Monticello was the home of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. It is now a museum, which tells the story of Jefferson and the enslaved Sally Hemings. This short video and the text that follows it recount the life of Sally Hemings, who gave birth to six children fathered by Jefferson (two died at a young age). The video is based on the words of Madison Hemings, son of Sally and Thomas Jefferson.
The text posted here discusses the historical record of Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings. It reviews the evidence and lists the books that have been written by historians about Jefferson and Hemings. It is a fascinating read, pointing out, for example, that Sally Hemings was the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife Martha. Hemings was light-skinned, and some of her children and grandchildren “passed” as white.
We are all in debt to the current debate about critical race theory for kindling and rekindling attention to historical studies and their relevance to today. The states that are passing bans on honest discussions of the past will find that their efforts at censorship backfire. They are drawing more attention to the wrongs of the past. The attacks on The 1619 Project and CRT have awakened remarkable interest in the details of past injustices and to systemic racism. The truth will out.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The truth will out.” Amen to that!!! Or, as Milton famously put it in the Areopagitica, “Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”
This is why it is the DUTY of teachers to respond to this recent spate of Thought Control legislation at the state level by teaching the truth about the history of genocide and racism and about the current systemic racism in the United States. This is the moment when you are called, fellow teachers, and your duty is clear. You must, my fellow teachers, you must ensure that this grappling between the truth and the jingoistic nationalist falsehoods spewed by Repugnicnans is occurring and that your classrooms are among the rings where the grappling occurs.
Here’s another apt slogan: “Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.” The owner of this blog speaks truth to power all the time. Her bravery is an inspiration, and so, she is one of my heroes.
From the article:
“Sally Hemings went to France with Maria Jefferson when she was a little girl.”
–Edmund Bacon, an overseer at Monticello.
My comment on that:
He could as well have said, “Sally Hemings was sexually molested by Thomas Jefferson when she was a little girl” because these things happened at very close to the same time.
The child, Sally, was 14 or 15 and OWNED by the predator who took advantage of her.
People now find it remarkable that Jeffrey Epstein was able to “hide” (in plain sight) his abuse of underage girls from the public for two decades, but, in the case of Jefferson, it effectively remained hidden for two centuries — despite the fact that, even in Jefferson’s own time, visitors to Monticello were taken aback by the striking resemblance between Jefferson and some of his slaves.
That’s the power of the false narrative told by the media and even many historians.
We are constantly being bombarded with myths and other falsehoods to the extent that it’s remarkable that the truth ever manages to eek through.
And one cannot excuse this with “Oh, that’s the way things were then.” Even then, when the story broke about Jefferson’s sexual abuse of those whom he enslaved, this was scandalous. But people love to forget and to mythologize.
Historians Uncover Slave Quarters of Sally Hemings at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
Archaeologists have excavated an area of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello mansion and uncovered the slave quarters of Sally Hemings.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/thomas-jefferson-sally-hemings-living-quarters-found-n771261
“The child, Sally, was 14 or 15 and OWNED by the predator who took advantage of her.”
I want to make a point. There were no statutes or laws until 1938 in the United States that turned younger humans into a classification now known as children.
In the U.S., statutory rape did not exist until the government was forced to propose the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen and clamped down on prostitution. In the United States, as late as the 1880s most states set the minimum age at ten to twelve (in Delaware, it was seven in 1895).
Up until 1938, children as young as seven could be sold into indentured servitude to factories, coal mines, and to bordellos.
I do not think we should judge Thomas Jefferson by-laws and standards that did not exist in his time.
Was Jefferson’s “Secret” Really a Secret in 1902?
“In early national and antebellum Virginia, standing sexual affairs between white men and African American women were nearly always open secrets. Divorce petitions in Virginia involving accusations of interracial adultery, for example, amply demonstrate that neighbors, friends, and relatives–although rarely saying anything publicly until called on by the petitioner to provide testimony in court–always knew, sometimes for many years, about the illicit sexual conduct of both men and women in their families and communities. …”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/true/rothman.html
If we use our laws and moral valued to define Jefferson as a predator, then we should also make sure those laws and moral values of his time fit.
