After this chapter was initially drafted, I submitted a series of questions to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and received the very generous assistance of both President Daniel Jordan and Lucia Stanton, the former Monticello Research Director and currently Shannon Senior Research Historian at Monticello’s International Center for Jefferson Studies. In response to a number of written questions, Ms. Stanton provided the following information:
Of the males of Sally Hemings’s generation, only Peter Hemings (not freed) and John Hemings (freed) are known to have been alive (Robert and James had died; Martin’s fate is unknown, but he was definitely not at Monticello). Of the males of the next generation, those alive were Joseph Fossett (freed), Robert Bell (born free in Charlottesville), Wormley Hughes (not freed but “given his time”), Burwell Colbert (freed), Brown Colbert (sold in 1806, a slave in Lexington, VA in 1826), Edwin Colbert (given to Thomas Jefferson Randolph in 1816), Robert [Colbert?] (sold in 1820), Billy (son of Nance; fate not known, but not a Monticello slave), James Hemings (ran away in 1804; not recovered, but apparently returned to visit in 1815).51
Elsewhere in the same set of responses she added:
[Peter Hemings] is no doubt the “Peter, Old man” sold for one dollar. His purchaser was Daniel Farley, a free black of Charlottesville who we think was Peter’s nephew Daniel, the son of Mary Hemings. …Farley must have then freed Hemings, who is listed as a free black in the 1830 census.52
This confirmed my own initial findings that, of Betty Hemings’ seventeen children (including Sally) and thirty-seven grandchildren (including Madison and Eston), only two males who remained the property of Thomas Jefferson at the time of his death were not freed in his will—and both of them apparently became free men almost immediately. The fact that two of Sally Hemings’ sons were freed in the will is thus typical of the general treatment given Betty Hemings’ male descendants who remained at Monticello when Jefferson died, and is hardly serious evidence that Thomas Jefferson was their father.
There is obviously no “pattern” here of preferential treatment for Sally Hemings’ children over other members of the Hemings family. It does not matter why Peter and Wormley were not freed in Jefferson’s will. Douglass Adair asserts that Jefferson made a decision in 1774 (when Sally Hemings was about one year old) “that the Hemings boys when they were grown and after they had learned a trade and could support themselves, would be given their freedom if they wished it.”53 One might speculate that Jefferson feared that Peter lacked the skills to make it on his own, but he once described Peter as a “servant of great intelligence and diligence,”54 and Peter seems to have done well as a tailor after being freed.55 However, for some reason, Peter was valued at only one dollar for the slave auction that followed Jefferson’s death. We have so little information that we can do no more than speculate about why he was not freed in the will.
Wormley Hughes seems to have been a favorite with Thomas Jefferson,56 and the nearly two dozen references to him in Jefferson’s Memorandum Books suggest both that he was trusted and that he was very honest.57 Unlike Sally’s children, he was occasionally paid for his work.58 There is some evidence in Jefferson’s Farm Book that Wormley may have had less talent59 than some of the other Monticello slaves, and that might explain why he was not freed in the will. Instead, he was apparently treated like Sally Hemings and entrusted to the care of Jefferson’s daughter Martha. It is speculated that Jefferson may have told Martha orally that Wormley should be given his freedom if he desired it,60 and in her 1834 will Martha asked her heirs to give Wormley and Sally61 “their time.”62
It is also possible that Wormley did not wish to be freed at the time of Jefferson’s death. He seems to have been very fond of the Jefferson family, he was certainly not treated like most slaves, and perhaps he stayed on by choice, hoping to continue his role as family gardener rather than trying to fend for himself on his own. It really does not matter: the reality is that most of the remaining adult male descendants of Betty Hemings were freed in Thomas Jefferson’s will, and Wormley was spared the fate of being sold on the auction block. And again, rather than being singled out for special benefits, Sally Hemings’ sons received the least favorable treatment of any of the Hemings who were formally given their freedom by Thomas Jefferson and ranked below average in treatment among all remaining male descendants of Betty Hemings at Monticello upon Jefferson’s death.
