The Absence of Letters and References to Sally
and the Great Coverup
There are remarkably few references to Sally or her children in Jefferson’s Farm Book and Memorandum Books as compared with the more important members of her family at Monticello (see Figure 7 on page 141). But rather than drawing the logical conclusions from this evidence—or, in an important sense, from this lack of evidence—Professor Brodie converts it into evidence of the affair. She attributes it to the “necessity for secrecy concerning Jefferson’s liaison with Sally Hemings. … ”89 Later, she added that the “extent to which Jefferson kept Sally Hemings and her children relatively anonymous in his Farm Book would seem to be symbolic of his entire relationship with her.”90 Perhaps. On the other hand, it may instead simply reflect the reality that there was no “relationship” beyond what was typical between Jefferson and any other slave who may have been less rather than more important in the scheme of things at Monticello.
Scholars like Professor Brodie and Gordon-Reed seem particularly frustrated at the lack of references to Sally Hemings in the tens of thousands of letters and other documents Thomas Jefferson left behind. Surely, if she were his true love, he must have written her often; or if she was illiterate he must have written to Martha or Maria and inquired about Sally’s welfare or asked to be remembered to her. But the evidence is not there. Thus, there must be a cover up. Professor Gordon-Reed explains:
If one considers Jefferson and his family’s pattern of writing letters and the relationship that Sally Hemings bore to the Jeffersons, particularly in France, there is something strange about the scarcity of references to her in their correspondence. It is not as though the Jeffersons did not mention their slaves in letters. Such references, while not a matter of course, were not infrequent. Jefferson wrote to those of his slaves who could read, and when the slaves could not read, he wrote to them through individuals who could. …One might expect that once during the twenty-six months that Sally Hemings was in France, he would have let Elizabeth know about her youngest daughter.
The dispute about the meaning of the few references to Sally Hemings in Jefferson’s correspondence boils down to what one thinks is most important. Do actions and circumstances speak louder than words or the lack of words? The known circumstances of Hemings’s life and the Jeffersons’ actions toward her and her family are such that one would assume that, absent some reason not to, she would have been mentioned more frequently. …
Thomas Jefferson’s only direct reference to Sally Hemings was in a letter that he wrote in 1799 to his son-in-law John Wayles Eppes in which he mentioned that she had given birth. He wrote two other letters that mentioned her indirectly. …
The question whether Thomas Jefferson, while in Europe, went seven weeks without writing a letter to his daughters remains. The notion that some of Jefferson’s records from this period or from later periods were deliberately “lost” to hide possible references to Sally Hemings is speculation that incites curiosity but sheds little light on the matter. One could understand why it might have been done, but there is no way to know that it was done.91
Might there be simpler explanations why there are no known letters written by Thomas Jefferson for a brief period of time? Consider this account from William Howard Adams’ The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson:
Jefferson discovered the “remains of Roman grandeur” at first hand the following winter, on his second and most extensive trip in Europe. The wrist he had fractured the previous fall had not healed properly, so on February 28, 1787, following his doctor’s advice, he left Paris for the south of France. One object of the trip, he explained to James Monroe, was “to try the mineral waters there for the restoration of my hand”. …92
Professor Brodie adds the following relevant information:
At age seventy-eight Jefferson fell from a broken step leading down from a terrace at Monticello and broke his left wrist and arm. As the bones healed this wrist swelled and stiffened, as had his right wrist thirty-four years before. “Crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious,” he wrote to Adams on October 12, 1823.93
Thomas Jefferson, it may be useful to emphasize, wrote with his right hand.
Using the Absence of Information as Evidence
The allegation that the absence of any letters from Thomas Jefferson to Sally Hemings is evidence of a cover up is but one of many examples of the bizarre efforts by advocates of Jefferson’s paternity of Sally’s children to use the total absence of information as “proof” of their claim.
To be sure (as Chapter Eleven will demonstrate), the absence of evidence may sometimes be quite probative of material facts. There are settings where circumstances are so likely to produce observable consequences that the absence of any record of those consequences constitutes credible evidence that the precursor activity may not have occurred. If a suspect accused of firing a high-powered rifle out of a window can show that several people in nearby rooms heard no noise, that might be highly significant. It might also be significant that a paraffin test of his hands and face produced no gunpowder residue.
If we seek to ascertain whether Thomas Jefferson injured his writing hand, the absence of any letters written by him during the weeks following the alleged injury may have probative value—at least in the absence of alternative explanations. But in the present case we have example after example where scholars simply “fill in the blanks” to convert innocent information—or lack of information—into incriminating evidence.
