Jefferson's Daughters
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“We have considerable apprehensions” Ibid.
“He has now struggled” MJE to TJ, 6 November 1801, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 211.
“My God what a moment” MJR to TJ, 18 November 1801, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 213.
“in a very precarious” Ibid.
“Maria was entirely” TJ to MJR, 17 January 1802, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 216, reporting on the letter of 6 January 1802 that he had received from JWE.
“The perils he has passed” JWE to TJ, 11 March 1802, PTJDE.
outbreak of measles MJE to TJ, 21 June 1802, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 230.
“We are entirely free” MJR to TJ, 10 July 1802, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 233.
“There are no young children” TJ to MJE, 2 July 1802, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 232.
“Mr. Eppes thinks” MJE to TJ, 17 July [1802], Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 235.
“how large a portion” JWE to TJ, 14 July 1802, PTJDE.
“cease to be novelties” Quoted in Malone, “Polly Jefferson and Her Father,” 91.
“with his hands extended” MJE to JWE, 25 November 1802, FLDA.
“very near losing” JWE to TJ, 10 February 1803, PTJDE.
“It is in the best health” MJR to TJ, 14 January 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 252.
longing for the “baby” MJE to TJ, 1 April 1784, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 25.
“now venturing across” MJE to JWE, 25 November 1802, FLDA.
“resolved to answer” TJ to Catherine Church, 27 March 1801, PTJDE.
Jefferson hoped that Maria TJ to MJE, 27 November 1803, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 249.
“this tedious interval” MJE to TJ, 10 February 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 256.
“temper, naturally mild” EWRC to Henry S. Randall, 15 January 1856, in Randall, Jefferson, 3:102.
Martha thought the long winter’s MJR to TJ, 14 January 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 252.
“I confess I think” MJE to JWE, 21 January 1804, FLDA.
Jefferson wrote confidently TJ to MJE, 29 January 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 255.
“would revive me” MJE to JWE, 6 February 1804, Maria Eppes, Letter, Acc. 38-757, ViU.
Jefferson wrote his congratulations TJ to MJE, 26 February 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 258.
“to get down and brake” JWE to TJ, 9 March 1804. Copy at ICJS.
Martha too had been EWRC to Henry S. Randall, 15 January 1856, in Randall, Jefferson, 3:101.
“be of good cheer” TJ to MJR, 8 March 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 259.
“it cannot be discerned” JWE to TJ, 12 March 1804, ViU. Copy at ICJS.
“the house, its contents” TJ to JWE, 15 March 1804, Thomas Jefferson Letter, Acc. 6860, ViU.
“A rising of her breast” JWE to TJ, 19 March 1804, ViU. Copy at ICJS.
“a mere walking shadow” JWE to TJ, 23 March 1804, ViU. Copy at ICJS. See also, EWRC to Henry S. Randall, 15 January 1856, in Randall, Jefferson, 3:101.
“Maria is not worse” JWE to TJ, 26 March 1804, ViU. Copy at ICJS.
“I found my daughter” TJ to James Madison, 9 April 1804 and 13 April 1804, quoted in Brodie, An Intimate History, 508.
“We have no longer” 16 April 1804, TMR to Caesar Rodney, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Copy at ICJS.
“died Apr. 17, 1804” Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 259n1.
“The day passed” EWRC to Henry S. Randall, 15 January 1856, in Randall, Jefferson, 3:101.
two or three weeks A rough calculation, given by TJ to JWE, 4 June 1804 and TJ to MJR, 14 May 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 259–60.
“It will be a great comfort” TJ to JWE, 4 June 1804, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Copy at ICJS.
“saying that people” EWRC to Henry S. Randall, 15 January 1856, in Randall, Jefferson, 3:102.
“Your grandmother” EWRC Letter Book, 13 February 1856 to Henry Randall, 51, Acc. 9090, ViU; Eppes “Maria Jefferson Eppes and her Little Son, Francis,” ICJS.
“When you and I look” TJ to John Page, 25 June 1804, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
CHAPTER 8: HARRIET’S MONTICELLO
enslaved children be trained Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Born in Bondage: Growing up Enslaved in the Antebellum South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).
