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The recent release of DNA evidence indicating Thomas Jefferson probably fathered at least one child with his slave Sally Hemings provides an opportunity for teachers to explore with students the complicated history of slavery in the United States. At the time the scientific journal Nature reported DNA research that Jefferson was almost certainly the father of Sally Hemings's youngest child, media attention focused upon Jefferson and the profound American contradiction he represents. Although the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and a veritable icon representing democratic principles, Jefferson owned many slaves upon whom he depended for his sumptuous lifestyle. In addition, Americans saw on television, and heard interviewed, the descendants of Sally Hemings's children, whose words and faces reminded us of our profound biracial heritage.
While the Hemings-Jefferson relationship provides an excellent venue for teachers and students to scrutinize Jefferson's legacies and reflect upon America's biracial heritage, teachers also should seize the opportunity to discuss the humanity, individuality, and agency of Hemings and Jefferson's other slaves. Over the last twenty-five years historians have provided a complicated portrait of how Jefferson and other slave masters dominated and exploited slave labor. At the same time, however, slaves just as diligently sought ways to resist their subjugation and control aspects of their own lives. Teachers, like the best historians of slavery, can take students beyond the important, but ultimately limiting, portrait of slavery as a brutal system of exploitation. They can position students to study how slaves struggled to forge community, create culture, and build America, while living and working under the most oppressive circumstances (1).
This article provides teachers and students with eleven primary sources for thinking about how Thomas Jefferson and his slaves together produced culture and community at Monticello and Jefferson's other plantations. By careful examination of Jefferson's correspondence, students learn that Jefferson regarded his slaves as part of an extended "family." However, they also will discover that Jefferson controlled his "family" by selling some slaves and buying others. In addition, he exerted the "paternalism" of the southern planter in ways that favored some slaves with employment in skilled positions, while assigning others to the hard drudgery of field labor. Whereas some slaves enjoyed special privileges and security in Jefferson's household, others lived in fear that they or their family members might one day be sold (2).
Within the confinements of bondage, however, Jefferson's slaves found ways to "negotiate" with the master and his overseers the terms under which they lived and labored. Historians have provided refined portraits of how slaves controlled elements of their lives. Many organized sophisticated "internal economies" in and around plantations, upon which both masters and slaves relied for food and services (3). To obtain privileges for themselves or their families, some slave women established intimate relationships with slave masters or overseers. Other slave women aborted pregnancies or even committed infanticide to reject their "role in the economic advancement of the slave system" (4). African Americans also shaped the slave system by escaping, setting fires, sabotaging equipment, and occasionally killing whites. By such means they put masters on notice that the latter could not relentlessly abuse power without paying consequences (5).
The documentary excerpts below invite students to interpret the complex and various relationships Jefferson and his slaves developed, including the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings. Documents in Section I ("Jefferson and Paternalism") reveal Jefferson as a slaveholder, who wanted to keep together his extended "family" of slaves. Students reading material in Section II ("Jefferson on Slave Reproduction"), however, will recognize that Jefferson also was a calculating plantation manager who valued female slaves because they "bred" children and produced workers for his plantation labor force. Section III's documents on "Slave Resistance" show, in Jefferson's own words, that slaves' rebellious acts impelled him to exert harsh control over his slave workforce. Ironically, the letters also reveal the slaves' agency and humanity as they sought to escape from Monticello or one of Jefferson's other plantations.
The last group of documents in Section IV ("Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings") enables students to consider the sometimes intimate relationships slaves and masters established within the framework of the slave system. Historians have long discussed the variety of intimacies between masters and slaves in the antebellum South. Prior to the recent release of DNA evidence, however, most historians doubted the possibility that Jefferson and Hemings had a sexual relationship (6). To support this view, they cited Jefferson's opinions expressed in letters such as the one in Section IV that he sent to Edward Coles. In that letter, Jefferson deplores race-mixing or "amalgamation." Other historians, however, felt historical evidence strongly suggested that Jefferson had a relationship with Hemings. They took seriously, for example, statements made by Madison Hemings that his mother, Sally, and Thomas Jefferson were his parents. Using Madison Hemings's testimony, also provided in Section IV, students may consider why Hemings established a relationship with Jefferson. Was she forced into such a relationship? Did she enter it to gain special treatment for herself and others? Such speculations are important for beginning to comprehend the agency of slaves as well as the oppressive situations under which they conducted their lives.
