3.11: Sally and James Hemings, and Shifting Dymanics of American Slavery

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello was his home, his castle, and in a way, his personal fiefdom: he had legal control over the happenings at this place, over the lives of its inhabitants.  This included the hundreds of individuals who were held in bondage during Jefferson’s lifetime, although one particular family name stands out as being more prominent than others.  Historically, the Hemings family and the Jefferson family are forever intertwined due to the complex relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, but her brother, James, is also noteworthy.  In this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, we’ll examine the shifting dynamics of American slavery using the experiences of Sally and James Hemmings.

Key People
Sally Hemings
James Hemings
Thomas Jefferson

Key Events/Ideas
Three-Fifths Compromise
Emancipation
France's "Freedom Principle"

The third season of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on the stories of individuals who shaped "America's Crucial Years" of 1783-1790, and runs from October 8-December 24. Catch up on Season One, "America's Colonial Era," and Season Two, "America's Revolution," wherever you listen to your podcasts!

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Transcript

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello was his home, his castle, and in a way, his personal fiefdom: he had legal control over the happenings at this place, over the lives of its inhabitants.  This included the hundreds of individuals who were held in bondage during Jefferson’s lifetime, although one particular family name stands out as being more prominent than others.  Sally Hemings was arguably the most well-known enslaved individual during her lifetime…well, her name was well-known, as was the scandal associated with her and Thomas Jefferson.  The average American would not have been able to accurately identify her image, let alone dive into anything resembling her family life.  Historically, the Hemings family and the Jefferson family are forever intertwined due to the complex relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, but her brother, James, is also noteworthy.  Brother and sister both traveled to Paris at the request of Jefferson in the 1780’s, both had the opportunity to continue life as free individuals…and both decided to return to the United States after the French Revolution, returning to a nation that would once again mandate their bondage.  The circumstances behind this decision are as complicated as the lives they lived, and it's these two who demand our focus: on this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, the second in our arc on “continuity and change,” we’ll examine the shifting dynamics of American slavery using the experiences of Sally and James Hemings.

Act I: Three-Fifths
Understanding the experiences of these siblings involves background on the nation’s acknowledgement of slavery, which is certainly a significant continuity, at this time.  In episode 3.8, we focused on the Great Compromise that resulted in the creation of Congress, while touching upon the accompanying Three-Fifths Compromise.  To recap:  in arguing for a proportional Congress, one in which a state’s number of representatives was based on their population, the question arose as to how said population would be tabulated.  By and large, Northern states had either abolished slavery, or were placing themselves on the path towards emancipation.  Southern states very much allowed slavery, and the influence of large landowning slaveholders was evidenced by the fact that about 25 of the 55 signers of the Constitution were slave owners…and this doesn’t include Virginians George Mason and Edmund Randloph, who, as we know, refused to sign the final document.  Enslaved individuals constituted a large portion of the Southern populace, and the 1790 census shows that 3 out of every 10 individuals in the South was enslaved.  The legal status of these people meant that they were considered property, property that could be bought, sold, and traded on the whims of one man: property that could be treated however one man saw fit, with no recourse.  Given this dynamic, Northern delegates insisted that Southern states not be allowed to count slaves as part of their official population: after all, if slaves, who had no legal rights, including suffrage, were counted, the Southern states would receive an inflated number of representatives if Congressional seats were apportioned by population.  On the other hand, Southern delegates insisted on counting slaves because the labor performed by these individuals made up a significant portion of the wealth and economic prosperity of the region, so that had to count for something, right?  The deadlock was solved when James Wilson of Pennsylvania proposed the Three-Fifths Compromise, wherein every five slaves would be counted as three persons for census purposes: a proposal to eliminate this measure was defeated 10-1.  I, like so many students, have always wondered: where did this fraction come from, and why was it so readily agreed to?  Like so many issues this season, it goes back to the Articles of Confederation: in the early 1780’s, Congressman James Madison proposed a way for the Confederation Congress to collect taxes based on each state’s population.  Northern states wanted slaves to count as a “full person” so Southern states would have to pay more, while those same Southern states only wanted a 2-1 ratio.  Madison split the difference and made it ⅗, so even though it never officially passed, this is why the fraction was all-too familiar to the representatives in Philadelphia, and why it was added to the original Constitution.

