>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington D.C.
>> Welcome everybody.
I am Mark Dimunation.
I am Chief of the Rare Book and
Special Collections Division
at the Library of Congress.
And I am happy to welcome you to
the second of 4 sessions devoted
to the Thomas Jefferson
Library Special Program.
The program will work like this: our
speaker will have about 30 minutes
to talk, 10 minutes for
question and answer.
We ask that you come to the
microphone when you have a question
so that we can record
the question as well
and we will try and keep on time.
When a lifelong concern for
race relations which began
in her childhood in East Texas
intersected with a Harvard J.D.
and a chosen career in law;
Annette Gordon-Reed emerged
as a strong critic
of American racism.
And as a powerful proponent
for spotlighting African
American culture.
Her first book, "Thomas
Jefferson and Sally Hemings,
An American Controversy" published
in 1997 convincingly documented
the long supposed affair
between Jefferson and Sally
Hemings, one of his slaves.
It also immediately propelled her
to fame as a Jefferson authority.
And as a participant of what has now
been nearly a 20-year conversation
about Thomas Jefferson and his
attitudes towards race/slavery.
Gordon-Reed's publications since
that moment have looked at the issue
of race in America from
several perspectives.
In 2001 with Vernon E. Jordan
she co-authored his memoir,
"Vernon can Read" where she
continued to hone an approach
that incorporated what she
called "black people's input
and black people's
participation in American society".
She continued in this theme in one
fashion or another as the editor
of "Race on Trial, Law and Justice
in American History" in 2002
and as a contributor to "Jubilee,
the emergence of African
American Culture" in 2003.
But certainly it was with the
2008 publication, "The Hemingses
of Monticello: An American Family"
that Gordon-Reed rose
to national prominence.
In this book, she brought
new insight
to the Jefferson's
relationship with Hemings
and the 7 children he had by her.
A narrative that had
once been riddled
with speculation was now solidified
into an actual compelling story
that plays Jefferson and Hemings
in the social context
of their place in time.
And for this effort Gordon-Reed
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize,
the National Book award
for non-fiction
and numerous other awards including
ultimately the MacArthur Fellowship
or the Genius Award in 2010.
This is a finely crafted,
highly detailed work that is
as provocative as it is persuasive.
It raises questions about love,
family and race in the face
of a seemingly insurmountable
institution.
Please welcome Annette Gordon-Reed,
who this afternoon will
be discussing Jefferson
and "The Hemingses of Monticello".
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
Thank you very, very much.
It is always good to
be back in Washington
for the National Book Festival.
This is my second time
here with the festival.
I was also very privileged to
participate in an exhibit--
as an advisor on an exhibit about
Jefferson and his contribution
to the Library of Congress.
Do you know that his books-- the
books that he sold to the Library,
form the core of the Library's
collection and we did an exhibit
which celebrated the attempt to--
actual to bring all of his books
back to the Library of Congress
to try to reconstitute
the collection.
So I have been back here at the
Library of Congress to talk a number
of times so I feel a great
kinship with the place.
>> Except they can't see your face.
>> They can't see my
face I'm told, okay.
Just [laughter] so it is always a
great pleasure to be here with you
and to discuss Jefferson.
Jefferson is such a multi-faceted
figure as you will see today
with the number of people
who are on the program,
the person who preceded me;
the people who will come
after me give different
aspects of Jefferson's life
and Jefferson's personality
and Jefferson's story.
My focus has been upon Jefferson
and slavery and the question
of Jefferson and race and Hemings.
And through that to explore
basically the foundation
of the American nation through
Jefferson because he is seen
as someone rightly and
wrongly and fairly and unfairly
as in some ways the
personification of America.
I am currently finishing a
book called "Most Blessed
of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson
and the Empire of Imagination"
which I see is another
iteration of my exploration
of Jefferson's life
and life at Monticello.
After my first book, "Thomas
Jefferson and Sally Hemings:
An American Controversy" which
really looked at the historiography
of Jefferson and Hemings:
how historians had
talked about the story.
I got the idea that one of the
reasons it was so difficult
for many people to accept what the
Hemingses and other enslaved people
at Monticello had to say about
life at the plantation and life
with Thomas Jefferson
and Sally Hemings is
that people really didn't know
anything about the Hemingses.