Again, as I noted elsewhere on this thread, when Jefferson’s affair with Hemings was revealed, this created a great scandal. So, there were lots of people at the time who believed that such behavior was inappropriate because, of course, it so obviously was. And even if one accepted your argument, Lloyd, which I don’t, there would remain the undeniable fact that for many decades Jefferson practiced enormous race-based exploitation and cruelty at a time when everyone with any awareness knew that it was wrong. Jefferson was Ambassador to France, which had, like England, outlawed this barbarism.
And, again there were age of consent laws even back then.
Giving up mythologies is difficult. Many people react to inconvenient realities that might force them to give up their favorite myths by rationalizing, often mightily. When a very popular mythology is crumbling under the weight of evidence, one typically ends up with hundreds, even thousands of rationalizations. But, ofc, rationalization shouldn’t be confused with being rational. Jefferson did not believe in the equality of all people. He practiced, and luxuriated in, extreme cruelty and exploitation on a daily basis for decades. And he raped his slaves, who were not allowed to no to him. That’s what “rape” means: you are not allowed to say no. He was smart enough to understand that. We are as well.
Others, ofc, react by attempting to enact the mythology–to make belief in and teaching of it mandatory. That’s fascist, of course, and it’s precisely what the right-wing is attempting to do right now–to take over K-12 school curricula to preserve their mythologies. I really worry about where this might lead in the next couple years.
Thomas Jefferson was a thoroughgoing racist/white supremacist. But don’t take my word for it. Take his, from Notes on the State of Virginia:
“I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them? This unfortunate difference of color, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question `What further is to be done with them?’ Join themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.”
So, this was the published, public face of Jefferson’s racism. The private one didn’t seem to mind that mixing in the least, not while he could exploit the products of it while he lived.
There’s a lot more in this vein, a lot more of his rationalization, but I will spare you it.
“I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualification”
And we are supposed to believe that the fellow who wrote that in 1781 (just five years after 1776) was the primary author of a Declaration based on the premise that “All Men Are created equal”?
He ha ha.
Exactly, SomeDAM. Big disconnect.
Unless he meant the term “men” to be limited to “white men.” He’s very clear in the Notes on the State of Virginia that he considers black people a different biological group altogether from white men.
I have my doubts .
This is not the only disconnect.
There are others related to word and phrase usage and the overall architecture of the Declaration.
https://www.crookedlakereview.com/articles/67_100/76july1994/76williams.html
I’d be curious to know if there have been any more recent efforts to revisit such analysis.
It’s simpler to assume that Jefferson did not write those words than to imagine twisted explanations to make them fit with Jefferson’s equally twisted beliefs.
This is from monticellodotorg via Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc., quote: Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings’s children: Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were released in Jefferson’s 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other nuclear slave family.
Thomas Jefferson did not free Sally Hemings. She was permitted to leave Monticello by his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph not long after Jefferson’s death in 1826, and went to live with her sons Madison and Eston in Charlottesville. end quote
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the above.
Bottom line, slavery was/is a crime against humanity even if the slave master is supposedly “kind and enlightened.” If someone is kind and enlightened, they don’t own slaves in the first instance and should be abolitionists.
Link for the above quote about TJ: https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jefferson/jefferson-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-a-brief-account/?source=post_page—————————
Snippet from an article by Britni Danielle in the washingtonpostdotcom, 7-7-2017: quote – Jefferson, an avid writer, never mentioned Hemings in his work. He did, however, grapple with issues of emancipation throughout his life. In his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” Jefferson spent a substantial section attempting to answer the question, “Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence [sic] of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave?” Despite fathering Hemings’s children, Jefferson argued against race mixing because black people were “inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.” end quote
Tom Jefferson, founding hypocrite, the “owner” of 607 men, women and children at Monticello.
A particularly insidious myth and falsehood is that there is a white race, a black race, and some number of other races in between. The myth and falsehood apparently are so ingrained and operate so deeply as to go unconsidered even when calling out Thomas Jefferson. “Truth” riding upon this myth and falsehood cannot, in the end, possibly will out. It can only be, at best, contextualized truth, not universal truth.