“bitter jealousy” Thomas Jefferson Randolph (TJR) on TJ, n.d., Acc. 8937.
a caste apart Lucia Stanton, “Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello,” in Lucia Stanton, “Those Who Labor for My Happiness”: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012), 171.
stability of family life Gordon-Reed, Hemingses, 27–28.
“nearly as white” Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello, 107.
“by far the larger part” David Blight, ed., Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself, 2nd ed. (Bedford Books of Saint Martin’s, 2003), 39.
leaving money to pay 25 April 1801, TJMB, 2:1039.
Jefferson also entered FB, 128.
“work horses, mules” FB, 132.
“whom fortune has thrown” TJ to Edward Coles, 25 August 1814, PTJDE; Stanton, “Jefferson’s People,” in “Those Who Labor,” 56.
“Bread list” FB 43, 50, 134.
When eighty-three hogs were slaughtered FB, 48.
rationed out fish and beef FB 51, 56; Stanton, “Jefferson’s People,” in “Those Who Labor,” 61.
To the men FB 135. Jefferson refers to the nailers as “boys”; but in 1809 Edmund Bacon said the youngest was twenty-two. Edmund Bacon to TJ, 19 January 1809. I thank Lucia Stanton for this reference. This may reflect a change in practice from the mid-1790s, however, when, for example, fourteen-year-old Joe Fossett was working in the nailery and Jefferson himself wrote in his FB of using boys between ten and sixteen for that work.
“90 persons…44 weeks” FB 163.
no allowance was made Leni Sorensen, “Taking Care of Themselves: Food Production at Monticello,” in Repast 21 (Spring 2005): 5.
sell their produce 25 July 1808. Gerald W. Gawalt, “Jefferson’s Slaves: Crop Accounts at Monticello,” Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society 13 (1994): 29–30.
skills that Jefferson’s enslaved workers Sorensen, “Taking Care of Themselves,” 5.
“a best striped blanket” TJ’s Memoranda to Edmund Bacon [1805–1806], in Farm Book, 25.
“serves till the next” FB, 41.
The skeins of thread Ibid.
“which I always promise” TJ to Jeremiah Goodman, 6 January 1815, in Edwin M. Betts, ed., Jefferson’s Garden Book (Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1999), 540. See FB, 137, for TJ’s list of awards to slave women in 1809 and 1810.
“the principles of reason” TJ to John Adams, 28 February 1796, PTJDE.
In true Enlightenment fashion Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery”: Rational Plantation Management at Monticello,” in “Those Who Labor,” 71.
rotating schedule FB, 58, 97.
Jefferson laid out his plan FB, 46; Cary Carson and Carl R. Lounsbury, eds., The Chesapeake House: Architectural Investigation by Colonial Williamsburg (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 192–94.
Jefferson forbade his white FB, 76.
Four men and a girl FB, 67.
“laborer will grub” FB, 64.
“On the north terrace” Peter Fossett, “Once the Slave of Thomas Jefferson,” in Sunday World, Cincinnati, 30 January 1898.
“we alls at work” Quoted in Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” 85.
Jefferson reported TJ to James Lyle, 10 July 1795, Farm Book, 430.
In practice, it also proved Stanton, “Those Who Labor for My Happiness,” in “Those Who Labor,” 11; Henry Wiencek, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2012), 93.
daily goals for each See Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” 80, for a photograph of TJ’s nailery accounts, 1796.
yielded an exceptional output Jefferson, Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, 37; Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 128.
Jefferson measured everything Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” 80–81, 128.
The discipline of the work TJ to TMR, 23 January 1801, PTJDE. Writing that “under my government, I would chuse they [his nailery workers] should retain the stimulus of character,” TJ obviously believed that he instilled a desire in his workers to prove themselves to him by meeting his expectations. See also Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” passim.
“It will be useful” TJ to TMR, 29 March [1801], PTJDE.
“providence has made” TJ to Joel Yancey, 17 January 1819. In Farm Book, 43.
