The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

by Gordon-Reed, Annette

  Nothing in Jefferson’s circumstances in France encouraged him to be forthcoming about having an enslaved person in his household, and much militated against it. Unlike Bentalou, Jefferson came to Paris with a self-image as the revolutionary author of the Declaration of Independence and valued his connection to some of the philosophes of French society who shared his views on the natural liberty of all mankind and took seriously his denunciations of slavery. Registering James and Sally Hemings with French authorities, and perhaps attempting to argue for some dispensation to keep them there during his tenure, would have put his status as a slave owner front and center for no good reason. A confrontation with an admiralty court had only disadvantages.

  Even in the extremely unlikely event that a French court would have been inclined to favor the American minister to France (and there is no reason to think that a body that had challenged French kings on this very point would have buckled before Mr. Jefferson of Albemarle County), to be seen arguing for keeping his slaves would surely have damaged Jefferson’s image. The same can be said for his helping Paul Bentalou. Jefferson had nothing to gain, and a good deal to lose, if he approached the French ministry on Bentalou’s behalf. His French admirers and friends knew he had slaves back in Virginia. But their invisibility made it easy to avoid confronting his direct and continuing involvement in slavery, despite his eloquent and trenchant pronouncements against the institution. James Hemings, appearing before a court as a breathing person whom Jefferson wanted to keep away from the benefits of freedom, was not an abstract concept.

  Hiding, or failing to mention, Hemings’s status would not have taken up too much psychic energy on either man’s part. In many ways Jefferson’s course of dealing with Hemings in Virginia fit more perfectly their new environment in France. Here Jefferson’s use of the term “servant” could appear as more than just an avoidance technique. Like all people of color in pre-Revolutionary France, Hemings was supposed to carry cartouches, identity papers.47 Given the low level of compliance with other rules governing blacks in the city, and Jefferson’s failure to register him in the first place, he may have gotten away with not carrying papers. Even though French society remained highly stratified along class lines—William Short, who was soon to join Jefferson in Paris, wrote to him in near-despair that he had been warned that, no matter how personally close he was to Jefferson, he would still be considered by the French as one of Jefferson’s “higher order domestics”48—the racial atmosphere was not as highly charged as it was in Virginia.

  Hemings’s background and experiences left him perfectly suited to use the different circumstances in Paris to make the most of his time abroad. His appearance alone would have affected the way people perceived him in this new land. It is quite possible that some people would not have been aware of his African origins, because France’s Mediterranean connections brought a wide range of phenotypical characteristics to Parisians. Moreover, determinations of race are very much contextual. A person who might be instantly recognized as “black” in one setting could be considered something else in another. When he went around by himself, and was not attached to the very American Jefferson, or identified as his servant, there would be no reason to wonder about his racial origins or status. In the United States, African Americans who “passed” for white have often claimed to be, among other things, part or all Native American, Jewish, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese. In the years to come, some members of Hemings’s own family would take this route out of blackness as they sought to find a safe haven for themselves in America.

  Unlike residents of France, eighteenth-century white Virginians were used to looking at and living among large numbers of black people of differing shades, hair textures, and facial features. In court cases, judges and overseers, who were sometimes brought in to serve as expert witnesses as to racial identity, inspected the facial features of African Americans in legal proceedings involving questions of race. Having more reasons to pay attention to who was “white” and who was “black,” white Virginians who encountered Hemings were probably much more adept at spotting his African origin than the French, who encountered such people only rarely, if at all. Once he got past Le Havre, where customs officials may have seen every person of color who came into the country through that port, and were likely more savvy about these matters than their countrymen, the perception of Hemings’s identity could well have been quite fluid. He was not so black that the French would have considered him an African and, in their view, at the very bottom of the racial hierarchy. As in his native Virginia, in French society there was a preference for mixed-race people over those who were “purely” black, whose non-European features—broad noses, tightly curled hair, and full lips—were openly disparaged. This was the era of much speculation about and assertions of racial differences that were supposedly based upon or proven by science.49

  Of course, many Europeans came to this belief in African inferiority well before proponents of these ideas put pen to paper, and whites who had never read these materials believed the same things fervently. This form of racialized thinking became more pronounced in societies whose economies were becoming ever more dependent upon the enslavement of Africans. Eighteenth-century France found itself in the grips of a contradiction: the country “becoming thoroughly entangled in the Atlantic slave system” that had become an essential part of its economy at the same time as it was “developing a radical new political discourse based on notions of freedom, equality, and citizenship.”50 Racism helped resolve the tension between these seemingly incompatible considerations by positing that Africans, because of their racial inferiority, were a species of people who were exceptions to the rule about the natural right to liberty of all mankind. They could be slaves.

