My master returned with the news that James was back on these shores. James had written to me all last year, wild incoherent letters filled with impossible dreams of fame and fortune, as he wandered from one European capital to another in the wake of refugees fleeing the wars of Napoleon. He still begged me to leave Monticello. Like some flying eagle, he had dipped and swooped above my head, rattling my nest with the beating of his wings, always with his lure and song of freedom. But I had known he would be back. James had turned his back on his former master, and had refused to come to Monticello, or even send greetings to me, his own sister.
The master ensconced himself in his private apartments, reading and writing in the morning, appearing for dinner, then riding out for hours in the afternoon. Only I was allowed entrance into his chambers where he worked, often morose and depressed. Yet, he appeared without fail at the supper table, cheerful and serene.
All the children, black and white, competed for the attention and love of the master; all fought for their places in the sun.
In August, Martha went into labor. The double-faced clock on the east patio rang hour after hour, as the birth, despite the ease of the previous ones, proved to be a long and difficult one. My mother and I sat on either side of Martha’s plank as the midwife, Ursula, struggled silently to bring forth the new life. Martha’s labor had begun the night before, and now, well into the end of the day, her eyes were glazed with pain and exhaustion. Our dresses clung to us in the August heat, but we could not throw open the windows that were sealed shut, nor douse the fire that burned in the hearth. Martha moaned, filling me with dread. I thought of Maria, no more than a month away from her travail. I had so begged Maria to attempt no more children, just as my mother had begged Maria’s mother before her; but now there was no time to think of Maria. There were only Martha’s moans, and finally only her screams; almost eighteen hours after the first pains, the girl child came at last.
Downstairs, the white family waited as I descended to announce the birth of a girl, who would be named Virginia. During the long hours of labor I had a premonition of the awaited test of power. Two days after Virginia’s birth, when Martha’s milk had not come, it happened.
“You will wet-nurse Virginia, Sally. You have plenty of milk.” Before I could answer my mother answered for me.
“There’s no need for that, Mistress. There’s two newly delivered slave women. I’ll send for Sulky for you.”
“I don’t want Sulky, Mammy Hemings, I want Sally. She will be the one to nurse Virginia. After all, she doesn’t have anything else to do!”
“But, honey, your milk will come, it always do, and meanwhile Sulky, she much better, she’s—”
“I said I want Sally to do it.”
My mother shrugged and turned away. This was between Martha and me. She watched with horror as I took the white infant, and with tears of rage streaming down my cheeks, pressed her to my breast.
Virginia’s birth was celebrated for two days. The school bell rang, the slaves were issued whisky and the children candy; the white family celebrated with French champagne in a state of happy relief.
It was in this festive atmosphere that Danby Carr attempted to seduce my sister Critta. Critta belonged to Peter Carr, who was the father of her children, and neither of the other Carr brothers had ever dared to coerce my haughty and beautiful sister.
I was sorting linen with Elizabeth Hemings when Critta, pale and distraught, burst in on us.
“Mama, Masta Carr messing with me!”
My mother didn’t look up from her sorting.
“Which Masta Carr?” she asked.
“Danby!”
We both knew the danger. Danby had always been jealous of Peter over Critta. Now he was bloodied, he had decided to challenge him, and Samuel, the eldest brother, was probably egging him on. Danby had just fought one duel. . . . Trouble. They were spoiling for trouble.
“He put his hands on you?” Elizabeth Hemings asked.
“Not yet.”
“He going to?”
“He got a mind to. You know what Masta Peter do to me, he find out?”
“Did you tell him yourself?”
“Tell him?”
“Tell, tell on Danby? Tell Masta Peter he messing with you?” Elizabeth Hemings looked into my sister’s hazel eyes. She was beautiful, but not too bright. Disgust drew down the corners of Elizabeth Hemings’ mouth.
“It’s the only way, Critta, ’less you want real trouble.”
“I ain’t looking for no trouble,” Critta said. “I just want to be left alone.”
“Well, you ain’t going to be left alone with them boys around. Just try to stay out of their way. Don’t get into any close quarters with him. Stick close to Masta Peter.”
“But Peter’s going to Richmond tomorrow.”
“Then come stay with me. You can stay in my room. Don’t sleep alone.”
“He set on it,” Critta said.
“Well, he can get set off it. Them nephews got enough slaves in trouble around here, including you.”
“Why you suppose all a sudden? …”
“Jealous of Peter, feeling his oats with his dueling, showing off to Samuel—how should I know what goes on in white men’s heads?” The helplessness of the situation caused a tremor in the hand Elizabeth Hemings placed on my sister’s shoulder.
“If worse come to worse, I’ll tell Masta Jefferson. There ain’t nothing else I can do to protect you from a white man. Best you tell Peter first, then, if that don’t work, I’ll tell Masta.”
“They’ll fight,” Critta said.
“Better they beat on each other than you! Let them kill each other.” Anger shook my mother’s voice.
“But what old Masta going to say he find out Danby and Peter fightin’ over me?”
“There’s going to be hell to pay,” Elizabeth Hemings said grimly.
I could see Critta hesitate.
