sally “her time,” how do we explain the fact that Sally was reported to be living in Charlottesville four years earlier as a free person? This provision was not included in Martha’s 1836 will. Sally Hemings had died the previous year, having “spent her entire life in legal bondage.”123
The Monticello Report states that the language in Martha’s will about giving the three remaining Hemings “their time” was “probably a written reinforcement of a previous verbal arrangement.”124 This is somewhat ambiguous, as some have speculated that (on the assumption that Sally and Thomas Jefferson were lovers) such an “arrangement” must have been at the President’s informal direction prior to his death. The Monticello Report notes that there is no evidence to support this theory,125 and this language may simply mean that Martha had already given Sally “her time” and was merely reducing it to writing to avoid any question at the time of her death.
The one thing the will does seem to confirm is that after Thomas Jefferson’s death, three members of the Hemings family, including Sally, wound up the property of Martha Jefferson Randolph. This by itself may be important for our inquiry, particularly given the lack of more significant evidence to guide us. For if Thomas Jefferson had commenced a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings while she was Martha’s maid in Paris, and continued that affair for decades after they returned to Virginia, with Sally bearing him several children and producing the Callender scandal that did at least some damage to his reputation, it is difficult to believe that Martha would not have learned of the relationship. One might suspect that in such a situation, she would have resented this slave woman, either because of the scandal caused by the relationship or even because she saw Sally as a rival for her father’s affections.
For that matter, would she likely have rushed home to Monticello with her own innocent children every time the President returned home, so her children could be exposed to this allegedly immoral environment? Would Jefferson have pleaded with her to bring the children to Monticello if his primary interest was being alone with the “handsome” Sally Hemings to produce still more illegitimate children? None of this makes the slightest sense unless most of what we know about the character of Thomas and Martha Jefferson Randolph is false.
Even if Jefferson’s daughter did not resent Sally, there is strong evidence that one of Martha Randolph’s strongest desires was to protect her deceased father’s reputation. Indeed, this desire was so great that she reportedly called her children to her side on her deathbed and asked them to defend their grandfather’s reputation. Had Sally in fact been Thomas Jefferson’s lover, how likely is it that Martha Randolph would have rewarded her by sending her to live with her sons in Charlottesville, where she could tell her story to neighbors or anyone else who would listen?
How likely is it that Thomas Jefferson would have left Sally’s future in the hands of his daughter had the affair actually existed? On the other hand, if Sally Hemings were nothing more than an average member of a favorite family of slaves—a loyal house servant who had been victimized by James Callender and the Federalists through no fault of her own—the few facts that we know about her final years make total sense.
Elizabeth Langhorne, in her 1987 book, Monticello: A Family Story, alleges that the reason Sally Hemings was not freed in Thomas Jefferson’s will had something to do with the fact that she had not belonged to him for several years:
First of all, Sally did not “belong” to Jefferson: she was considered in the family as the property of his granddaughter Ellen. This becomes clear at the time of Ellen’s marriage. Sally, in fact, had been Ellen’s maid for virtually the entire time of Jefferson’s retirement. This, and Ellen’s legal ownership, comes to light in a letter that Ellen wrote to her mother in 1825, while she and Joseph Coolidge were still on their wedding trip.126
Langhorne goes on to discuss lengthy negotiations to hire “Sally” out or sell her to various University of Virginia faculty members. Monticello’s Lucia Stanton, who is certainly among the foremost modern authorities on slave life at Monticello, believes that Langhorne has confused Sally Hemings with a different Sally. Others who have looked closely at the issue disagree. Both arguments strike me as being possible, and the most interesting thing may be that we really do not know what happened to this woman we are now told was so important at Monticello.
The “conventional wisdom” is that Sally Hemings apparently lived with her sons Madison and Eston in Charlottesville until her death around 1835,127 but Professor Gordon-Reed observes that “No record of Sally Hemings’s life during that period [the nine years she lived after Jefferson’s death] survives.”128 Indeed, there is not even a record of when Sally Hemings died or where she was buried. The assumption that she lived with Madison and Eston in Charlottesville is based upon the 1873 statement attributed to her son Madison, supported by a notation in a census report that there was an older woman present in their home. I do not know which story to believe, but am inclined to believe that Ms. Stanton got this one right and that Elizabeth Langhorne may have confused two of the many Sallys at Monticello. Otherwise it is difficult to understand the statement in Martha Randolph’s 1834 will referring to “Sally.”
