The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

This book is such small print, my husband and I are finding it very difficult to read. I wish we had known that it was this small- we would not have purchased.

Thoughtful best describes Gordon-Reed's treatment of the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings relationship. The most important aspect of this work is her research of the attitudes and behaviors prevalent after the Revolutionary War. It is very easy for one not familiar with that timeframe (and how could we be, as it was two hundred years ago) to assign "Victorian" bias to an inter-racial relationship. The author's thoroughness in explaining and identifying morals and ideas of the post-revolutionary era, as well as European/French laws and philosophies, allows the reader to understand the basis of how this relationship was created and endured for 38 years. She is not critical of either party, even Jefferson, who ensured his career was not jeopardized by never formally acknowledging his mistress or his children. All of this takes place during "heavy" political times for Jefferson. The Hemings family history is exciting and very unusual for it's day. This is a great book.

Annette Gordon-Reed has written a captivating piece of history about the Hemings family, about the way they were inexorably intertwined with the Jeffersons well before the Sally story, about the feel of what it meant for slaves like the Hemingses to live in Virginia and in other places like Paris and Philadelphia. For me, the most interesting aspect of the book is the story of Sally's brother, James. What abilities he had, what a rich life he led by the standards of his time, what a right arm he was for Jefferson, what a conflict of identity he shouldered, and what tragedy and mystery defined the end of his life! The author has shed light on so much about the story of the two families, but another interesting aspect made crystal clear by her book as well, is to have to learn and accept what we do not know, what we will never know, such as James's death, in other words, what is lost to history about that and so much else concerning slavery and the Founding Fathers.

My parents took me to Monticello as a young girl, and I have been fascinated with Thomas Jefferson ever since. I was even more intrigued when I read about his relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Annette Gordon-Reed gives us a scholarly and extensive effort in her latest book, The Hemings of Monticello. This book is not just about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but much, much more. Gordon-Reed starts with the Hemings matriarch. Elizabeth Hemings, the mother of Sally, had six children by John Wayles. Wayles was the father of Thomas Jefferson's wife, Martha. When Wayles died, his estate (including many of his slaves) passed to Martha and Thomas Jefferson. In this way, the Hemings found themselves at Monticello. The story of Jefferson and Sally Hemings is pretty well known. They allegedly had six children together, four of who survived childhood. Oral history claims that in a "treaty" made between Jefferson and Hemings while they were in France, he agreed to free any children he and Hemings had when they became adults. Jefferson did free all four children (two of them in his will). Three of the four passed into the white world once they left Monticello. What is ironic is that Heming's sons were said to look more like Jefferson and had more common interests (building and music) than his white grandsons. But much of this book belongs to Sally's older brothers, Robert and James. These two slaves were extremely close to Jefferson, and traveled extensively with him. James even accompanied Jefferson to Paris, where Jefferson paid to have him trained as a master chef. Both men were eventually freed by Jefferson in the 1790s. There is a surprising amount of information on many members of the Hemings clan. Jefferson kept meticulous records of his expenses including salaries he paid his more talented slaves, maintenance items, clothing, gifts, etc. He also left over 40,000 letters in which the Hemings are often mentioned. The only negative is that Jefferson's daughter and grandchildren are said to have purged any letters from the collection that made reference to Sally. What I found a bit disappointing about The Hemings of Monticello is that much of this story has been lost to history. This is certainly not the fault of Gordon-Reed, and she tries to deduce what might have happened in various situations. For instance, the Hemings were very deliberate in choosing names for their children, using the same names throughout generations that were important to them. Sally gave her children names from Jefferson's immediate family. "As with Sally Hemings and her children, this one-sided way of naming a group of siblings was the work either of a woman trying very hard to please a man or of a man who felt his children should bear his mark." The author also spends much time trying to analyze Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a great man, but he was not a saint. His personal beliefs did not always mesh with his actions.

Opening disclaimer: Annette Gordon-Reed is my faculty colleague at NY Law School, and I originally introduced her to Bob Weil, the editor at W.W. Norton who contracted with her to produce this book. As a result, I had an opportunity to read it in final galleys this summer prior to publication. What I have to say is naturally biased by my respect and affection for my faculty colleague. I went out on a limb to make the introduction after reading an early draft of Prof. Gordon-Reed's first book on Jefferson and Hemings, which was subsequently published by the University of Virginia Press and established her credentials as a historian of the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings. This book is a logical outgrowth of the earlier one. I think anybody interested in Jefferson or this period in American history owes it to themselves to read both books. The first is a critical dissection of the way historians had dealt (or avoided dealing) with the rumored Jefferson-Hemings connection, and is a masterpiece of investigative history. This new volume is a masterpiece of group biography, taking the Hemings as an interesting family, most of whose details were difficult to discover, and creating an engrossing account of their lives as part of the extended Jefferson community at Monticello. Jefferson began building his dream house there about the time he married Martha Wayles, and Elizabeth Hemings and several of her children came to Monticello as slaves as part of Martha's inheritance when her father died. Sally Hemings was a daughter of Elizabeth and John Wayles, Martha's father, and thus was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife. From there the complications of family interrelationships build and compound on each other. What I love about this book is the vivid way that Gordon-Reed reconstructs a lost past, immersing the reader in details of everyday life. My favorite chapter is the one describing the process by which Sally Hemings, newly arrived in Paris to attend to Jefferson's daughters during his period as US Ambassador to the royal court of France, was innoculated against smallpox at Jefferson's instigation. That sounds like a simple thing, but it wasn't at the time, and Gordon-Reed has uncovered previously obscure original sources to describe the unusual, lengthy process in those days before modern medicine. It is utterly fascinating.