When people discussed
Sally Hemings they referred
to her as a slave girl.
When they talked about Madison
Hemings, her son they would refer
to him as an enslaved man
or a slave, where you were
to trust this slave who said this.
Slaves are always trying to
make their situation better--
to make their situation look
better and disassociation
with Jefferson was why he claimed
falsely that he was the son
of Thomas Jefferson and
I was offended by that.
Not only because you have a group
of people who were the objects
of slavery, the objects
of this oppression
who were not taken
seriously which seemed to me
to be a tremendous moral
problem just as a matter of fact.
If you are really interested in
history you want not the story just
that you want-- makes you
feel good or you know,
happy but you want the real story.
And so if you're looking for
that I thought that all the sort
of normal ways that you asses
credibility should be applied
in this situation.
Looking at what the
enslaved people had to say,
looking at what black families
had to say about their families
and comparing it to what
Jefferson's family had to say
and what other whites were saying
and to weigh these 2 things
evenly in the balance.
So that is what my first
book was really about.
I really was not out to
prove that Thomas Jefferson
and Sally Hemings had
a relationship.
Although I will have to say that
I wrote the book chronologically.
The very-- from the
introduction to the end
and if you read the book you see
me getting a bit more convinced
as we go along because the
more research I began to do,
the more I realize that wait a
minute there is something to this.
And if I am writing the book
today I probably would go back
and any author will tell you
this, most authors will tell you
that there would be things
that they would do differently.
And if I were doing that
book today, I would go back
and re-write it and
make it more even.
You wouldn't see the progression
of my thought in so clearly
as you see-- but it
was my first book
and I was doing the
best that I could do.
"The Hemingses of Monticello"
grew out of that effort
because I thought, "Well
if you don't know anything
about people it is easy
to say things about them,
if you have no stake
in these people".
I live in Manhattan and very often
or occasionally I am introduced
to my neighbors and then I find
myself seeing them all the time.
You know, before I probably walked
past them a million times never
noticed them.
But in seeing them you begin
to wonder if you don't see them
after a while, "I wonder
where this person is?"
Or if they have kids you say,
"I wonder why the kids
are not with him now?"
What is it?
What's going on?"
You have a stake in them
and you care about them.
So what I wanted to do with "The
Hemingses of Monticello" was
to move things beyond an argument
and move things beyond a
discussion of Tom and Sally.
And I have to say when I first
started writing this I said,
"I am not going to spend that
much time on Tom and Sally at all"
which was crazy obviously because
she is a pivot in the story.
But I was so resentful of the
fact that she had sort of taken
over the entire story and I realized
that Sally Hemings was an individual
but she was an individual
who existed within a context.
And it was a context of a family.
She was somebody's daughter.
She was someone's friend.
She was someone's mother.
She was someone's aunt and cousin.
And she was connected to Jefferson
not just through their one
on one relationship but there
was a web of relationships
that explained what happened there.
And unless you bring that entire web
into view you really can't
understand the 2 of them
and you can't understand
Jefferson alone.
A friend of mine, Virginia
Scharff who wrote a book called,
"The Women Jefferson Loved".
The first time I met her
she said something to me
that I had always felt but I had
never put it this particular way.
She asked a question.
She said, "What would happen
if every single person
in Jefferson's life mattered?"
In other words, if all the people
around him were not just pawns.
Not just sort of window dressing.
Not just scenery to sort
of make him look good.
But what if you took all
of their lives seriously,
what would he look like?
And that is what I wanted to
try to do with "The Hemingses
of Monticello" because I was
interested in the Hemingses
as a family but I was also--
I realized that this was part of
a scholarly project that I have
which culminates in a 2-volume
biography of Jefferson.
The book that I am
talking about that will be
out in April is a part
of that as well.
But to try to understand
this particular individual,
his relationship to slavery, his
relationship to the American nation;
and to do that by looking
closely at the Hemings family
and his connection to them in a
way that illuminates their lives
but illuminates his life as well.
So for people who don't
know the Hemingses came
to Monticello through a marriage.
Jefferson married Martha
Wayles Skelton,
a widow who had had a husband
briefly who passed away early
as often happened in
that time period.