In summary, virtually everything we know about Sally Hemings can be printed on an index card (see Figure 5 on page 69). There is no record of a single sentence that she uttered or wrote, and from what we know from Jefferson’s surviving records, she was at best an average member of a very special family of Monticello slaves. Neither Sally Hemings, nor any of her children, nor any other eyewitness left any record to support the anti-Jefferson allegations of James Callender in 1802 for more than seventy years; and the heart of the Callender charge has been largely disproved by the DNA tests eliminating Thomas Woodson as a possible son of Thomas Jefferson.
The 1873 statements attributed to Madison Hemings and Israel Jefferson were both filtered through the pen of a highly partisan political journalist with a clear agenda of harming the reputation of Thomas Jefferson. As will be shown in Chapter Four, Israel’s statement is so full of falsehoods as to lack credibility, and most of the relevant “facts” attributed to Madison Hemings occurred long before he was born and are not attributed to any original source. There is circumstantial evidence that at least some of his information came from the original James Callender and Thomas Turner articles published seven decades earlier, published statements by other Jefferson critics, and even books previously published about the famous President. These issues will be addressed in Chapter Four.
Sally’s Alleged Child “Thenia”
It seems clear that a slave child was born at Monticello in early December 1799. In a letter to John Wayles Eppes, husband of his daughter Maria (Polly), Jefferson wrote:
Those of your people who were unwell when you went away are still so & one who has been cured is ill again, Augustine, I believe it is. Maria’s maid produced a daughter about a fortnight ago, & is doing well.
Quoting only the second sentence in this excerpt, the Monticello Report concludes: “The most likely candidate for ‘Maria’s maid’ still living at Monticello, rather than with the Eppes, is Sally Hemings.”129 This child’s lifespan is identified as “(1799–1800).” Since we know that Sally traveled to Paris with Maria (Polly), and we believe that she served as a lady’s maid to both Maria and her older sister Martha at that time, it is possible that Sally continued in this role after returning to Monticell
o or that Jefferson used this description because of the Paris connection. But there is so little reliable information that it is also quite possible that a different slave served Maria after her return to Monticello and produced the child in question. Sally Hemings, it should be recalled, gave birth to Beverly less than a year before “Maria’s maid” conceived the child in question, and may well have still been nursing.130 Former Monticello slave Peter Fossett asserted that slave children at Monticello “were nursed until they were three years old.”131
There are strong arguments against the assumption that Jefferson was referring to Sally Hemings. When Martha and Maria got married and left Monticello, neither took Sally Hemings with them. Instead, Jefferson gave Maria Betsy Hemings, the daughter of Sally’s oldest sister Mary, as a wedding present on October 12, 1797, when Betsy was about fourteen years old—a little more than two years before the otherwise unidentified “Maria’s maid” gave birth. Yet another candidate for “Maria’s maid” was Critta Hemings, another of Sally’s older sisters, whom Polly borrowed from Monticello in 1801 when Betsy was too ill to take care of Polly’s child Francis.132 After Paris, Thomas Jefferson obviously knew Sally Hemings’ name—three months before writing of “Maria’s maid” he identified Sally Hemings simply as “Sally”133—and this reference suggests he may well have not known the new mother’s name. It takes less effort to write “Sally” than “Maria’s maid.”
Perhaps more importantly, the context seems to be a discussion of slaves belonging to John Eppes—“your people”—who were left in Thomas Jefferson’s care because they were too “unwell” to travel when the Eppes left Monticello. Rather than traveling with ill servants, the Eppes may have entrusted their care to those at Monticello and returned home. In updating John Eppes on the status of his slaves, Jefferson adds a note that “Maria’s maid” had a child. Obviously, from the context, “Maria’s maid” was well along in her pregnancy when the Eppes returned home, and might well have been left behind to be cared for by relatives and to avoid the discomfort and perhaps risks of traveling in the final stages of her pregnancy.
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 16