Jefferson built two coal sheds FB, 454.
hiring white men Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” 80.
“do anything it was” Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello, 109.
“He could make anything” Ibid.
His expertise ranged Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 192–93.
Jefferson paid him Gordon-Reed, Hemingses, 611.
strove to alleviate Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” 71–72.
“He animates them” Ibid., 79.
“a pound of meat” Jefferson, Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, 51–52.
providing financial incentives FB, 110, 113.
interceded to stave off Stanton, “Those Who Labor for My Happiness,” in “Those Who Labor,” 15.
nailery was inspired Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” 77–79.
“has a valuable art” TMR to TJ, 27 March 1792, PTJDE.
“My first wish” TJ to TMR, 19 April 1792, PTJDE.
“from all ill usage” TJ to Edward Coles, 25 August 1814, Farm Book, 39.
“life for the slaves” FB, 7; “kind to the point” Malone, Jefferson, 1:163.
when Jack Eppes employed him Stanton, “Those Who Labor for My Happiness,” in “Those Who Labor,” 15.
“have incurred it” TMR to TJ, 31 January 1801, PTJDE. This disturbing detail from Randolph’s reply, a postscript to his wife’s letter, was omitted from publication in Farm Book, 443. This was a major point made by Henry Wiencek in Master of the Mountain, 120–21.
Lilly did not need Ibid.; TJ to TMR, 23 January 1801, PTJDE.
“It will be necessary” On Cary’s age, see FB, 55; TJ to TMR, 8 June 1803, PTJDE, and Farm Book, 19.
“barbarity” James Oldham to TJ, 26 November 1804, quoted in Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 178.
“Certainly I could never” TJ to TMR, 5 June 1805, quoted in Wiencek, Master of the Mountain, 123.
“first wish” TJ to TMR, 19 April 1792, PTJDE.
“Certainly there is nothing” TJ to Jeremiah Goodman, 6 January 1815, PTJDE.
“Dinah & her family” TJ to Randolph Jefferson, 25 September 1792, in Farm Book, 14.
“dispose of Mary” TJ to Nicholas Lewis, 12 April 1792, PTJDE.
“Nobody feels more strongly” TJ to Randolph Lewis, 23 April 1807, Farm Book, 26, italics mine; Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 137.
“exactly counter” TJ to John Jordan, 21 December 1805, Farm Book, 21.
recommended that Isabel Hern Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 135–36.
“formerly connected” Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 188–89.
“never in his life” TJ to Joseph Dougherty, 31 July 1806, Farm Book, 22–23.
bond between mother The nineteenth-century paradigm of white motherhood fixed mothers as the pious, pure, and moral center of the home. Barbara Welter, “Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860.” American Quarterly 18 (1966): 151–74; Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
twelve-year-old Joseph Fossett Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 189. Joseph’s father was probably William Fossett, a white workman at Monticello; Betsy’s father may have been an enslaved man, since she carried the matriarch’s Hemings name for the rest of her life, only altering the spelling.
given away two Stanton, “Monticello to Main Street,” in “Those Who Labor,” 217.
three enslaved families Stanton, “Perfecting Slavery,” in “Those Who Labor,” 77.
Maria’s wedding gift Stanton, “Those Who Labor,” 321n29, citing TJ’s comparison of marriage settlements [1797].
Beverley received his first woolens FB, 55.
the Farm Book records blanket FB, 137.
In December 1812 FB, 139.
Beverley received FB, 143, 144.
“Mrs. Randolph always chooses” Memorandum, TJ to Edmund Bacon [1805–1806], Farm Book, 25; FB, 41; Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 171. See also, Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello, 48–49.
“old family servants” Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello, 66, 48, 107.
“had very little to do” Ibid., 107.
Until age fourteen Hemings, “Memoirs,” 248.
“They crossed the ocean” Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello, 108.
twenty-seven-hour Author visit, summer 2005.
Hemings family tradition Gordon-Reed, Hemingses, 144.
“learned that another” Gordon-Reed, Hemingses, 193.
experienced the sights and sounds Gordon-Reed, Hemingses, 193, chapters 8–12.
names for Sally’s children Gordon-Reed, Controversy, 197–201; Hemings, “Memoirs,” 247.