  Much as the ideology of white supremacy progressed in France during the eighteenth century, and burned even more brightly during the Napoleonic era, it was nothing like Hemings’s Virginia, probably because there were not enough blacks in the country to stoke a thoroughgoing racial animus. It appears that a well-placed band of racial zealots and anxious colonials were responsible for the antiblack legislation during that century, while most French subjects, though not necessarily welcoming of blacks, did not feel as strongly threatened. A ban on interracial marriages enacted in 1778 was seldom enforced. When the local authorities of one village attempted to deport a black man who had married a white woman, the couple’s community rose up and so strenuously opposed the move that the authorities backed down.51 The small number of blacks seemed to be able to make decent lives for themselves in largely white communities.

  Class distinctions in France were almost as powerful as race distinctions. A number of French men and women did not accept the idea that all black people were in the same category. They held blacks who were servants in low regard in much the same way that they looked down on white servants.52 African kings sent their sons to France, where they were received by French nobility.53 Had these same people shown up in Virginia, they might well have been captured and taken to the fields. Some French people considered the often quite prosperous, usually mixed-race blacks in the colonies who were related by blood to prominent white families to be above ordinary servants. They deserved something better—not to be treated exactly as whites, but better than their “all” black brethren. Their idea grew, in part, out of self-interest. If whites did nothing to “shock” the “self-respect”54 of upper-class blacks, French colonial society, with its large number of black people, could create a class midway between whites and black slaves to serve as an important buffer between the two races. This “buffer” would ultimately safeguard the interests of white people. As long as white supremacy reigned, whiter would always be better, and members of this midway class, understanding that, would have a great incentive to distance themselves from their less favored and ill-treated black cousins. Under those circumstances there would be little chance that “nonwhite” people, of whatever degree would band together to destroy privileges based upon whitenes
s.

  The mixed-race children of a number of French white colonial fathers were sent to France to be educated, and in later years, when the sons of Toussaint Louverture came to Paris, they visited and dined with Empress Josephine.55 James Hemings undoubtedly saw such people as he went about the city. Virginia could never have produced a figure like Joseph de Boulogne, the so-called Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Boulogne was the son of George de Boulogne de Saint-Georges, whose very wealthy family had been on Guadeloupe since the mid-1600s. The elder Boulogne, a married man, fell in love with a seventeen-year-old enslaved girl on his plantation named Anne, but nicknamed Nanon, Senegalese by birth. Nanon was described by one who knew her in Paris as “the most beautiful gift that Africa ever offered” and by others as “the most beautiful woman on the island of Guadeloupe.”56

  George had Joseph educated in France and later lived in Paris with Anne in Saint-Germain—along with his wife! The younger Boulogne became a notable fencer, violinist, and composer, who influenced Mozart. He served as an officer of the guard in the king’s army and was a celebrated figure in France. His well-received and much publicized series of concerts in 1787 in Paris brought out the wealthy and aristocratic in Parisian society, including Marie-Antoinette. Perhaps Boulogne’s greatest fans were the wives of various French nobles who found his dark good looks irresistible and became his lovers.57

  Then there is also the family story of Alexandre Dumas, the famous French novelist and author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas’s father, Thomas-Alexandre, was also the son of a French colonial, Alexandre-Antoine Davy, the marquis de la Pailleterie, and an enslaved woman named Marie-Cessette Dumas. After her death the marquis moved to Paris and, by one account, in deep depression allowed all his property, including his children, to be sold. He soon regretted his action and then repurchased Thomas-Alexandre and brought him to Paris for his schooling. As a result of his father’s change of heart, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, who was just three years older than James Hemings, was able to have a rich and very colorful life himself and to produce a son who became one of the foremost novelists in France during the nineteenth century, achieving a worldwide renown that lives to this day.58

  It would be wrong to minimize the racism of the French during the time Hemings lived among them. Celebrated though he was in French society, Joseph de Boulogne could never have had a true place in it other than as a celebrated phenomenon—a spectacle. He could attend the dinner parties and dances of the upper class. He could carry on discreet affairs with the French society women who flocked to hear his concerts and watch his fencing exhibitions. But he could never have married into that society, settled down, and become a real part of it. Certainly, the French colonies were extremely cruel and hard places for black slaves in ways that would have been quite familiar to Hemings. The most critical difference for him specifically was that some French slaves who had blood ties to wealthy white families had opportunities that they would never have had under Anglo-American slavery. These men and women and their descendants constituted a significant portion of the free people of color in French society. Boulogne could go only so far, but his range was far more extensive than that of any of the Hemings males. James Hemings did achieve much in his life, but had he been the mixed-race son of a prominent Frenchman, he would have stood a better chance of being trained to become a gentleman planter himself, or having a son who might become a prominent author. Committed to white supremacy as many French men and women definitely were, one does not get the impression that they were as determined as white Virginians to strike at every single particle of black people’s humanity. Despite some very real and substantial obstacles, James Hemings’s soul had a much greater chance to flourish in Paris than in his native country.