Jefferson married her
and she was the daughter
of a man named John Wayles who
was wealthy immigrant from England
who had made a name for himself.
He-- brought to this
country as a servant,
actually in other Jefferson
biographies he is described
as a person who is trained
as a lawyer in England.
And I discovered working on
"The Hemingses of Monticello"
that in fact he was a
servant who was brought over.
Very big difference between being
trained as a lawyer in England
and being a servant brought over
which changes your understanding
of Martha Jefferson completely.
What her life must have been like.
But John Wayles was very talented.
He became a well-known,
prosperous lawyer and planter
and a slave trader actually.
And he had lots of land
and lots of slaves.
Jefferson marries into the
family and when John Wayles died,
Jefferson inherited 135 slaves.
Among those slaves
were-- the Hemings family.
The matriarch of whom
was Elizabeth Hemings
who had become John Wayles'
concubine/ mistress perhaps we can
talk about there is a big
controversy now because of John--
because of Julian Bond's
[phonetic] death.
He had mentioned that his
great-grandmother was slave-mistress
and the New York Times
used that word "mistress"
which touched off a fury
because people thought
that that sounded sort of, you
know, played down the implications
of sexual relations
between masters and slaves.
It implied consent.
I don't agree with that but
we can talk about that later
in the 10 minutes we have
left allotted perhaps.
But in any event, she became--
in her grandson's words,
his concubine after
his third wife died.
And he had 6 children with them, the
youngest of whom was Sally Hemings--
actually born Sarah Hemings.
So when John Wayles dies they
come into the ownership of Thomas
and Martha Jefferson and
they move to Monticello.
And Elizabeth is there for the
next 4 decades essentially.
And one of the reasons I was able to
do "The Hemingses of Monticello" is
because Jefferson was an
inveterate record keeper.
And he kept detailed lists
of the farm operations
and of the enslaved
people on the plantation.
Slavery was a business.
You keep track of inventory.
He had the names, the birth
dates of the slaves who were born
at Monticello and his
outlying plantations.
So I was able to track the Hemings
family through these decades
which is a difficult thing to
do for most enslaved people.
It is difficult as well because
in many instances after the 1800's
and the beginning of the 1800's
when slave owners began to go west,
they took slaves with them.
And Virginia later in the Nineteenth
Century becomes a place where--
the sort of focal point of the
internal slave trade so lots
of families were broken up
during that time period.
The Hemingses-- because of their
connection to Jefferson stayed
in one place for 5 decades.
And you see generation after
generation of family pretty much
in the same place and so I was
able to reconstruct their lives
through Jefferson's records
through some of their own records.
Some members of the
family were literate
and through the oral history of
the Hemings family afterwards
and I understand the
problems with oral history.
That it is difficult to keep-- it's
like playing a game of telephone.
One person tells one person
something and by the time it gets
around the room it can
be changed quite a bit.
If you think of that in terms of--
across years, stories can be lost
but there are ways to check things.
You check things from other
records, corroborating evidence.
I am sure anybody who
is a genealogist
in the room knows how this is done.
It is something that
genealogists do all the time to try
to find things outside
of the oral history
that support what people are saying.
So those kinds of things-- all of
those different methodologies--
this is one of the fun
things about doing--
what fun [laughs] slavery
and fun those 2 words don't--
you don't think of them as going
together but if you are detective
which historians must
be at some level.
You must love doing
this kind of thing.
I love being in the archive.
I love fathering things out.
One of the difficult parts of doing
slavery scholarship is piecing those
things together but it's
difficult but it's fun to do.
Finding the little things that fit.
Finding the little things
sometimes that don't fit
and that is always a pain when you
think you are going down one road
and you are sure that you are
right and you hit something
that tells you, "Nah,
you're understanding of
all of this is wrong.
You have to go back
to the drawing board".
But I love that kind of thing and
you have to love that kind of thing
in order to do it and if you are
going to do it well I think that has
to be a part of your make up.
So this story was tailor
made for what I like to do
and what I have been doing sort
of as a hobby most of my life.
Sort of looking stuff up,
piecing things together
and I start off the first
section of the book--
it's a very long book but I am
told that it is quite readable.