It was not at all unusual For the eighteenth century, see Farish, ed., Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, and Mechal Sobel, The World They Made Together: Black and White Values in Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); for the nineteenth century, see Blight, Life of Frederick Douglass.
Both Cornelia and Virginia Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello, 88.
“long straight hair” Jefferson, Memoir of a Monticello Slave, 10.
“fair,” as was Ellen EWRC Letter Book, 24 October 1858, 101, Acc. 9090, ViU.
“nearly as white” Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello, 110.
the kinds of gifts Randall, Jefferson, 3:348–51.
“undemonstrative” by temperament Hemings, “Memoirs,” 247.
Bachelor fathers in New Orleans Emily Clark, The Strange History of the American Quadroon: Free Women of Color in the Atlantic Revolutionary World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 101.
Prominent white Floridians Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 150–53.
In Jefferson’s own state Joshua D. Rothman, Notorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families Across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787–1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 42–43; Philip Morgan, “Interracial Sex in the Chesapeake,” in Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture, eds. Jan Lewis and Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 64.
in the stone structure Monticello.org—stone house, Building E. See also TJ’s map of his property, 1796, in Farm Book, 6; TJ to TMR, 19 May 1793, PTJDE; Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 175.
vaccinated his slaves TJ to Dr. Henry Rose, 23 October 1801, PTJDE, and Farm Book, 18–19.
Beverley was in that 26 May 1802. List of Inoculations, PTJDE. See also, Gordon-Reed, Hemingses, 694n15. The vaccinations began on May 10, but the first two were unsuccessful; they tried again on May 19, and Harriet and Beverley, among others, were vaccinated on the twenty-sixth. Might the late vaccination date hint that Harriet’s birthday was late in the month, since her procedure took place on the last day?
entrusted Harriet’s education Julia Cherry Spruill, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies (1938; repr., New York: W. W. Norton, 1998); Cynthia A. Kierner, Beyond the Household: Women’s Place in the Early South, 1700–1835 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); Kerrison, Claiming the Pen.
“a legitimate fruit” Israel [Gillette] Jefferson, “Memoirs of Israel Jefferson,” reprinted in Gordon-Reed, Controversy, 251.
archaeologists working on Mulberry Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 165.
“Mr. Jefferson allowed” Fossett, “Once the Slave of Thomas Jefferson.”
Eston, had also learned A letter from MJR to Thomas Jefferson Randolph referred to “Eston’s letter,” charging her for work he had done. MJR to TJR, 11 July 1830, Acc. 1397, ViU.
“lamenting very seriously” Ellen Randolph to Virginia Randolph, 31 August 1819, FLDA.
Ellen’s mother kept Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 183.
twice at Christmas TJ to MJR, 4 December 1791 and 13 December 1792, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 91, 107.
The women of Jefferson’s family Jefferson, Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, 7; TJ to MJ, 11 April 1790, 13 June 1790, 25 July 1790, in Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 52, 58, 62.
“Served in half Virginian” Quoted in Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 187.
get the main meal prepared Ibid., 188.
as many as fifty Dr. Robley Dunglison to Randall, n.d., Randall, Jefferson, 3:515.
Martha Randolph had appointed Sorenson, “Taking Care of Themselves,” Repast, 4.
Wormley Hughes sold the most Gawalt, “Jefferson’s Slaves,” 20, 29.
Adults built Sorensen, “Taking Care of Themselves,” Repast, 5.
“two pair of beautiful fowls” TJ to MJE, 29 January 1804 and TJ to Anne Cary Randolph (ACR), 9 January 1804, Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 256, 251.
Jefferson sent his wagoner TJ to MJR, 21 November 1806, ACR to TJ, 12 December 1806, TJ to EWR, 8 February 1807, in Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 290, 292, 295.
Ornamental gardens Caroline Winterer, Mirror of Antiquity: American Women and the Classical Tradition, 1750–1900 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007); Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand & Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America’s Republic (Chapel Hill: Published for OIEAHC by University of North Carolina Press, 2006).