Act II: Teenager in Paris
As we begin looking at Sally Hemings and what her experiences teach us about the complexities of enslavement during the crucial years, let’s start by acknowledging the individual whose work catapulted the Hemmings family into the public consciousness: Annette-Gordon Reed.  The result of her intense scholarly research was the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.  It deserves every accolade it earned, and is a real eye-opener, so if you want the full version of what follows…buy the book.

Our account begins with Thomas Jefferson’s time in Paris as Minister to France in the mid-1780’s; Sally Hemings was not one of the servants who made the original journey with Jefferson, but she accompanied his daughter, Mary, also called Polly, when he sent for her in 1787 upon the death of her two-year old sister, Lucy.  At this point, it makes sense to acknowledge the role of the extended Hemings family in the action to come.  Sally was the daughter of Elizabeth, or Betty, Hemings, a woman whose parentage was that of a “White captain of an English trading vessel” and a “full-blooded African” mother.  Offspring of parents who were of different races was not uncommon for this time frame, and generally speaking, the father identified, or was identified, as white, while the mother was black, and often, enslaved.  This dynamic spoke to the legalities of chattel slavery in which one’s status as a slave was inherited via one’s mother, so such a union occurred with increasing frequency in societies that permitted the ownership of human beings.  Betty’s mother was considered the property of John Wayles, so by extension, Betty’s legal status was the same.  Wayles fathered six children with Betty, all after the death of his third wife, and two of which would be James and Sally.  The Hemings/Jefferson connection began upon Thomas’s marriage to Martha Wayles, and as the sole surviving child of Wayles, Martha inherited all of her father’s slaves upon his death in 1773; to be clear, these people were to be legally considered Martha’s property, not Jefferson’s, a situation similar to what George Washington experienced upon his marriage to Martha Dandridge.  Sally was the last of Betty’s six children born via John Wayles’s paternity, and all moved to Monticello following their legal transfer to the Jefferson household.  This meant that all six of Betty’s children, including James and Sally, were Martha Jefferson’s biological half-siblings.  Again, family situations such as this occurred frequently as slavery became more entrenched…they just weren’t discussed.

This brings us back to 1787 France.  Sally Hemings enters this narrative when she accompanied Jefferson’s daughter Polly to France due to the illness of the expected adult chaperone; she was born in 1773, just as the American colonies were about to be swept up in the Revolutionary fervor following the Boston Tea Party.  She lived through the Revolution, which included Jefferson’s time as Governor of Virginia and subsequent evacuation of his home when British forces led by Banastre Tarleton arrived with the intent of capturing him in 1781.  Accounts abound of individuals held in bondage by Jefferson using this opportunity to escape, though none of the children of Betty Hemings and John Wayles did so.  In 1787, Jefferson, who had been abroad in France for several years, sent for his eight or year-old daughter Polly, as sources differ, to travel to France by way of England and reside with him.  After crossing the Atlantic, the two were greeted in London by Abigail Adams, who was to help them begin the journey to Jefferson’s Parisian residence.  Polly was quite distressed that her father had not personally greeted her so they could accompany one another back to France; her tears were apparently so uncontrollable that Abigail suggested that Jefferson should not only leave for London, but bring his daughter Patsy with, as she had been in France with him from the start and could potentially soothe her younger sister.  14-year old Sally was a different story: no image has survived bearing her likeness, and even though she was the half-sister of Jefferson’s deceased wife, we don’t even know for certain how much, or if, they resembled one another.  However, Captain Ramsay, the captain of Sally and Polly’s ship, suggested that Sally return to America with him; the official reason for this request has gone unrecorded, but Abigail Adams claimed that he believed Sally would “be of so little service that he had better carry her back with him.”  One doesn’t like to assume the worst, but it doesn’t exactly sound noble.  Abigail said little of Hemings after this, but misjudged her age to be about 15 or 16.  In an era when girls were commonly forced to wed at this age, his mischaracterization is very telling and could speak to her physical appearance.  She arrived in Paris with Polly on July 15, 1787, and although we are uncertain of what her specific role was in Jefferson’s French world, it was during this time that the narratives of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson became intertwined. 

Act III: The Skilled Chef
While Sally’s role in Jefferson’s Parisian residence is unclear, we do know much more about the role of her older brother James in Paris, so we’ll focus on him during this act.