3 parts to the book.
The first part of the book
introduces you to the Hemings family
and we get them to Monticello.
Explain all of the relationships
that exist and the people.
There is a family tree--
excuse me that is necessary
because everybody has the same name.
They're John's, Martha's,
Paulie's, Mary's--
various incarnations of that
so we have a family tree
that helps you keep
everything together.
The first section introduces
these people and tells as much
as we can the story of Elizabeth
Hemings, Thomas Jefferson
and the beginnings of
the American Revolution.
After the revolution is
successful Jefferson is called upon
to go to France.
They had asked him to go previous
times but he was unable to do it
because his wife was very sickly.
His wife died in 1782.
His wife who if you are not
keen to what I said before--
just to make it plane,
Jefferson's wife was the half-sister
of Sally Hemings.
So it is one of those sort of
Virginia genealogies that--
it's all mixed up and so forth.
And people, you know, I was
in England this past year
and I give talks there and
I try to explain this people
and I get these sort of puzzled
looks on their face like, "What?"
But they had a colonial
society so they--
I mean they are being pretending--
they're pretending when
they say they don't--
[laughter] when they don't
understand all of this.
It's feigned ignorance
on their part I think.
But twisted genealogy,
strange genealogy
and when Martha dies her sisters and
Sally, they are all around the bed.
The kind of, you know, bizarre,
bizarre tableau that is hard for us
to imagine but we know happened.
So after Martha dies,
the revolution is over.
The states-- the United
States will be United States
and are on their way.
Jefferson goes to Paris
on a trade miss--
he was supposed to go to negotiate
the peace treaty but peace broke
out before he could go
and the treaty was signed.
So he went to do other
things, trade representatives--
he eventually succeeds
Benjamin Franklin.
He goes to Paris and he takes
with him James Hemings who is--
many readers from letters that I've
gotten probably most people's--
the people's favorite
person in the book.
An enormously talented older
brother of Sally Hemings,
who is taken by Jefferson to France
to learn how to become
a French chef.
Jefferson was a great admirer of
French cooking and French wine.
So he wanted a French
cook at Monticello
so he took James to do this.
And James-- in the second part
of the book I tell this story
of James arriving in Paris.
James is sent ahead-- he doesn't--
as far as I know he
hadn't studied French.
Perhaps he did have a few
words-- excuse me, could I--
forgot to bring my water up.
Thank you very much.
Jefferson sends him ahead
to make hotel reservation
while they are at court.
So you get a sense of this young man
who is from the middle of nowhere
in Virginia who is
suddenly in Pa-- in France.
Who goes off to negotiate with
people to get a hotel room
which he successfully does.
He then goes to Paris with Jefferson
and begins to-- his
training as a chef.
He trains in some of the best
kitchens in France: Chantilly, the--
home of one of-- a member
of the French Royal family.
Chantilly has a-- this
wonderful chateau
that had a stable for 287 horses.
I mean it makes Monticello look
like a tool shed [laughter]
and there is-- you know, I
mean the French succumbed
Virginia's aristocrats.
I mean I am not cracking
on them but you know--
you know, I mean I am not
cracking on Virginians
but to call them aristocrats and
to think about a place like France.
That is where they had a revolution.
I mean where they had-- the people's
families were 1,000 years old.
Where there is just
like-- well if you--
it is just amazing the
difference between rich there
and rich here during
that time period.
And so you think about
this young man.
I ask you to think about this young
man who has been raised to believe
that the people who own him are so
far above everybody in the world.
And then he goes to this place
that doesn't have slavery and--
legalized slavery like that
and to see this opulent world.
So this part of the book
is about James Hemings.
Sally Hemings makes an
appearance through this
because at some point Jefferson
wants his younger daughter whom he
has left with his sister-in-law
who is-- in this twisted genealogy,
Sally Hemings' half-sister with his
youngest daughter as a companion.
And he asks his daughter
to be brought
over by a middle-aged negro woman.
A careful middle-aged negro
woman who would bring her over.
And instead his in-laws send
Sally Hemings who is 14.
And Abigail Adams is aghast.
They first-- they spend 2 weeks
at Abigail Adams' home in London
because that is where she
was supposed to go Pat--
Polly was supposed to go there
and Jefferson would
come and pick her up.