With respect to Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Dorothy Roberts pursues universal truth, in “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century” (pp. 83-84).
She writes:
“Medicine has historically promoted a racial construction of disease that in turn perpetuates a biological construction of race.
“In 1781, before becoming the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote an influential treatise in response to a set of questions about Virginia posed by a visiting French dignitary. Notes on the State of Virginia compiles extensive information about the state, as well as Jefferson’s most eloquent defense of key constitutional principles from individual liberty to the separation of church and state. A naturalist as well as a political philosopher, Jefferson approached the question of slavery from a biological and political perspective. He both condemned chattel slavery and justified it on grounds that ‘the real distinctions which nature has made’ between blacks and whites made it impossible for them to live together as equal citizens. Even if blacks were freed from bondage, their biological infirmities prevented them from joining the American polity as free individuals. Jefferson opined, for example, that blacks sweat more than whites because of ‘a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat.’ He also observed that black people were disposed to sleep too much because their minds were empty: ‘An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course,’ he wrote.
“Jefferson conveniently attributed the physical differences he saw in blacks to their innate weaknesses rather than to their forced toil in the hot Virginia sun. He transformed perceived physiological differences into indicia of character flaws, and ultimately into political disqualifications: ‘This unfortunate difference in colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people.’ It also must have eased his conscience to believe that blacks soon forgot the ‘griefs’ of slavery because ‘their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection.’
“Jefferson was not misusing a biological category of race he had discovered in nature; he was helping to invent it for political reasons. Attributing blacks’ poor health to inherent racial difference allowed whites like Jefferson both to ignore how disease is caused by political inequality and to justify an unequal system by pointing to the inherent racial difference that disease supposedly reveals.”
Dorothy Roberts delivers Emory University’s Emory Law Martin Luther King Jr Lecture, January 24, 2020:
Outstanding, Ed! Thanks for sharing this!
Jefferson was at pains in the Notes on the State of Virginia to point out what he considered, from “a naturalist’s perspective.” to be innate inferiority. And yes, he invented this to serve his purposes.
And yes, indeed, the concept of race has no defensible biological basis.
“And yes, he invented this to serve his purposes.”
Do you think you’re being too restrictive by saying this? Why could it not have been invented to serve populous purposes?
I know, Ed, that he was not the originator of the idea, but I very much get the feeling, from reading Jefferson on this subject, that he is reinventing it for himself, that he in fact knows better and is scrambling for justification of his behavior.
I bet Jefferson fooled a lot of people with his “sciency” ramblings.
Above all else, the guy was just a bullshit artist.
“He also observed that black people were disposed to sleep too much because their minds were empty: ‘An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course,’ he wrote.”
Of course!!
Jefferson was desperately trying to convince himself that his views on African Americans were right so that he could justify owning and exploiting them.
It’s actually pathetic to see such a smart person engaging in this sort of self delusion.
Traitor: A person who betrays a friend, country, principle, etc.
Fits Thomas to a T
Traitor Thomas
Jefferson was a traitor
A human being trader
Emancipation hater
And principle evader
With his lifelong slaveholding , Jefferson betrayed the very principles upon which the United States was founded — principles which he himself (supposedly) articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
He might not have aided and abetted a physical enemy of his country, but he did something even worse: he undermined it’s very core principles.
He undermined the Constitution with the Louisiana Purchase.
This is a pretty good argument, isn’t it, that the Constitution must be a living, breathing, evolving document.
This comment is for a student who despised Thomas Jefferson, a student who got lost from earth but whose spirit will live in me for the rest of my life. One of our last conversations was about Sally Hemings, and I was finally convinced. You were right. Jefferson did not believe in anything but himself. I miss you, R.
So sad, LeftCoast! Sorry for your loss.
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And beloved students can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Romania.
My student used to love debating about Hamilton and Jefferson in my class. When she left my class for high school a few years ago, she came back to visit after school every couple or few weeks to continue the debate. She bought a book about Hamilton and Jefferson a couple years ago and gave it to me as a gift. The real gift she gave me was a measure of humility. She was my student and my teacher. I wish I told her that when she visited for the last time this spring. Too many of my former students have been killed this summer. Teaching is the most pleasant and the most painful profession.