  9

  “ISABEL OR SALLY WILL COME”

  IF JAMES HEMINGS came to France by deliberate design, his sister Sally made it to the country only after the collapse of a series of best-laid plans. The first and most serious plan to go awry was Jefferson’s idea of leaving his two youngest daughters, Polly and Lucy, with their aunt in Virginia. It had been a reasonable thought. The girls were very young, and it was natural for a man of his time to think they needed to have something closer to a mother’s touch. Lucy’s death awakened an implacable desire in Jefferson to have his other surviving daughter with him. He wrote to his brother-in-law, Francis Eppes, in August of 1785, stating his firm conviction that Polly should be sent to him.

  With respect to the person to whose care she should be trusted, I must leave it to yourself and Mrs. Eppes altogether. Some good lady passing from America to France, or even England would be most eligible. But a careful gentleman who would be so kind as to superintend her would do. In this case some woman who has had the small pox must attend her. A careful negro woman, as Isabel for instance if she has had the small pox, would suffice under the patronage of a gentleman. The woman need not come further than Havre, l’Orient, Nantes or whatever other port she should land at, because I would go there for the child myself, and the person could return to Virginia directly.1

  That plan did not work out the way Jefferson intended. Over the course of the next twenty-four months, the Eppeses and Jefferson traded letters, with one of Jefferson’s sisters contributing to the round robin about when and how Polly would get to France.2 From the Eppeses’ side, and that of Polly, who was not happy about the prospect of leaving her aunt and uncle, there was always a reason Polly could not start out. Bad weather and missed letters complicated matters. There was an initial problem with Isabel, whose married name was Hern. She had not had smallpox and had to be inoculated, which was another occasion for delay. More months passed, and Hern got pregnant and had her baby around the same time that the Eppeses realized that they could delay no longer.3 Finally, on June 26, 1787, Jefferson saw the words he had been waiting for in a letter that had been sent the preceding April. Francis Eppes wrote, “Polly will certainly sale on 1st of May in a Ship call’d the Robert commanded by Capt. Ramsay bound for London…. The Ship in every respect answers to your discription. Isabel or Sally will come with her either of who me will answer under the direction of Mr. Am[onit].”4

  Jefferson knew who “Sally” was and probably had a good idea about how old she was—how young, might be more apt under the circumstances. Eppes’s missive made clear that Jefferson’s first idea of having his daughter travel under the protection of a woman on her way to Europe had not materialized. He adopted Jefferson’s second suggestion, having Polly travel under the supervision of a gentleman with a female to attend her. But the female was not exactly what Jefferson had specified. Isabel Hern was twenty-seven years old when he suggested her as a traveling companion for his daughter, twenty-nine when he heard the final word that either she “or Sally” would be making the trip.5

  Sally Hemings, at around fourteen years old, was almost half Hern’s age and not the kind of “careful negro woman” Jefferson had envisioned as Polly’s travel companion.6 Indeed, he knew that Hemings was already with his daughter, yet he did not suggest to the Eppeses that she be sent along with Polly. There is no indication of what he thought about the prospect of the young girl’s undertaking such a mission. The letter announcing Polly’s travel date, and a later one describing the day of her departure, reached him long after the girls had set sail. If Jefferson had any concerns, he had little time to fret, for within a few days of hearing that his daughter was on the way, he received word from Abigail Adams that she had arrived in London safely.7

  Unlike her older brothers, Sally Hemings probably had no extensive traveling experience. While James Hemings had seen Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, along with a smattering of smaller towns, his little sister had spent, as far as the records reveal, the entirety of her life in Virginia, going back and forth between Jefferson’s plantations and the Eppes family home at Eppington. She was too young to have had any memories of her father’s seat at the Forest; nor would she remember her times at Guinea and Elk Hill,
her mother’s homes for brief periods while John Wayles’s estate was being settled. Monticello, where she had arrived as a two-year-old, was the site of Hemings’s first memories, the place where her principal identity was formed—an insular community atop a mountain.8

  The trip to England and then to France was a life-defining event for Hemings, one that she seems never to have gotten over. Edmund Bacon, Jefferson’s overseer at Monticello from 1806 until the early 1820s, remembered Hemings as “often” talking about her “trip across the ocean” with Jefferson’s daughter—her stories coming long after 1787.9 The voyage was a salient part of Hemings’s identity that she could take out and share with others at whatever she thought was the right moment, keeping the experience alive within herself and forcing others to discover and acknowledge something she thought was very important for them to know about her.

  This memory of an adventure repeatedly, and perhaps tiresomely, described to others is especially poignant when one remembers that the person holding on so fast to it was an enslaved woman. Had she been born a free white woman of the status of her sister Martha Wayles Jefferson or her niece Polly Jefferson, her expectations would have been very different. Under those circumstances, Hemings, described as beautiful, could have looked forward to life as a young woman whose appearance alone would have made her much sought after as a wife. Married life would have brought her the recognition, respect, and support of her surrounding community. None of these were available to Hemings, and she, like other enslaved people, had to build a structure to contain the meaning of her life out of whatever raw material was available. Her trip to France was a reminder of her journey to a place where she learned that another type of life was possible, even if that possibility was never realized.