James was the second of Betsy Hemings and John Wayles’s children, and was just 19 when he accompanied Thomas Jefferson on the initial voyage to France in 1784.  He was living in Richmond, Virginia, at the time of Jefferson’s request, having found adequate housing and work for himself.  This was not unusual for James as he would more or less be “out and about” when he was not directly catering to the whims of Jefferson.  Nevertheless, he was still considered legal property, so when Jefferson called, James was obligated to answer.  After a quick stopover at Monticello to see family, Hemings joined Jefferson and his daughter Patsy and they crossed the Atlantic in summer 1784.  Hemings was sent ahead to secure accommodations at their first stop along the way to Paris, so the trust Jefferson had in Hemings regarding finances is telling, as is the fact that he was seemingly allowed to freely travel alone in France.  This serves as a clue that the concept of slavery, as it existed in the United States, was not going to hold sway on the other side of the Atlantic.

Up to this point, Hemings had more or less served as the personal attendant of Thomas Jefferson, but the former was to take a different path in the soon-to-be-nicknamed City of Lights.  Thomas Jefferson is somewhat infamous for enjoying the finer things in life, be it intellectually stimulating conversation, good food, or fine wine, the latter of which was a taste acquired by his time abroad.  For the price of 150 francs, James Hemings began his training as a chef, training with a man named Combeaux, who happened to be Jefferson’s caterer.  France, and specifically, Paris, is synonymous with delicious food, and chefs who are privileged enough to train in the city enjoy top-notch reputations.  Even today, the name “Le Cordon Bleu” evokes images of fine dining and excellent taste, which is why Julia Child became such a sensation when she published Mastering the Art of French Cooking and popularized it for a largely American audience.  The training that James received would have been highly coveted, and would make him not only an indispensable asset to the Jefferson household, but would provide him with a marketable skill set with which he could potentially continue to earn his own income upon return to the United States. Upon the completion of this training, Hemings went one step further and began learning about pastry-making, another coveted form of French cuisine.  The price of these lessons was steep, but he was learning from the best, and again, it was all with the intent of serving Thomas Jefferson’s household.  This type of training would unlikely be offered to Hemings in America, so he took full advantage of the freedom he had to hone his craft and learn the French language, which he appears to have grown proficient at.

James enjoyed the mobility that was so familiar to him back in Virginia, and the wages that Jefferson would pay him as his personal cook enabled him to adequately take in the sites and sounds of Paris.  That’s right, paid…it wasn’t entirely uncommon for enslaved individuals who possessed a specific skill, such as a carpenter, mechanic, or in this case, a chef, to hire out for additional work.  Unfortunately, their status meant that the ability to keep these wages was entirely up to the discretion of whomever legal owned them.  However, Hemings was compensated at a rate of four dollars per month, or a little over 90 dollars in today’s money, and since it was Jefferson who was doing the paying, Hemings was free to do whatever he wanted with the money.  And speaking of “free,” this is precisely what Hemings should have been once he set foot on French soil: “Free.”  He remained in France from 1784-1789, and would have been subject to what was called the “Freedom Principle,” which meant that every slave who set foot in France gained their freedom once they did do.  Sure, French officials would often issue decrees that protected individuals who brought enslaved individuals back to the country from French colonies, and there was even a law passed in 1777 that actually prohibited individuals of African descent from living in France.  Anyone fitting this bill was supposed to be registered by their master, or else they would lose these individuals that they claimed as property.  Jefferson never registered James or Sally, and he technically wasn’t supposed to bring either of them into the country; however, enforcement of this decree was incredibly lax, and the courts almost always adhered to the Freedom Principle.  This stands in contrast to their American counterparts who, in the summer that Sally would arrive in Paris, included a Fugitive Slave Clause in the new Constitution.  This law wouldn’t gain notoriety until it was enhanced in the decade leading to the Civil War, but Article IV, Section II, stated that if an individual was enslaved under the laws of one state and escaped to a state which forbade slavery, said individual had to be returned if their owner claimed them.  It wasn’t always followed, but it was on the books, and it serves as one way in which the continuity of slavery was upheld in the United States.  Yet on the subject of James and Sally, this wasn’t to be: their return to the United States, and thus bondage, would not be due to any claim laid by Jefferson, but by their own free will…sort of.