Section I
Jefferson and Paternalism
The documents below suggest that Jefferson's attitudes and behavior toward his slaves derived from a combination of paternalistic concern and calculations of how to manage profitably his slave labor force. Jefferson reflected his paternalistic regard for the large group of people on his plantation by referring to them as "my family." Jefferson's "family" included his own white family members, overseers and hired hands, their families, and his slaves. Between 1774 and his death on 4 July 1826, the number of slaves Jefferson owned fluctuated between 117 and 223. In early 1827, Jefferson's white family offered for sale 130 members of his slave family to cover the considerable debt Jefferson incurred during his lifetime. Jefferson never bought and sold slaves in an effort to earn profits from the slave trade. "His infrequent purchases were usually made to fulfill needs of the moment and selling was primarily a reaction to financial demands" (8). Jefferson's letters below suggest that he sought to reunite slave family members or keep them together (9).
To John Jordan
Washington Dec. 21. [18]05.
Being now endeavoring to purchase young & able men for my own works, it is exactly counter to these views to sell Brown to you as proposed in your letter. however always willing to indulge connections seriously formed by those people, where it can be done reasonably, I shall consent, however reluctantly, to sell him to you. I should be glad to get such men equal to him in age, ability, & character...(Farm Book, 21).
To Randolph Lewis
Monticello Apr. 23. [18]07.
...nobody feels more strongly than I the desire to make all practicable sacrifices to keep man & wife together who have imprudently married out of their respective families, & I had accordingly told Moses that if it should be your pleasure to sell his wife personally, I would buy her when I could with convenience: for I assure you that nobody is less able to make purchases than myself, or more pressed for money, or time for its paiment...but if you will be so good as to say to me in one word, what is the lowest sum you will take for the woman & her children, I will in like manner say in one word yea or nay. I prefer deciding for myself on the price I may consent to pay, rather than leave to valuers to fix one which would be beyond my convenience or approbation. I would also ask you to fix what times of paiment would be necessary, as, to avoid disappointments, I must take them into calculation...(Farm Book 26).
Section II
Jefferson on Slave Reproduction
Although Jefferson wanted to keep slave families together, he did not view slave family stability in entirely altruistic terms. Rather, he saw stable slave family life as working favorably toward the profitable management of his plantations. As the historian Ira Berlin observed, Jefferson and other planters cultivated a stable, family-based slave population because the workers had children and thereby transferred "the cost of reproducing the workforce to the workers' themselves" (10). Students can find this viewpoint expressed below in Jefferson's comments concerning the reproductive powers of female slaves.
To John W. Eppes
Monticello June 30. [18]20.
...having scruples about selling negroes but for delinquency or on their own request...I know no error more consurning to an estate than that of stocking farms with men almost exclusively. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. what she produces is an addition to capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption...(Farm Book, 45-46).
To Joel Yancey
Monticello, Jan. 17. [18]19. Sunday
...the mortality among our Negroes is still more serious as...they are well fed, and well clothed, & I have no reason to believe that any overseer, since Griffin's time, has over worked them. accordingly, the death's among the grown ones seem ascribable to natural causes. but the loss of 5. little ones in 4 years induces me to fear that the overseers do not permit the women to devote as much time as is necessary to the care of their children: that they [the overseers] view their labor as the 1st object and the raising of their children but as secondary. I consider the labor of a breeding woman as no object, and that a child raised every 2. years is of more profit than the crop of the best laboring man...with respect therefore to our women & their children I must pray you to inculcate upon the overseers that it is not their labor, but their increase which is the first consideration with us.... (Farm Book, 43).
Section III
Slave Resistance
By many accounts, Jefferson treated his slaves relatively well. Some slaves, however, rebelled against his authority by escape, theft, and attacks upon overseers. Readers will find in letters to and from overseers that the slaves James Hubbard, Hercules, and Billy escaped in separate incidents from Jefferson's plantations and committed "crimes" as well. Hercules first escaped and then allegedly poisoned residents of Jefferson's Poplar Forest plantation. Readers will note that Hercules also had associations with a "Negro" doctor who may have provided him with poison. They also will detect that other slaves made themselves vulnerable to punishment by shielding or hiding Hercules from plantation authorities. Billy had a history of recalcitrance and escaped shortly after attacking an overseer. After his escape, Billy joined other runaways who stole plantation livestock. James Hubbard ran away and, for awhile, evaded Jefferson's attempts to recapture him. When he finally caught Hubbard, Jefferson "had him severely flogged" and then sold him.
To Jeremiah Goodman
Monticello, July 26, [18]13.