The first person to suggest in writing that Sally Hemings received special treatment, “above the level of his other servants,” was the scandalmonger James Callender in 1802.63 But the Monticello Research Committee admits: “Jefferson’s records do not reveal any privileges accorded to Sally Hemings that distinguish her from others in her family.”64 Indeed, this may understate the case, as many of her relatives appear to have received far better treatment than did Sally. For example, Jefferson wrote letters to her brothers James and John, but not to Sally;65 and when returning from trips, Jefferson would often bring gifts for his family members and a few favored slaves—once bringing an almost new suit of clothes for Sally’s brother Robert66—but there is no record of any such generosity to Sally.67
While part of the time she was in Paris Sally did receive a small monthly salary, it was half of what her brother James was paid and only twenty percent of the average wages paid to Jefferson’s other servants.68 There is no suggestion that it continued after she returned home, where Burwell and John Hemings received an annual gratuity and where Robert, James, and Martin were even permitted to hire themselves out to other masters when Jefferson was away and to keep their wages for themselves.69
Indeed, the lack of evidence of special consideration for Sally Hemings—who was never among the dozen or so slaves Jefferson took with him to the White House70 (including three females who were paid salaries71) and was herself ignored in his will72—has led some advocates of the alleged relationship to go to bizarre lengths to find signs of the love they know he had to feel for Sally. Typical is this example from Professor Fawn Brodie’s 1974 Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History:
There is also what one might call hard evidence as well as psychological evidence that Jefferson in Paris treated Sally Hemings with special consideration. On November 6, 1787, he paid 240 francs to a Dr. Sutton for Sally’s smallpox inoculation, a very great sum.73
Unfortunately (for Professor Brodie), Jefferson’s concern about the risk of exposing his daughters to smallpox predates the decision by the Eppes family to send Sally to France to serve as their maid, as he had specifically instructed that an older slave named Isabel accompany Polly if she had already had smallpox.74 Sally was selected without Jefferson’s knowledge for the trip, because Isabel was recovering from childbirth. Further, in 1778 Jefferson had paid for a smallpox vaccination for Sally’s brothers James and Robert75—and no one (thus far) seems to have suggested this was evidence of a sexual liaison. Indeed, over the years Jefferson inoculated scores of his slaves against this dreaded disease.76 Monticello’s Lucia Stanton notes that “Jefferson took pains to arrange for slaves in regular contact with his family” to have smallpox inoculations.77
Then there is the thirty-two dollars Jefferson spent on new clothing for Sally in 1789. This has given Hollywood an excuse to portray the young slave girl as dancing across Paris in the arms of the dashing American minister, but the more likely explanation is more basic. As the Monticello Report explains: “Jefferson spent almost ten times as much on the clothing of his daughter Martha, who was just beginning to go out into society and to balls. Sally, as her lady’s maid, would also have needed an improved wardrobe.”78
Indeed, there is precedent for Jefferson spending money on clothing for slaves in such settings. Professor Ellis notes that in 1775, when Jefferson went to Philadelphia (where he would draft the Declaration of Independence the following year), “he had outfitted Jesse, Jupiter79 and Richard, his black servants, in formal attire befitting the regalia of a proper Virginia gentleman. … ”80
Also relied upon
is the fact that, in planning his return voyage to the United States, Jefferson instructed that Sally’s room be “convenient to that of my daughters,”81 leading Professor Brodie to assert: “So he insisted that on shipboard he be close to all three young females, from whom he would not—and could not—in the end be separated.”82 Acknowledging that Professor Brodie’s interpretation might go a bit far, Professor Gordon-Reed tells her readers: “At a minimum this note indicates that Jefferson counted Sally Hemings among those who would have been offended if they were excluded from his company on the voyage home and that this concerned him to some degree.”83 In their eagerness to find evidence of romance, it apparently did not occur to either writer that Jefferson just might have wanted Sally’s cabin to be near to that of his daughters because her job was to serve as their maid.