An example of this was mentioned in Chapter Two, which noted Professor Brodie’s argument that Jefferson once recorded an expenditure of forty francs in 1788 for a “locket” and speculated that perhaps it was a gift for Sally.94 Then there are the extensive French lessons for Sally’s brother James, so that he could communicate with French chefs while learning that trade. There is not the slightest bit of evidence that Sally took French lessons, but Professor Brodie writes: “one could expect that Sally would likely have been included.”95 As was discussed in Chapter Two, while there is almost no record of Sally’s activities in Paris, the better view is probably that she did not even live in the same building with James or Thomas Jefferson during most of her stay. She was, after all, the servant to Jefferson’s daughters, so one might assume that she would have lived near them at the Abbaye de Panthemont convent. While the Monticello Report and other advocates of Jefferson’s paternity of Sally Hemings’ children find it convenient to assume that Sally must have lived with Jefferson at the Hôtel de Langeac, Monticello’s Senior Research Historian, Lucia Stanton, acknowledges that “[I]t was not uncommon for the servants of boarding students to continue to attend their mistresses in the Abbaye,” and that “some of the Jefferson sisters’ schoolmates knew Sally well enough to send her greetings in their correspondence.”96 Admittedly, there are other possibilities and we know almost nothing about Sally Hemings’ life in Paris. But logic would suggest that Martha and Maria would be accompanied by their maid, and there is not the slightest evidence Sally remained with Jefferson. The assumption seems founded entirely upon the presumption that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had to be together in Paris, away from the daughters, or otherwise how did Sally become pregnant with his son “Tom”? Now that the DNA tests have demolished the “Tom” story,97 it may be time to apply some more rational assumptions to Sally’s experience in Paris.
Unlike many of her more important relatives at Monticello, there is no record that Sally received money from Jefferson after returning from France. Convinced that she was the love of his life, Professor Brodie reasoned there must be an explanation. After diligent research, she discovered that Jefferson made many entries in his Memorandum Books under the heading “charity,” and he wrote of leaving “small money in my drawer at Monticello. … ”98 Ignoring the fact that similar notations for “charity” were made by Jefferson long before Sally traveled to Paris,99 Professor Brodie suggests that these must have been cryptic notations of the money he
was actually giving to Sally. Similarly, when the Memorandum Books record Christmas gifts being sent for favorite Monticello slaves, but provide no record of gifts for Sally, Professor Brodie explains that the “special gifts” for Sally may have been concealed from his daughter Martha.100 The idea that the absence of special attention to Sally Hemings might instead simply reflect her relative unimportance at Monticello seems to have eluded the good professor.
Does the Fact that Sally Hemings Apparently
Did Not Bear Children by Other Slaves
Imply Thomas Jefferson’s Misconduct?
It has been suggested during the Scholars Commission deliberations that the fact that, given the reported light skin color of her children, Sally Hemings does not appear to have been sexually involved with black slaves—who might have been expected to take such a handsome woman by force in a plantation setting—is proof that Thomas Jefferson was either reserving her favors for himself or for some other designated individual. Whether he was sexually exploiting her himself, or reserving her for his brother, one of his Carr nephews, or perhaps different men at different times in her life—he nevertheless would be morally culpable for her exploitation.
We have so little reliable factual information about Sally Hemings’ life that it is difficult to respond effectively to such an argument. There is considerable evidence that Thomas Jefferson was concerned with the treatment of his slaves, and prohibited rape and other acts of violence within the slave community. But it certainly does not follow that measures Jefferson may have established that had the effect of protecting Sally Hemings from being raped by other slaves are evidence of base motives on the part of the President. Indeed, from what we think we know about Jefferson’s character, such a policy would be expected even if not widely enforced on other plantations.
We do know that if Sally Hemings was not sexually involved with other Monticello slaves, such conduct would have been consistent with the apparent behavior of her siblings. As Lucia Stanton has observed: “None of Betty Hemings’s twelve children …married within the Monticello African-American community.”101 There are reports of resentment of the Hemingses by darker-skinned slaves, but it seems clear that it was understood throughout the plantation that the Hemings family was “special.” If Sally was not abused by male slaves, that can be explained by something other than the assumption that Thomas Jefferson was “reserving” her for himself or a particular relative.
Related to this is the question (also raised during our deliberations) of whether other men could have had sexual access to Sally Hemings without the knowledge and blessing of Thomas Jefferson. Again, in the absence of evidence after nearly two centuries we can not be sure what he knew. But it is certainly easy to conceive how such a relationship might have gone on without his specific knowledge. Monticello was usually crowded with visitors, and Jefferson’s practice of enchanting his guests with after-dinner conversation is well established. His far less cerebral brother, Randolph, is said to have preferred spending his evenings at Monticello playing his fiddle and dancing among the slaves. There is no reason to assume that, while Thomas Jefferson was occupied entertaining visitors, others—be they Randolph, one of his sons, or perhaps one of Jefferson’s other nephews from the Carr family—could not have been exploiting the women in the slave quarters. This could have had aspects of mutual affection, violent rape, or simply acquiescence to the inevitable by a slave woman who felt powerless to resist—we just do not know. It may have occurred behind Thomas Jefferson’s back or with his general knowledge. Given his well-established opposition to miscegenation102 and the sexual exploitation of slave women,103 not to mention his professed belief that slave holders had a moral duty to treat their slaves with dignity,104 it is difficult to assume that it occurred at Monticello with his blessing. But we will likely never be certain.