Hercules arrived here on the 22d. having been discharged from Buckingham jail on the 20th where he had been confined as a runaway. the folly he has committed certainly justifies further punishment, and he goes in expectation of receiving it, for I have assured him that I leave it to yourself altogether and made him sensible that he deserves & ought to receive it. I believe however it is his first folly in this way, and considering his imprisonment as a punishment in part, I refer it to yourself whether it may not be passed over this time, only letting him receive the pardon as from yourself alone, and not by my interference, for this is what I would have none of them suppose...(Farm Book, 36).
From Joel Yancey
Poplar Forest 1st. July [18]19.
Your letter of June 25 I recd. last Evening. I sorry in deed you have losses, there as well as here, we have had no deaths since Heath, but a good many sick and complaining, they charge Hercules with Poisoning, and the cause of all deaths here for the last 12 months, he certainly has been intermate [intimate] with a Negro Doct. and have got physic from him. the People have kept it conceal from me till the other day as soon as I was inform of it I had them both taken before Mr. Clay. The evidence in his opinion was not strong enough to send them to jail but I am satisfied he has done a great deal of mischief, and ought to be hung, more of this when you come up, which I hope will be as soon as possible for I am in daily expectation of mischief among them. We shall begin to cut the wheat which the hail has left us in the morning, and will do my best without assistance though we shall not have as many cutters by five...(Farm Book, 44).
From Joel Yancey
Bedford 20th Oct. [18]19.
...Billy has not made his appearance yet, but expect him tonight if he started on Monday as you expected, but I had rather not to see him, if you could dispose of him any other way that would be agreeable to you, I had one time great hopes of reclaiming him, but for the last 12 mos. I despair of making him, he is certainly the most consummate, bloody minded Villan that I ever saw of his age, and he becomes more and more daring as he increases in strength, Bowley says, that Billy commenced the attack on him, with a stone in each hand, and struck him several times before he could get one of them from him, and when he did so he used it in self defence, he acknowledges with a vein to do him all the harm he could, Billy however in the scuffle got his thumb in his mouth and [bit] it severely and made his [escape.] Hanah saw it all, and told me Billy had bitt and struck the overseer before I had seen him and she expected he was then looking me, I'm thus particular, at the request of Bowling what must be done? They run from here to you and from you to here, I know of only one remedy...(Farm Book, 45, brackets in original).
From Joel Yancey
Lynchburg 22nd May, [18]21.
...Billy is still out, and have joind. a gang of Runaways, and they are doing great mischief to the neighboring stock, considerable exertions have been made to take them, but without success, I shall be glad that Mr. Randolph would come up as soon as he can make it convenient...(Farm Book, 46).
To Reuben Perry
Monticello, April 16. [18]12.
Having received information in March that Jame Hubbard had been living in Lexington upwards of a twelvemonth, I engaged a man...to go after him. he got there five days after Hubbard had run off from there having committed a theft. he returned of course without him. I engaged him to start a second time, offering a premium of 25. D. in addition to yours, besides his expences. he...persued him into Pendleton county, where he took him and brought him here in irons. I had him severely flogged in the presence of his old companions, and committed to jail where he now awaits your arrival. the course he has been in, and all circumstance convince me he will never again serve any man as a slave. the moment he is out of jail and his irons off he will be off himself it will be therefore unquestionably best for you to sell him...(Farm Book, 34-35).
Section IV
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
In a letter to Edward Coles, Jefferson described slaves as "children" and interracial unions as producing what he termed a "degradation." Section IV's documents allow readers to grapple with the facts that Jefferson probably had an intimate relationship with one of his slaves while, at the same time, he expressed disgust with such relationships. From Madison Hemings's interview, however, they find out that Jefferson fathered children with one of his slaves. Moreover, they may discern that Sally Hemings tried to exert control over her life, and those of her children, by holding Thomas Jefferson to promises he made to her when both were living in Paris, France (11). By reading of the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings, readers obtain more refined knowledge of the diversity of black/white relationships as they were negotiated within the context of slavery.
To Edward Coles
Monticello Aug. 25. [18]14.
...As to the method by which this difficult task is to be effected [emancipation of slaves]...I have seen no proposition so expedient on the whole as that of emancipation of those born after a given day, and of their education and expatriation at a proper age. this would give time for a gradual extinction of that species of labor and substitution of another, and lessen the severity of the shock which an operation so fundamental cannot fail to produce. the idea of emancipating the whole all at once, the old as well as the young, and retaining them here, is [a viewpoint] of those only who have not the guide of either knolege or experience of the subject. for, man, probably of any colour, but of this color we know, brought up from their infancy without necessity for thought or forecast, are by their habits rendered as incapable as children of taking care of themselves, and are extinguished promptly wherever industry is necessary for raising the young. in the meantime they are pests in society by their idleness, and the depredations to which this leads them. their amalgamation with the other colour produces a degradation which no lover of this country, no lover of excellence in the human character can innocently consent...(Farm Book, 38).