Jefferson does not go pick her up.
He sends his servant
to go pick her up.
And Abigail is really,
really upset about this.
John is upset about this as well.
You brought your daughter
over and you have not
to come get her yourself.
And she is heartbroken which is an
interesting thing we talk a little
bit about it in the book.
About why Jefferson
didn't go to get her
but it's an interesting
point about his personality.
In any event, so Sally Hemings
comes to Paris and the 2 of them--
the brother and sister
are reunited there.
They have a completely
different life
that they would have
had at Monticello.
They're paid wages.
This is the first time Jefferson
has paid the slave people wages.
And their paid very good
wages as a matter of fact.
I sent-- when I was working on
the book, I sent these wage tables
to people who study Eighteenth
Century France and work
and Jefferson paid them a lot.
He also paid them every month which
was interesting because in Paris,
in France you were paid once a
year-- at the end of the year.
And sometimes-- and you know,
money that you get at the end
of the year is hypothetical money.
It is not real money until you
actually get it but the difference
between being paid a high
wage and paid every month--
they were in a fairly good position.
France was free territory in the
sense that everybody who petitioned
for freedom in France
during this time period--
the petition was granted.
So they could have
petitioned for freedom.
They knew that and indeed
when Sally Hemings and--
is about to come home
or Jefferson wants
to bring them home,
she doesn't want to go.
Now, at some point
during this time period,
we don't know when Madison
Hemings said that Thomas Jefferson
and Sally Hemings began
a relationship.
She said-- she became
Mister Jefferson's concubine
and he uses that term, "concubine".
And again terminology,
what does that mean?
Some people take that
to mean, you know,
concubine is akin to prostitute.
Other people say well, you know,
concubine was basically a term
for a woman who lived with
a man without being married
which is what this was, what
term would he have used.
But in any event, she
doesn't want to come home
and Jefferson convinces her that she
will have a good life at Monticello.
Her children will be free
because Virginia followed the rule
"Partus Sequitur ventrem" that is
that you were what your mother was.
That was not the rule
they had come over with.
The rule that in England had been
you were what your father was.
and you can think about how that
changes the nature of slavery
if the condition of slavery follows
through the mother
versus that of a father.
You would have lots more
free, mixed race children
in America than the other way.
But the Virginia legislature
decided-- legislature decided--
House of Burgesses as it
would have been at that time,
decided to switch it to you
are what your mother was.
And she knew that so Jefferson
convinces her that that is going
to end at her family-- that
her children will be free.
She will have a nice
life at Monticello
and so she comes back
with Jefferson.
Now she is 16 at the time.
So that could be a part of it.
I mean, a 16 year old might
be convinced of things--
a 16 year old probably in
that time period was not
like a 16 year old today.
It is interesting.
I was working on this book and
my daughter was around that age
and so you-- you're sort
of thinking, "Ah-- yeah--
Ah what kind of judgement
would a 16 year old-- ".
But a 16 year old would not
have been thought of as a child
in that time period, the way
we think of a 16 year old
or a 26 year old today
or-- [laughter].
The age keeps going up, you
know, 30 year old teenagers.
Wouldn't have been
thought of as a child.
The age of consent
in Virginia was 12--
it was actually 10 and they
raised it to 12 in 1820
so they had a different
understanding
about things than we did.
But in any event so she comes home
and that ends the second
part of the book.
And the third part of the
book really is about life
at Monticello among all the other
members of the Hemings family.
Sally Hemings obviously
comes back into play.
Their children come back into play.
Beverly who is an eldest-- is a
boy, William Beverly, Harriet,
James Madison Hemings
and Thomas Eston Hemings.
All of these are people who--
named for people who are connected
to Jefferson in some fashion.
And we talk about that-- I
talk about that in the book.
And sort of detailed their lives
as much as we can be ascertained
and a good amount can be ascertained
about what happened to them there
at Monticello in this
third part of the book.
The book ends with the story of
the Fossett family which is also--
they're members of
the Hemings family.
Jill Fossett was a grandson
of Elizabeth Hemings.
He was a blacksmith
at Monticello and head
of the blacksmith shop
at Monticello.