The paucity of references to Sally Hemings in Jefferson’s voluminous records—in addition to being portrayed as obvious evidence of a “coverup”84—requires a certain amount of creative speculation by writers determined to find evidence of his generosity towards young Sally. If there are no records suggesting gifts, at least we can find ambiguities. When Jefferson records the purchase of a “locket” for 40 francs, Professor Brodie suggests that “perhaps” it was for Sally.85
After Jefferson and his entourage returned from Paris, and there was no longer a need to dress Sally to appear in French society as a ladies’ maid to the daughters of the American minister, Sally was clothed like all of her relatives and appropriate notations were made in the Farm Book. But Professor Brodie put a slightly different “spin” on the story:
With the return to America secrecy deepened. Jefferson’s casual notations of expenditures for Sally’s clothes disappeared altogether from his account books. Instead there were numerous small sums for “charity,” always given upon his arrival at Monticello after an absence, and several curious references to leaving “small money in my drawer at Monticello,” one of which amounted to the sizeable sum of twenty dollars.86
One can hardly wait for Oliver Stone to write the next screenplay, premised on the theory that any ambiguous expenses in Jefferson’s records were obviously secret payments to Sally Hemings. (Callender, on the other hand, might have used this “evidence” as proof that Sally really was a “prostitute.”)
Among the many problems with this approach—for anyone who is at all concerned about ascertaining the truth—is that “casual notations of expenditures for Sally’s clothes” did not “disappear” after Jefferson returned from Paris. For example, in 1796 he recorded in his Farm Book that Sally was issued seven yards of linen, seven and three-quarters yards of woolen, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes.87 However, essentially identical entries appear for all of the Hemingses at Monticello for that year.88 Another problem with Brodie’s creative speculation is that the ambiguous notations for “charities” and leaving sums of money in drawers appeared in Jefferson’s records years before he could have become involved with Sally Hemings.89
Fawn Brodie notes that Jefferson recorded having once paid Madison and Eston for “100 cabbages”90—one of numerous such minor and insignificant transactions Jefferson had with slaves at Monticello that have already been mentioned in this chapter. But far more creative was Professor Gordon-Reed’s explanation of the absence of any recorded sales between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson:
One could argue that it is useless to speculate about why Sally Hemings never sold anything to Jefferson and the Randolphs. However, it is important to consider this. …We may sell to our children to teach them the value of money or to parents, siblings, and friends to maintain the integrity of those relationships. We do not usually sell to our spouses or to those who are the equivalent of spouses, because that is like selling to oneself.91
Freud reminds us that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” In that spirit, is it just possible that Sally was never recorded as having sold cabbages to the Jeffersons because she did not grow any extra cabbages?
Despite the impressive creativity of scholars like Fawn Brodie and Annette Gordon-Reed, the reality is that neither Sally Hemings nor any of her children received any “special privileges” beyond those normally accorded to other descendants of Betty Hemings. Indeed, among the Hemings family, Sally and her children appear to have ranked no higher than “average.” In terms of their importance at Monticello and their treatment by the President, they were far below such relatives as James and Robert92 Hemings or Burwell Colbert.93
Madison Hemings is alleged to have made this very point in the Pike County Republican article discussed in Chapter Four. He said of his alleged “father” Thomas Jefferson: “He was not in the habit of showing partiality or fatherly affection to us children. We were the only children of his by a slave woman. He was affectionate toward his white grandchildren, of whom he had fourteen. … ”94 Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Gordon Wood adds that Jefferson treated Sally’s children “with remarkable coldness and detachment.”95
One might respond that his behavior towards Sally’s children was “remarkable” only if one assumes that they were, in fact, also his children. If they were not, one would not expect him to treat them differently than he did the children of his other house servants. Returning to the quotation from Professor Gordon-Reed at the start of this chapter—that the “strongest evidence for a relationship between [Thomas] Jefferson and [Sally] Hemings is what happened to Hemings’ children”96—one might reasonably conclude, in contrast, that Jefferson’s treatment of Sally’s children is but further evidence for the absence of the alleged sexual relationship.