The book she gave me was brilliantly researched and written. It explains how Jefferson wanted slavery to end — because he really hated Black people and wanted to get rid of them. He wanted to move Black people into the Ohio Territory to make their own separate country. I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’ll just say it: Jefferson thought Black people smelled bad. He was horrible. My student was rightly disgusted by what Jefferson did to Sally Hemings. Whatever feelings he had, they were not right.
I used to admire Jefferson. After all, Hamilton wasn’t exactly good to women either. After all, Hamilton as an attorney helped family members buy and sell slaves. After all, Jefferson kept Hamilton from helping turn the executive branch into a de facto monarchy with no need to provide freedom of religion, miranda rights, trial by a jury of peers… After all, blah blah blah. I was wrong. My student was right, “Jefferson was a total dickhead.”
I seem to be a bit of a slow learner sometimes, and I resist change like many in our country do, but I desire to get better. I am not afraid to change. I owe it to my students, past and future. We all do.
Wow.Tthanks for sharing this eloquent, moving tribute to your student, LeftCoast!!!!
LeftCoastTeacher,
Thank you for sharing that beautiful and moving tribute to your student. I am very sorry for your loss.
After 20+ years of reading about Sally Hemings, I still have this question: Since slavery was illegal in France, why didn’t she and her older brother, James, stay there? He was a highly trained French chef and she would have been a fine lady’s maid in a wealthy home. It was fashionable in Paris to have servants of color. They both returned with Jeferson to Virginia with their “deals” which he honored. James got his freedom after he taught his brother, Peter, to do French cooking. And we know Jefferson freed the 4 children (and got permission for them to remain in Va.) Formally freeing her could have called too much attention and possibly threatened her, Madison and Eston from staying in Virginia.
I thank my shero, Annette Gordon-Reed for inspiring me to learn all I can about Sally Hemings.
She was a child, accompanying Jefferson’s daughter.
Sally was 16 when she left Paris. Patsy, Jefferson’s daughter, turned 17 in September and was married in February at 17. Girls married earlier then. Patsy married Thomas Randolph with her father’s enthusiasm, but she and Tom had spent very little time together. Jefferson needed to get to his new job, Secretary of State so he got the girls settled fast. His friend, Lafayette was 16 when he married and Adrienne was 14. I can’t judge these decisions by today’s standards. James Hemings was well old enough to take care of Sally. He was in his 20’s and had superb training as a French chef.
And she was negotiating with Jefferson for the sake of her children. I’ll return, if you cut a deal about them. At least, that’s what the experts who run Monticello say.
No doubt that was true and was likely the reason. She was likely pregnant when she left Paris and if so, that was a good reason to go. We don’t know when the deal making was started, before or after pregnancy.
Beautifully observed, Ms. Raiser!
What was she supposed to do?
She was a sixteen year old pregnant with his child.
And she was undoubtedly afraid of him.
He may even have threatened to retaliate upon her family if she did not return with him.
Who knows?
She didn’t even have to guess at what he was capable of. She knew.
James and Sally Hemings could have legalized their freedom in Paris and Jefferson could have done nothing about it. Once reason he paid them a salary was to make it appear they were not enslaved. James was in his 20’s, a well trained French chef, unmarried and could have taken good care of Sally and her baby. They had a clear choice, I think.
I had not conisidered that Jefferson might retaliate against her family. Sally and James were the half-siblings of his dead wife so I wonder if he would have done that. He seemed to treat the family with special consideration.He knew Sally most of her life as she went to Monticello as a toddler. I also imagine that Sally may have resembled his dead wife as she was her half sister and reported to be very beautiful. Also, Jefferson well knew their children could pass as white as they would be 1/8 black. He got a shadow wife and she got security. She knew the family history and why couldn’t her life with the “master” be as beneficial as it seemed her mother’s was with her master?. The Hemings family was well treated by Jefferson so I expect he treated Sally well. Madison, her son, did not report otherwise except that Jefferson was not warm toward the children as he was with his grandchildren.
Thank you all for helping me answer my question.