French Law Governing Slaves
We also have the issue of the esoteric provision of French law that might have been used by Sally and James to claim freedom—a provision that not even Thomas Jefferson knew about until he researched the matter at the request of an American contemplating visiting France with a slave.105 The only evidence that Sally or James was aware of this provision is the assertion by Madison Hemings in 1783, and he obviously had no first-hand knowledge of the matter and provides no source for his claim. And yet Professor Brodie writes that “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.”106 This is fantasy, not history.
This is not to say that it is not possible that Sally and James knew of the relevant French law even when Thomas Jefferson did not. They certainly had contact with other servants, and perhaps some of them were cognizant of cases where slaves had achieved their freedom. Like almost everything else about Sally Hemings’ life in Paris, we will likely never know the truth.
However, we do know a few things. The right of slaves to obtain freedom in France was not actually codified in French law until after the French Revolution, but there was a customary practice that did result in the freeing of some slaves who were brought to France. However, this was not an automatic process. James and Sally would have had to hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit. That would have cost money, quite possibly more money than either of them possessed.
Anyone who assumes that Sally and/or James could easily have obtained their freedom by walking into a French court must deal with both the problem of Jefferson’s diplomatic immunity as America’s chief diplomat in France and his obvious influence with the French government. One of the earliest principles of international law was that foreign diplomats are not subject to the jurisdiction of domestic courts in the country to which they are accredited,107 and an eighteenth century French court might well have hesitated to even entertain a legal case against an important foreign diplomat. It is all the more unlikely that such a judge would have been enthusiastic about interfering with the American minister’s household given Jefferson’s favored position with the king.
International human rights law is largely a product of the post-UN Charter era, and the general rule in the late eighteenth-century was that how a state treated its own nationals was a matter of internal concern. It was not only improper, but a wrongful act for one state to interfere in the internal affairs of another by complaining about such treatment.
The most important issue is probably not what might have happened had James or Sally actually managed to hire a lawyer and brought suit to gain their freedom, but how confident they would have been that such an effort would be certain to succeed. Their master was a very powerful man, obviously far more influential than either of his slaves within the French government, and it is difficult to imagine that a teenaged Sally Hemings—particularly the frightened, immature child described by Abigail Adams—would elect to challenge Thomas Jefferson’s authority even if she had heard rumors that some other slaves had been awarded their freedom by French courts.
Even if Sally Hemings had the sophistication and courage to bring a lawsuit against her master that would leave her free (and alone) in Paris, might she not have been deterred by the realization that her mother and other family members would be totally subject to the whim of the angry Jefferson after he returned home without her? And then there is the question of whether Thomas Jefferson would have continued a sexual relationship with a slave who had once blackmailed him. All things considered, like so much of the rest of the arguments considered in this chapter, the assertion that Sally Hemings compelled Thomas Jefferson to enter into a “treaty” while in Paris is highly unpersuasive.
* * *
Footnotes
1. FAWN BRODIE, THOMAS JEFFERSON 229 (1974).
2. Id.
3. Garry Wills, Uncle Thomas’s Cabin, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, Apr. 18, 1974 at 27.
4. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committee, Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, January 2000 [hereinafter referred to as Monticello Report] at 7.
5. Id. (Emphasis added.)
6. ELLIS, AMERICAN SPHINX 180.
7. THE RECORDER (Richmond), Sept. 29, 1822.
8. Monticello Report, Appendix E at 4. See also, JOSEPH ELLIS, AMERICAN SPHINX 180 (1997).
9. JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO 84, 102, 117 (James A. Bear, Jr., ed., 1967).
10. Monticello Report, Appendix F at 4.
11. Id.
12. FAWN M. BRODIE, THOMAS JEFFERSON 361 (1974).
13. ELLIS, AMERICAN SPHINX 366 (1997). The Monticello Report notes that historian Page Smith interprets Adams’ statement as reflecting a belief that the allegations were true. (Monticello Report, Appendix F at 4.) This is because Adams added that “Callender and Sally will be remembered as long as Jefferson, as blots in his character. The story of the latter is a natural and almost unavoidable consequence of that foul Contagion in the human Character, Negro Slavery.” But these comments pertain not to the truth of the accusations, but rather to Adams’ expectation that the Callender charges would be believed by some because it was well known that some slave owners did sexually exploit their female slaves.
14. ELLIS, AMERICAN SPHINX 261.
15. Id. at 366.
16. Monticello Report, Appendix F at 4.
17. Id. at 5.
18. ANNETTE GORDON-REED, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 215 (1997).
19. 2 JEFFERSON’S MEMORANDUM BOOKS 1271 (James A. Bear, Jr. & Lucia C. Stanton, eds. 1997).
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 35