The reality is captured well by Lucia Stanton, who began her career at Monticello as secretary to Resident Director James Bear and, under his apprenticeship, became one of the most knowledgeable authorities on Thomas Jefferson in the world. In her 2000 monograph, Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello, she writes: “Madison Hemings maintained that Jefferson ‘induced’ [Sally] to return with promises of ‘extraordinary privileges’ and freedom for her children when they reached the age of twenty-one. These ‘extraordinary privileges’ are not visible in the lists of Jefferson’s Farm Book, almost the only source of her subsequent life at Monticello.”97
* * *
Footnotes
1. ANNETTE GORDON-REED, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 218 (1997).
2. Id. at 50.
3. Id. at 201.
4. David Brion Davis, Preface in LUCIA STANTON, FREE SOME DAY: THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN FAMILIES OF MONTICELLO 12 (2000).
5. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committee, Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, January 2000 [hereinafter referred to as Monticello Report] Appendix F at 2. At another point in their report, the Monticello Committee asserted: “One distinction accorded to Sally Hemings and to no other enslaved Monticello family was the freedom granted all of her children after the age of twenty-one.” Id., Appendix H at 5 (emphasis added). This is cute, and closer to being accurate (but Eston was only nineteen when freed). But Beverly Hemings did not leave Monticello until he was at least 23 and most likely 24 years old. See Chapter Four. Monticello’s Shannon Senior Research Historian, Lucia Stanton, writes in a recent monograph that Beverly and Harriet Hemings left Monticello “soon after their twenty-first birthdays, possibly together.” LUCIA STANTON, FREE SOME DAY 116 (2000). If we are to rely on Jefferson’s records, this is clearly false with respect to Beverly.
6. See Chapter Four.
7. Id.
8. See, e.g., THE GARDEN AND FARM BOOKS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 386 (Robert C. Barron, ed. 1987).
9. Id.
10. Monticello Report, Appendix H at 8–9. In describing Beverly’s departure, the Monticello Research Committee alleges: “He was not legally manumitted, but left Monticello in 1822, evidently with Jefferson’s permission, and henceforth lived as a white man.” Id. at 9.
11. GORDON-REED, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 218. But even here Professor Gordon-Reed gets her facts wro
ng, asserting that Beverly left “two years after his twenty-first birthday. … ” Id. Since we do not know on what date in 1822 Beverly actually “ran away,” we cannot tell whether Gordon-Reed’s error is a matter of as few as nine or as many as twenty months.
12. Lucia Stanton, “Response to Bob Turner’s Questions of 14 November 2000,” question 3.
13. Id., question 14.
14. Letter from Edmund Bacon to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1820 (“do you no [sic—know] that Beverly has been absent from the carpenters for about a week.”), University of Virginia Library.
15. JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO 124 n.10.
16. Id., Genealogical Chart B, after p. 24
17. THE GARDEN AND FARM BOOKS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 386.
18. JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO 102.
19. Id. 40.
20. Obviously, Jefferson might have manumitted all of Sally’s children. The added “cost” to Sally of such an “informal” compliance with the terms of the alleged “treaty” was that she would probably never see her child again—presumably a rather material difference.
21. Lucia Stanton, The Other End of the Telescope: Jefferson through the Eyes of His Slaves, 57 WILLIAM & MARY QUARTERLY 141 (Jan. 2000).
22. Monticello Report, Appendix H at 5.
23. See Chapter Four.
24. I am not here questioning that Thomas Woodson might have been Sally’s child. But if he was, he clearly was not Thomas Jefferson’s child; so Sally Hemings was clearly not producing children with Thomas Jefferson while in Paris.
25. See, e.g., Stanton, The Other End of the Telescope 142.
26. Madison Hemings’ 1873 allegations obviously are of little probative value in ascertaining the significance of the fact that two of Sally’s children may have gained their freedom during their twenty-second year (between their twenty-first and twenty-second birthdays). Had Madison alleged the existence of a treaty providing for the freeing of Sally’s children at twenty-one before he knew when the children were freed, it would have been far more significant.
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 27