And he is one of the 5 men that
Jefferson freed in his will.
Jefferson freed 2 older
Hemings children,
Beverly and Harriet informally.
They wanted to live as white people.
So in 1822 they left and went to
Washington D.C. and they have sort
of disappeared from the record
because they never
received free papers.
They never-- they just disappeared
and because there is no paper trail
we don't really know who they are.
Every once in a while someone pops
up and claims to be a descendant
of Harriet like you know, there
was a woman in Charlottesville
who claimed to be one of the Czar
Nicholas's children, Anastasia.
So it is somewhat like that,
you know people come along
and we really don't think that these
people are actually descendants
but probably-- there
are definitely people
out there who are descendants.
We just don't know who they are.
Madison and Eston are freed in
Jefferson's will along with 3
of their uncles and they
live in Charlottesville
with their mother until
her death in 1835.
She is not formally freed.
She is informally freed.
She is-- what they call
it "given their time".
And people ask me about, you
know, why didn't he free her?
We can talk a little bit about
that too in the 10 minutes
but there are reasons
for that are not--
may not be satisfactory
to people today.
But in the end, all of
the children go free.
After Sally Hemings dies,
Madison and Eston move to Ohio
and live their lives-- one
person lives as a black person.
The other one lives
as white-- Eston does.
But I end with the Fossett family
because I think their family
exemplifies really the dual nature
of the Hemings families'
life at Monticello.
They are enslaved people but
they suffered all the possible
insecurities that existed
for slaved people.
Joe Fossett is free but
his children are not.
His wife is not freed
and he asks members
of the Charlottesville community
to purchase members of his family.
And he promises to
purchase them back.
He will work and save money and
purchase them which he does.
Except his youngest son Peter
Fossett who was sold at age 11
on the auction block at Monticello--
after Monticello had to be sold
because Jefferson died in debt.
The person who owned him would
not sell him back to his parents.
They refused.
He kept trying to get them to
do it and they would not do it.
And eventually the Fossett
family moves to Ohio, Cincinnati
and Joe Fossett begins--
Joseph Fossett begins to make
a place for himself there.
There is something
of a happy ending.
After many years, Peter Fossett
is able to buy his freedom.
He joins his family in Ohio.
He becomes a prominent
minister and a caterer.
And we know all of this because
when he dies there are 2 very large
obituaries of him in
Cincinnati newspapers
and they talk about his life.
He also gave an interview about
life at Monticello before he died.
And I end with this story because
it shows, I think, the resilience
of family and the importance
of family
in African American community.
That they never lost faith in
one another and their cha--
and their thought that
they would be together--
their hopes that they
would be together
and they worked to make this happen.
Nevertheless, it indicates
the problems.
It shows you that as privileged
as the Hemings family was--
if you want to call them that.
If you can even use that term to
describe a person in slavery--
nevertheless they suffered the pain
of separation and the pain of loss.
The Hemings family, the resilience
that they showed the Fossett showed
and other members of
the family I think is--
sometimes that kind of thing
is offered to as if it--
well, people think that
it makes slavery okay.
There is nothing that
can make slavery okay--
they have a triumphant
story at the end.
But I did want to end with
Sally Hemings and her children
because they actually end
up free many decades before
other African American people--
other 4 million African
American people were freed
after the civil war.
So for them, there
was something of a--
victory is too strong a word to say
but there was a good
outcome for them.
The downside is that it required
in some ways American racism
or their response to American racism
required the loss of their family
because Beverly and Harriet as
I mentioned to you, disappeared.
They kept in contact with Madison
Hemings and their brothers and Eston
for a time but then
they lost contact.
Eston Hemings decided living out on
Ohio that things had become too bad.
At some point Ohio began to
crack down on African Americans
and his children-- he wanted
a future for his children
and he didn't think that he
could do that and remain black.
So the family-- he took his
family and moved to Wisconsin.
Changed his name to E.H. Jefferson--
Eston Hemings Jefferson--
you can see it in the census.
When they're in Virginia
it's, you know, Eston Hemings
and you know his wife Julia
Hemings and his children:
John Wayles Jefferson--
Hemings and so forth.
When they get to Wisconsin, the next
census the names are all different.