“I’ll tell him,” Critta finally said. “I’ll tell him he come messing with me, I’ll tell his brother.”
“They’ll all get thrown off here they make a ruckus. . . .”
Elizabeth Hemings looked at me after Critta had left. I could tell what she was thinking. Bad blood. Bad blood between brothers. Bad blood between Martha and me; all the pauper relatives feeding off the larder. . . . She began to count up the supplies the household had gone through this summer, then stopped. She started to laugh. She sat down hard and laughed until the tears poured down her face.
“White workers running rampant like a herd of goats through the slave quarters, relatives eating me out of house and home, and everybody come to me … the head slave in the harem! I hope … I hope Peter Carr beats the tar out of his brother!”
Elizabeth Hemings looked up at me. I didn’t know if she was laughing or crying.
The fight between Danby Carr and his brother over Critta started in the ice cellar, where Critta had been cornered by Danby. Her son Jamey, who had gone to fetch his father, witnessed the fight of his father and his uncle over his mother. Critta was hurt in the fracas, having been pushed against a wall. Her wrist was broken and she had begged Martin to take Jamey off to Pantops after Jamey had tried to attack his father. Critta took shelter with me, and Maria promised she could go back to Bermuda Hundred with her when she returned. Critta went back to Peter Carr, and Danby left for his plantation.
Maria’s baby came at the end of September, and, as feared, the birth was long and difficult and the child feeble. I didn’t think there was that much blood in a human body, as we fought to stem its flow with teas and herbs. Finally, a doctor was called, and he recommended more bleeding to “rid” Maria of poisons that might lead to infection. On this murderous note, he left, after conferring with a distraught husband and father, who declined to follow his advice.
Little by little Maria fought her way back, willed to live by my mother and me, but the child continued to suffer convulsions. I took the infant Francis to my own breast as well.
No sooner had we suffered through Maria’s recovery, as if God’s own vengeance was sweeping down, a plague of the dreaded whooping cough swept through the children on the hill. Once again all of the women on the mountain were waging the fight against death to the children. All grudges were forgotten then as we joined in the struggle to preserve the fragile lives.
This time no child perished.
Exhausted, we parted, Martha and Maria returning to their plantations, Critta gratefully going along with Maria, leaving Elizabeth Hemings and me alone on the hill to face the winter. Anything the winter would bring, I thought, would be better than the summer just past. But I was wrong.
The preparations for Christmas were under way; my chests of decorations had been taken down from the attic, the housecleaning and baking already started. I was sitting, playing the new harpsichord, when I heard the strangled cry of my mother and the heavy spurred boots of Davey Bowles, who had ridden two days without stopping from Washington City to arrive before the letter.
I had seen Davey Bowles lips moving, but it seemed to have taken forever for the words to reach me.
It was the fourth day of December 1801. Davey had come to bring the news of James’s death.
He had been found dead under mysterious circumstances in Philadelphia, shot, perhaps by his own hand, although the weapon was nowhere to be found. He was already buried in unconsecrated ground up North. There had been no belongings, no letter, no message. Only John Trumbull’s silver-framed portrait of me and a small silver dagger were found near his bedside. Davey handed them to me in silence as I stood screaming James’s name over and over again.
James’s death seemed to herald the final calamity that was to befall us.
From this day on, I would live like a perfect slave, in perfect love, and this slavery and this love would be my strength and my fortress; never would he forgive himself or his world for it, and never would he escape from it. It would be the master who would be branded and bonded to me forever. I would turn love against the possessor and daze him into the everlasting hell of guilt! I vowed Thomas Jefferson would see only what he wanted to in the silver-and-gilt mirror of my love and, with that reflecting force, I would strike him down, blind him, commit arson against him. And what arm would he have against it? If I could not hate him, I would kill him with love. And if I could not kill him, I would maim him forever, cripple and paralyze him, so that he would have no possibility to walk away from me, no voice to deny me. A ruthless joy took hold of me. I fled from the room and from the mansion out of doors.
I would free his sons.
CHAPTER 32
NOVEMBER 1802
If there is any country on earth where the course of true love may be expected to run smooth, it is America.
HARRIET MARTINEAU, Society in America, 1837
THE RECORDER
Richmond
September Ist, 1802
It is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps, and for many years past has kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is SALLY. The name of her eldest son is Tom. His features are said to bear a striking though sable resemblance to those of the President himself. The boy is ten or twelve years of age. His mother went to France in the same vessel with Mr. Jefferson and his two daughters. The delicacy of this arrangement must strike every portion of common sensibility. What a sublime pattern for an American ambassador to place before the eyes of two young ladies!
If the reader does not feel himself disposed to pause we beg leave to proceed. Some years ago, the story had once or twice been hinted at in Rind’s Federalist. At that time, we believed the surmise to be an absolute calumny. One reason for thinking so was this: A vast body of people wished to debar Mr. Jefferson from the presidency. . . .
By this wench Sally, our president has had several children. There is not an individual in the neighbourhood of Charlottesville who does not believe the story; and not a few who know it. …
’Tis supposed that, at the time when Mr. Jefferson wrote so smartly concerning negroes, when he endeavoured so much to belittle the African race, he had no expectation that the chief magistrate of the United States was to be the ringleader in shewing that his opinion was erroneous; or, that he should choose an African stock whereupon he was to engraft his own descendants. . . .
