The topic of Thomas Jefferson, slavery and Hemingses has been the subject of several scholarly works and popular histories in recent years. Here we look at six titles representing several points of view on the subject over the course of thirty years. The considerable sustained interest in the topic has enabled all to remain in print.
“Wolf by the Ears” pays special attention to Jefferson’s philosophy on slavery and race. “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings” focuses on the relationship of the Jefferson-Hemings principles. “Jefferson-Hemings Myth” inspects available evidence including DNA and suggests a Randolph Jefferson liaison alternative besides Thomas or the Carr brothers.
“Hemingses of Monticello” investigates three generations of the family, with Sally in the middle, assessing a consensual concubinage relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. “Those Who Labor for My Happiness” from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation relates Jefferson’s philosophy, plantation rationale, and relationships with his slaves. “Master of the Mountain” paints a portrait of an idealist youth condemning of slavery who finds he cannot maintain his personal lifestyle without it.
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Wolf by the Ears
John C. Miller wrote Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery in 1980. It is now available at the University of Virginia Press and online new and used.
Miller accounts for Jefferson’s political or philosophical outlook on slavery and race, slaves and mulattos. He emphasizes Jefferson’s oft-repeated condemnation of slavery as an institution in the American republic, yet notes his inconsistency by practicing slave-holding and racial discrimination in a slave-holding state.
In Jefferson’s early career, he sought to lessen slavery in the United States, including an attempt at gradual emancipation in his design for the Virginia Constitution in 1776 and in his drafts for both the Old Northwest and Old Southwest Territories. But by the Missouri Crisis of 1820, he had retreated to believing the end of slavery should be left to future generations.
After discussion of the Hemings family and its blood relationship with Martha Jefferson, Miller suggests Jefferson’s nephews, Peter and Samuel Carr fathered Sally Hemings’ children, an argument contradicting Fawn Brodie in her Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History of 1974, and subsequent scholarship.
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Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Annette Gordon-Reed wrote Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy in 1997. It is now available from the University of Virginia Press, on Kindle and online new and used.
Legal scholar Gordon-Reed writes both to marshal evidence concerning the fathering of Sally Heming’s children, and to examine alternative readings of the evidence by other historians. She does not assert that surviving evidence supports a definitive conclusion. What she does do is to consider the African American sources such as Madison Hemings that were previously ignored.
The Sally Hemings branch of the slave Hemings family was most favored, with all four of Sally’s children emancipated near the age of twenty-one. Gordon-Reed also speculates about the relationship of the Jefferson-Hemings principles, its duration and its meaning to the two participants.
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Jefferson-Hemings Myth
Robert Coates Eyler edited The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty in 2001. It is now available online new and used.
Following early responses to Jefferson and Hemings descendant DNA tests, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) turned to several kinds of authorities to investigate facts related to Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings without “politically correct” ideology. These included scholars Lance Banning, Robert H. Ferrell, Alf J. Mapp, Jr., David N. Mayer, Forrest McDonald and lastly, Paul Rahe who took exception to the conclusions of the other historians.
The TJHS report found that among the twenty-five male relations of Thomas Jefferson, the most likely candidate to sire Sally Hemings son Eston was Thomas’ younger brother Randolph Jefferson who was known to “play the fiddle and dance” with slaves in their quarters. Suspicion is cast on the political attacks against Jefferson and transcripts related to Madison Hemings autobiography. Reasoning and evidence of those asserting Thomas Jefferson fathering Sally Hemings’ children are questioned.
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The Hemingses of Monticello
Annette Gordon-Reed wrote The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family in 2006. It is now available at W.W. Norton Publishers, on Kindle and online new and used.
In this book, Gordon-Reed uses legal analysis and historical imagination to investigate three generations of the Hemings slave family, from Elizabeth Hemings of John Wales plantation, to Sally Hemings of John Wales and Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, to Hemings children on Jefferson’s plantation, freed or allowed to “stroll”.
Most of the book is devoted to a most unusual planation complex of ownership and family relations among the kinship links between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Later historians grounded some of their argument for a chaste widower Jefferson on white supremacy arguments. But both Sally Hemings and her brother James chose to return to Virginia when they might have had their freedom guaranteed in Paris for the asking.
Gordon-Reed settles on describing the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings relationship as “concubinage” of consensual, if not equal partners. The family networks were extensive: on Jefferson’s return, he and Sally Hemings visited Eppington Plantation near Norfolk, home of Jefferson’s sister-in-law who was also Sally’s half-sister.
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Those Who Labor for My Happiness
Lucia Stanton wrote “Those Who Labor for My Happiness”: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in 2012. It is now available from the University of Virginia Press, on Kindle and online new and used.
This book is a collection of essays by a public historian at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. The focus is Jefferson as a human being and as a slaveholder. The first part examines Jefferson’s relationship to slavery, including personal philosophy and feelings, along with his rationales for plantation management and interactions with his slaves.
The second and third sections examine the African American experience for those touching on Jefferson’s life. These concentrate primarily on the Hemingses, the Fossetts and the Trotters, all of whom enjoyed higher status with Jefferson and within the slave community. These essays view Jefferson “from the other end” of the plantation telescope.
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Master of the Mountain
Henry Winecek wrote Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and his Slaves in 2012. It is now available on Kindle and online new and used.
Winecek aggressively paints a picture of a young Jefferson who knows slavery is wrong, but once he finds it personally profitable, abandons principle and fully endorses the institution of slavery, ensuring that it would “fit into America’s national enterprise”.
The author takes calculations understood by Gordon-Reed to be about slave profitability in Virginia relative to English labor costs and argues that it was Jefferson’s personal epiphany to entrench slavery in the American republic. Much is made of 18th century child labor practices in Jefferson’s nailery.
Shortly after Jefferson’s election to the House of Burgesses in 1769, the young Piedmont Virginian sought to overturn the statute banning private manumissions, consistent with the anti-slavery teachings of his mentor George Wythe. A senior legislative colleague introduced the bill and was greeted with a hail of vocal condemnation and defeat. The shy Jefferson was warned in a personally embarrassing way not to get to far ahead of public sentiment. Much is made of Jefferson’s racial bias for a society of whites without resentful blacks angry at exploitive treatment during slavery.
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