Memoirs of Madison Hemings [1873]
About the time of [Thomas Jefferson's appointment as minister to France] and before he was ready to leave the country his wife died, and soon after her interment...he left for France, taking his eldest daughter with him. He had sons born to him, but they died early in infancy, so he then had but two children-- Martha and Maria. The latter was left home, but afterwards was ordered to follow him to France. She was three years or so younger than Martha. My mother [Sally Hemings] accompanied her as a body servant...Their stay (my mother's and Maria's) was about eighteen months. But during that time my mother became Mr. Jefferson's concubine, and when she was called back home she was enceinte [i.e. pregnant] by him. He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred. She was just beginning to understand the French language well, and in France she was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he promised extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promise...she returned with him to Virginia. Soon after their arrival, she gave birth to a child, of whom Thomas Jefferson was the father. It lived but a short time. She gave birth to four others, and Jefferson was the father of all of them. Their names were Beverly, Harriet, Madison (myself), and Eston--three sons and one daughter. We all became free agreeably to the treaty entered into by our parents before we were born. We all married and have raised families....
Conclusion
Teachers who provide students with documentary evidence of Jefferson's associations with his slaves can accomplish several worthwhile goals. Students will not just learn that one of our greatest presidents had an affair with one of his slaves. More importantly, they will comprehend that Jefferson and his slaves together constructed lives on his plantations. Students will understand how slaves sometimes quietly negotiated with Jefferson to obtain privileges and at other times overtly resisted the circumstances under which they lived and worked. In the final analysis the agency of slaves is the most important lesson to be derived from the Jefferson-Hemings affair. Just as Thomas Jefferson's words "all men are created equal" ultimately transcends his racism and slaveholding in the minds of most Americans, so the constructive actions of slaves under bondage ultimately transcends Hemings's particular intimacies with the former president.
Endnotes
1. The body of recent literature on the South's "peculiar institution" is large and impressive. Important titles include: Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York: International Publishers, 1963); Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1998); Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon, 1974); Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (New York: Pantheon, 1976); Nathan Huggins, Black Odyssey: The African-American Ordeal in Slavery (New York: Pantheon, 1990); Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York: Norton, 1975); Leslie A. Schwalm, A Hard Fight for We: Women's Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997); and Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: Norton, 1985).
2. Useful analyses of Jefferson's associations with his slaves include Jack McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988), 94-145; and Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor for My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," in Jeffersonian Legacies, ed. Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993), 147-80.
3. Christopher Morris, "The Articulation of Two Worlds: The Master-Slave Relationship Reconsidered," Journal of American History 85 (December 1998): 982-1007. Morris discusses the "internal economy" on 992-99.
4. Darlene Clark Hine, Hine Sight: Black Women and the Re-Construction of American History (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, 1994), 35.
5. For discussion of the varieties of slave resistance, see Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 585-660.
6. See, for example, Joseph Ellis's Pulitzer Prize winning study American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Knopf, 1998), 303-07.
7. See, for example, Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York: Bantam Books, 1975), 293-318.
8. The figures for Jefferson's slaveholdings are from Stanton, "Those Who Labor for My Happiness," 148 and 172n6. The quote is from Stanton, 148.
9. Excerpts from Jefferson's correspondence quoted in this article are from Edwin Morris Betts, Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book with Comments and Relevant Extracts from Other Writings (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953). Page numbers are cited after each letter. For the most part, the spelling, punctuation, and grammar of the primary sources have been retained. Jefferson's Farm Book is a useful collection of letters and other items related to Jefferson's plantation management. Although available in some libraries the volume is, regrettably, no longer in print.
10. Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, 127.
11. The Madison Hemings's excerpt is from Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 246. (The interview also appears Brodie, Thomas Jefferson, 639). In her methodical look at the historical evidence Gordon-Reed accuses eminent Jefferson scholars of racial bias for their failure to recognize the probability of a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings. Published just one year before the release of DNA evidence, the book makes a plausible and refined, but speculative, case that Hemings and Jefferson maintained a loving, long-term relationship.
Bruce Fehn is an assistant professor and program coordinator of social studies education at the University of Iowa. He taught social studies and history for several years in private and public schools in the United States, Greece, and Spain. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He has published articles in Labor History, The Journal of Women's History, Theory and Research in Social Education, and elsewhere. He has a forthcoming book entitled Striking Women: Gender, Race, and Class in the United Packinghouse Workers of America.
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