Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings Author(s): Pearl M. Graham Source: The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Apr., 1961), pp. 89-103 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2716715 Accessed: 26-07-2018 16:00 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Association for the Study of African American Life and History, The University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Negro History This content downloaded from 207.62.77.131 on Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:00:10 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS Thomas Jefferson had been only briefly in the White House when reports, long circulated in the neighborhoods of Richmond and Charlottesville, began to appear in print. Some of Jefferson's own slaves, it was agreed, bore a striking re- semblance to their master. And one name, that of Sally Hem- ings1, appeared as the most favored of the colored mistresses. Jefferson himself took, at least in public, a "No com- ment" attitude. But his own private holograph papers,2 now available for study, are consistent with the supposition that he was the father of all Sally Hemings' children. Sally was born in 1773 to Betty Hemings,3 a slave of John Wayles of Charles City County, whose daughter, Martha, had been married, the preceding year, to Thomas Jefferson of Monticello.4 Jefferson's records make no note of Sally's paternity, and possibly with good reason. For Sally was so much lighter in color than her mulatto mother as to justify the presumption that her father was white. Local gossip assigned her paternity, and that of some of her older sib- lings, to their master, John Wayles. If gossip spoke truth, Sally Hemings was half-sister to Mrs. Thomas Jefferson.6 But John Wayles died within a few months of Sally's birth, and Betty Hemings, with her descendants, became, by right of his wife, the property of Thomas Jefferson.6 From this time forward, Monticello was 'home.' There were interesting hiatuses. The first came during the Revolution. Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, was an inevitable target of the British forces. Twice he, himself, 1 Spelled also, Hemmings. Jefferson used both spellings, but, most often, Henings. 2 Especially his Farm Book. 3 See Jefferson's Farm Book. 4 See R. B. Henry: Genealogies of the Families of the Presidents. 5 See Isaac Jefferson: Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, Univ. of Virginia Press, 1951. Sundry other commentators of the period noted the current belief that one of Jefferson's slave mistresses was Martha Jefferson's half-sister. Not all of them mentioned Sally by name. 6According to the law of the day, a married woman could hold no property, but all of which she might, as maid or widow, have become possessed, became, on her marriage, the absolute property of her husband. 89 This content downloaded from 207.62.77.131 on Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:00:10 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 90 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY escaped only by dint of expert horsemanship and the work of a skilled slave blacksmith who had taken the precaution of shoeing his master's horse backwards.7 Jefferson sent a num- ber of his slaves, including several of the Hemingses, to York for safety. The ruse was unsuccessful. Small Sally was among a group captured by the British, who presently con- signed a number of the able-bodied males for sale elsewhere.8 But the British army was in too precarious a position to bother much with little girls, and presently Sally and her mother were again at Monticello. Life was not too hard. Jefferson was a strict discipli- narian, but never a cruel one. There were warm beds and sufficient food.9 There were companions. One can hardly say 'playmates', for a child old enough to play was old enough to run errands. But in the social hierarchy of slavery, the choicest position was that of a competent and trusted house slave. Betty Hemings held this envied place, and trained her daughters in good manners and household management. And if she, and one or more of her daughters, lived in concubinage, it must be remembered that a slave woman had no choice. When Mrs. Jefferson, a few years later, became a con- firmed invalid, Betty Hemings was in charge of the sick room, and Sally, under her mother's supervision, was the little er- rand girl, under call for small services.10 On Mrs. Jefferson's bedside table there stood a little bell, hand-wrought, of iron, at some slave blacksmith's forge. For many months the little girl was wont to come running to her task, at the tinkle of this bell. When Mrs. Jefferson died, nine-year-old Sally was in the room, one of the attendants at her bedside. Jefferson, to mark appreciation of the services rendered his wife, presented to each of her attendants some token of gratitude. To Sally was given the intriguing little bell, at whose call she had so often come running. For the rest of her life, that bell remained a cherished possession, to be handed down to her own daughter, and, in turn, to hers, even unto 7 Tradition of Sally's descendants. 8 See Jefferson's letters in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Ed. Dr. Julian Boyd. The Princeton Press. 9 See Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book, Ed. Edwin Betts. 10 Tradition of Sally's descendants. This content downloaded from 207.62.77.131 on Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:00:10 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 91 the fourth generation. One hundred seventy years later, this bell was presented, by a great-granddaughter of Sally Hem- ings and Thomas Jefferson,1 to the library of Howard Uni- versity, where it is now to be seen. After Mrs. Jefferson's death, Monticello was deserted of its owners. Jefferson accepted an appointment to France, and with him he carried his eldest daughter, twelve-year-old Martha. His other surviving children, five-year-old Polly, and the baby, Lucy Elizabeth, were left in care of a kindly maternal aunt.l2 But the baby, Lucy, died, and when Polly was nine, Jefferson wrote directions that she be sent to him in France.13 Fourteen-year-old Sally was chosen to accompany Polly Jefferson.14 This, Jefferson had not intended. He had desig- nated an older servant, sensible and reliable, to be Polly's companion, but at sailing time, Isabel was ill. Ships did not sail often, for the Old World, and, almost on the spur of the moment, Sally was substituted.15 It was a heady experience for the little slave girl, wont to be at everybody's beck and call, suddenly to find herself on shipboard, with no one at hand whose orders she must obey, her only companion the shy, pretty little girl who had won her affection. Sally must have issued her own declaration of independence, for good Captain Ramsay, in whose care the two girls had been put, made his laments later.'6 They debarked at London, where they were taken in charge by Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, later to be second President of the United States.17 Jefferson had ar- ranged that, till he could send a courier to escort them to Paris, the girls should be under Mrs. Adams' chaperonage. Moreover, she was to purchase for Polly a wardrobe suitable 11 Mrs. Lucy Williams Coles. 12 Elizabeth, wife of Frances Eppes of Eppington. 13 See Hamilton Pierson: Jefferson at Monticello. See Jefferson's letters in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. Dr. Julian Boyd. Princeton Press. 14 See correspondence of Abigail Adams with T. Jefferson, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, supra. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. See also, Polly Jefferson and Her Father by Dudley Malone. Vir- ginia Quarterly Review, Vol. VII, Jan. 1931. This content downloaded from 207.62.77.131 on Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:00:10 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 92 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY for the small daughter of a minister to the court of Louis XVI. This she did, and we have in her own handwriting the list of purchases, with the prices, for which Jefferson was to reimburse her. The Adams quarters were presently over- flowing with juvenile finery, whose care Sally, no doubt, was expected to assume. But no purchase, not so much as a far- thing's worth, was made for Sally. Sally won no approval from Abigail Adams, beyond the somewhat grudging "she seems good-natured and fond of the child." She wrote Jefferson that Sally required more care than the child, and was wholly incapable of looking after Polly without some supervisor to direct her. Sally at this time looked older than her actual age, else one might wonder just how much Mrs.