They are living as white people.
Members of the community apparently
accept them as white people.
Even though they know--
when you say, "people passed
for white" it doesn't
mean necessarily
that they actually looked 100% white
because a person described
Eston Hemings as light,
bronzed color with a-- and
this is the phrase he used,
"visible admixture of negro blood".
And he used, "visible admixture"
because that was the legal standard.
You could look at a person and see
that they looked black then
they were considered black.
Virginia had a fractional law.
It was if you were one eighth
black you could be considered white
which was different
than the one-drop rule.
So in other words, during
Jefferson's time it was the standard
for being white was less stringent
than it was in the Twentieth Century
or after-- when Virginia
and other states began
to adopt the sort of One-drop rule.
So-- Ohio went to the visible
admixture standard and Eston moved
to Wisconsin and made a life
for himself as a white man.
His son, John Wayles Jefferson
was a lieutenant coronel
in the Union army.
Madison Hemings' children were off--
were soldiers in the Union army.
And Jefferson's legal grandson,
George Wythe Randolph was the
secretary of the confederacy.
So here is this story and
there is going to be a volume 2
of the Hemings family that
talks about the line of fam--
these lines of families-- the
difference between being white.
One group says, "We're white".
Another group says, "We're black"
and their different fortunes based
upon that particular decision.
And all of this starts
back in, you know,
1830's when Elizabeth
Hemings is born.
The child of an Englishman
and an African woman
who becomes the mistress/concubine,
whatever-- rape victim--
some people insist on
saying of John Wayles.
Has 6 children, marries into
Thomas Jefferson's family and helps
to shape life at Monticello.
And one of the things
that I talk about in my--
co-author and I put Peter Onuf
talk about in our new book,
"Most Blessed of the Patriarchs"
is how the Hemings family shaped
Jefferson's attitudes about slavery
and how his time in France resulted
in a shift in his attitude.
So this is a continuing
progress, you know, process.
I expect-- I hope to be back
at this venue for the rest
of my life doing various
incarnations of this story
that is endlessly fascinating by a
man who is endlessly fascinating.
And whether they take him off the
Jefferson Jackson dinner's thing
or not-- whatever they do, there is
no way to take him out of history.
There is no American history
without Thomas Jefferson
and I think people
should understand that.
People do understand that
and keep that in mind.
So thank you very, very much.
I'm-- [applause] I'm supposed to--
[ Applause ]
I'm su-- I'm supposed to tell
you so that you can be recorded.
Anybody who has questions
should come to the mic
and please don't be
afraid to do that.
I am going to make John Mitchum come
if nobody comes to
ask me a question.
>> Okay?
>> Yes.
>> The caricature of
Jefferson in emergence
in the popular imagination is of
a slave owner who imposed himself
on a young slave girl
who had no choice.
I at least in reading your book got
the impression this was a much more
complex relationship.
And that these were 2 people
who may have actually genuinely
loved each other and that
in another time or place may well
have wanted to have a life together.
I wonder if you could talk
a little bit about that.
>> Well that's-- usually that
questions comes at the end
of all this thing and I've had a
chance to think about it for a time.
It's a very, very tough subject.
The one-- there is no question
that once Sally Hemings comes back
to Virginia she is
totally under the control
of Thomas Jefferson
and under Virginia law.
The one thing I talk
about in the book--
I was trying to make sense of
Madison Hemings' recollections
and his story of his family.
He tells a story of his mother
and father that suggests
that these people entered into
what he uses the term "treaty".
Now people say, "Well
how is that possible?
Because he is a slave
owner and she is enslaved"
but they are not in Virginia.
They're in a place where
the law was on her side
and where Jefferson thought
the law was on her side.
There's a letter he writes
to a person who says--
he is essentially saying,
you know, twice to a guy
who has brought his slave to France
and says you know, "What can I do?"
And Jefferson basically says
if they find out that they're--
the law here there is
nothing that can be done.
So to my mind it is not
right to invoke Virginia law
to suggest what happened in France
because both parties understood
that the law was on her side.
And he felt that he had
to make promises to her
in order to get her to come back.
That is not the typical situation
that happened in Virginia,
that happened across the South.