Mute! Mute! Mute! Yes very Mute! will all those republican printers of political biographical information be upon this point. Whether they stir or not, they must feel themselves like a horse in a quick-sand. They will plunge deeper and deeper, until no assistance can save them.
If the friends of Mr. Jefferson are convinced of his innocence they will make an appeal of the same sort. If they rest in silence, or if they content themselves with resting upon a general denial, they cannot hope for credit. The allegation is of a nature too black to be suffered to remain in suspense. We should be glad to hear of its refutation. We give it to the world under the firmest belief that such a refutation never can be made. The AFRICAN VENUS is said to officiate as housekeeper at Monticello. When Mr. Jefferson has read this article, he will find leisure to estimate how much has been lost or gained by so many unprovoked attacks upon
J. T. CALLENDER.
“James T. Callender.” I repeated that familiar name once again. “James T. Callender.”
My mother burst into tears.
“Sweet Jesus! You mean that’s printed in the newspaper for everyone to see?”
“Not only The Recorder, Mama, everywhere in Virginia, by the Examiner, in the Virginia Gazette in Lynchburg, in Fredericksburg, in Philadelphia, in Washington City, in New York.” I had left out the parts she couldn’t understand.
“But what does it mean, daughter?” For once, my mother didn’t know what to say.
“It means, Mama, that they are attacking the master through me, to hurt him. They accuse him of many more dreadful things than miscegenation. They accuse him of being a coward, of trying to seduce another man’s wife, of being an infidel. . . .”
My voice had broken. In truth, I knew so little, entombed here at Monticello. Maria and Martha certainly knew more, but refused to speak. Even Maria. So we remained in our cocoons of silence, not able to comfort one another. For once, the slave intelligence had been silent. Yet the plantations all knew. My shame was the common knowledge of every field hand in Virginia. The intelligence passed from those who could read to the multitudes who could not.
“And Thomas Jefferson, up in Washington City? What does he say?” my mother wanted to know.
“He doesn’t say anything, Mama. He doesn’t even know that I know about the newspaper articles.”
“He ain’t said nothing to you?”
“No.”
“And to his friends?…”
“He has kept his silence. He has said nothing to no one.”
“But it can’t go on like this! He will sell you and the children … out of Virginia. O God, have mercy on us!”
“God,” I said, “has nothing to do with this.”
My mother looked up. “And Martha?”
“She knows as much as I, or perhaps more, but she is as silent as her father.”
“And Maria?”
“Maria, too, is silent.”
“All are silent?” my mother asked. Her voice was small in the empty, white-draped room where we sat facing each other, mother and daughter, two generations of white men’s concubines.
“Oh, no. His friends are rallying around him, denying everything. Denying that I exist. Calling Callender the most foul and blasphemous slanderer ever to be born. Meriwether Jones, the editor of the Richmond Enquirer, has wished Callender in Hell by means of the James River. He’s the one who wrote: ‘Is it strange, therefore, that a servant of Mr. Jefferson’s at a house where so many strangers resort, who is daily engaged in the ordinary vocations of the family life, like thousands of others, should have a mulatto child? Certainly not. . . .’ ”
My mouth twitched. Certainly not. I thought of my sis
ter Critta, my half sister Mary, my mother’s daughters, Nance and Betty. I thought of my mother, Elizabeth, and of her mother, the African. I thought of all black bondswomen everywhere in the South at God’s and Fate’s mercy. Thousands.
“But he, the masta, says nothing?”
“Nothing, Mama. Even this summer, when we were all ignorant of the danger, there were hints in the newspapers, but it is this one, Callender’s story, that has caused all the furor.”
There had been others, more serious because they had been closer to home, I thought. Callender was a foreigner, a Northerner, an enemy. These other men were friends and neighbors. The editor of the Frederick-Town Herald, for example, had been seen in Charlottesville, by Burwell and Davey Bowles, asking questions of servants and neighbors and townspeople and of the small outlying farmers who got their wood from Monticello. All those who had known my master from birth knew who I was. They knew who my mother was. There was one calumnious article after another, the most recent from the Virginia Gazette, whose article had asked the same questions and got the same answers. “Why have you not married some worthy of your own complexion?” one had written in an editorial.
My eyes filled with tears. I heard my master’s voice: “Tell me who die … who marry, who hang themselves because they cannot marry. . . .”
I stared at the white back of one of the draped pale damask armchairs from the hotel in Paris, and fondled the richly carved wood.
“I believe he will never say anything to anyone about me.”
“Daughter, you don’t understand white men. They loves you. Sometimes all they lives. But when you go up against they real life, they white life, white friends, white children, white power, you got to lose. You got to be cut down. You got to be put away. Thomas Jefferson’s real mistress is his politics. It was that way with Martha and it’s that way with you. Nothing will stand in the way of that. No woman will ever keep him from that. Even a white wife would not have been as bad as this. . . . He will send you away. He has got to do it. His white folks will destroy him if he don’t. At least he has got to say what is true is not true. . . .”
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