In American, most slaves
would not have had that kind
of opportunity unless you say-- the
thing that is uncomfortable to me is
to make it sound as if a person
who is born enslaved necessarily
acts the same no matter
where they are.
Even when they are
in free territory,
even when they know they have free--
that they have the
chance for freedom.
Even when they have money.
Even when they're lawyers
in that place
who do pro bono work to
file these petitions.
It is just not the same.
I don't feel comfortable
treating them the same way and so
that is why I have a
discussion in the book.
That is one of the reasons the
book is long because you can't--
these are not simple things.
And you have to explain--
go through and explain.
Sure it is possible that
they loved each other.
It is possible that she wanted to
come home to be with her family.
I mean, this is more a dilemma.
I mean you think about
this from all angles.
One of the reasons enslaved people
didn't run away-- think about it.
Would you like to be free
without the rest of your family?
What would it be like to live in
France with just your brother?
Because I think her brother
was in on this as well.
Before he leaves-- just in the
months before he is supposed
to leave he-- well, it was
the year before he's supposed
to leave he hires a man
to teach him French--
proper French which
doesn't sound like somebody
who thinks he is going
back to the United States.
And indeed after he comes back
and Jefferson frees
him he travels back--
James Hemings travels
back to Europe.
So I think it is a complicated
situation and I understand people
who take the position that any
kind of contact between a master
and an enslaved woman is rape.
That is it the equivalent
of statutory rape
but we can't use the law
because the law, I mean,
in law-- wouldn't recognize rape.
The rape of an enslaved
woman by somebody other
than a master was a trespass.
So people didn't even recognize
that but we know that--
there is something called rape
that exists outside of law.
But I think the power,
the opportunities
that she had there make the
question much more complicated
than people typically think it is.
And that is what I want to-- show.
It is not just a caricature of a--
it is not an edict that
applies to every situation.
>> Hi, James Ellis who follows
you it is one of those--
>> Joe.
>> Most historians think that
there was a sexual relationship
between Sally Hemings and
Jefferson-- Thomas Jefferson.
James Ellis and I guess
another minority I guess think
that it was actually Jefferson's
12 year younger brother
that had the sexual
relationship with Sally Hemings.
Could you explain--
>> Well, here is what happened.
All of-- Randolph Jefferson
is Jefferson's brother--
younger brother who appears
on the scene November 2,
1998 after the DNA tests came back.
All of the people before
had insisted
that it was one of
Jefferson's nephews.
Once the DNA came back and ruled the
Carr brothers out the same people
who had been saying that
it was the nephews all
of the sudden bring
up Randolph Jefferson.
But there is nothing in the
historical record to support that
and one of the diff--
I think that I am going
to write a book-- [laughter].
I want to write a book or--
no, it can be an article and
I would call it "Damage".
And I would go through and see
all of the people whose lives
and reputations have been wrecked in
service of trying to save Jefferson.
First it was Peter
Carr who was married.
Peter Carr was a married man
[applause] Peter Carr was a married
man and historians insisted
that he was the father
of Sally Hemings' children.
We know nothing about that.
Sam Carr was a married man.
Randolph Jefferson was
married during some of the time
that Sally Hemings was having
children, was not married--
he was in between wives
because wives died
in those days and husbands died too.
But he-- again, you
are accusing somebody--
married men of having long
term relationships with women
and there is no evi-- I mean,
history has to be based on things
that people indicate-- the
indications during the time period
that something happened
but there is nothing there.
I mean, Randolph literally--
I mean, actually appears the
day the DNA results came back.
And someone who had
written to me before saying,
"It's gotta be the
Carrs" that same--
next day, I get an email saying, "It
must have been Randolph Jefferson
or Isham Jefferson or
some other Jefferson".
So yeah it will never be-- I don't
think it will ever be resolved
in the minds of some people
because they just don't want it.
And if people don't want something,
it is not going to happen.
So I don't, you know, I don't
know what else to say except
for history we have to look back
at the time period and
see the connections.
What are the connections
between Randolph Jefferson
and Sally Hemings and
we don't have that.
We just don't
>> I am terribly sorry.
We are going to have
to cut questions off
so we can keep [applause]
please-- thank--
>> Thank you very much.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.