Act IV: Dreams of Freedom
Well, not exactly.  In our final act, we’ll attempt to provide some clarity as to the fates of James and Sally, along with how their lives were illustrative of life under American slavery while also respecting their experiences as individuals.

First up, James.  He would have received ample opportunity to interact with the black population of Paris, a population, which meant that he would have been well acquainted with the laws that would have ensured his freedom.  While in Paris, he is also credited with creating the prototype of what we now call macaroni and cheese, something for which children, and parents, the world over are eternally grateful.  He returned to the United States in 1789 (more on that in a bit), and he continued to work for Jefferson as his personal chef.  The two would move to New York City when Jefferson assumed his role as Secretary of State for the new nation, and James was the chef for the Compromise of 1790: this was the dinner, hosted by Jefferson, in which Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton met with Congressman James Madison to break the Congressional impasse on Hamilton’s proposed financial program.  We’ll address the bargain next week, and the financial program next season, but the deal was done; unfortunately, no record exists of exactly what was said at this meeting, nor what James cooked up for the occasion.  He again left with Jefferson for Philadelphia, which would serve as the temporary national capital, and he continued to run Jefferson’s kitchen.  He also was present on a month-long tour of the Northeast that Jefferson undertook with Madison that, as we shall learn next season, had more than a few ulterior motives.   
James’s status was somewhat similar to what it had been in Paris: Jefferson paid him wages for his work, he had relative freedom of mobility…but yet, his life and body legally belonged to Thomas Jefferson, and this was unacceptable to a man such as James Hemings.  This would change in 1793 as James was able to negotiate a deal with Jefferson: he would return to Virginia, train a replacement to run Jefferson’s kitchen as head chef, and then he would be freed.  This replacement ended up being James’s brother Peter, and the training took two years.  With that, he was free, although the terms of the manumission did not have the force of law: it was an informal document written up, signed, and sent to Jefferson’s son-in-law Thomas for safe-keeping.  The wording of the document also makes it clear that Jefferson hoped to employ James in the future, but this wasn’t to be: when Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, he reached out to James to hire him as his Presidential Chef.  James shuffled his feet in responding: maybe it was pride, maybe he really was thinking twice about working once again for the man who controlled the lives of many of his family members, but his response took so long that Jefferson hired another in his place. He would unfortunately die not long after this offer, taking his own life in 1801.  He lived a life of education, culture, and travel…while also suffering the bondage that so many shared during this time.

Sally is certainly a different story.  It has been speculated that her time in Paris was most predominantly spent as maid to Polly and Patsy in the convent school in which they attended, but official records do not indicate that she accompanied Jefferson’s daughters to this school; nevertheless, she was paid the equivalent of $2 per month for her role in his household.  At some point, she apparently caught the eye of Thomas Jefferson, or as her son Madison stated, she became “Mr. Jefferson’s concubine.”  Like so many aspects of the relationship between the two, not a single scrap of paper was written confirming what was verbally stated, or how it officially came about.  Yes, she was the biological half-sister to Jefferson’s deceased wife, but remember that we don’t necessarily know if that means they physically resembled one another.  Captain Ramsay’s insistence on bringing Sally home with him might have been related to her physical appearance, which was said to be quite beautiful.  Jefferson was in his mid-40’s when Sally arrived and spent her time in Paris, while she remained a teenager.  Keep in mind that this wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence in early America, but it does make for a bit of modern-day culture-shock.  The storming of the Bastille, which kicked off the French Revolution, had begun, and Jefferson would depart with his retinue a little over two months later.  Based on the date of birth, the first of Jefferson’s children with Sally was conceived at about this time; therefore, when Jefferson was preparing to head back to the United States, Sally knew full-well that remaining in France would guarantee the full emancipation of herself and unborn child.  Much of what we believe happened next came courtesy of an account provided by Madison Hemings, Sally’s fifth son via Thomas Jefferson.  Madison would write that, “He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him, but she demurred.”  “Demure” meant that the man who always got what he wanted, Jefferson, was to be denied by a woman he legally considered to be his personal property.  Benevolent as history has made him out to be, he would not have expected to get this type of response, and he was desperate for her to return.  Holding all of the cards, as it were, Sally bargained for something in return for her voyage home: all of her children were to be freed when they reached the age of 21.  Madison Hemings would write, “In consequence of his promise, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia.”  A pregnant teenager, enslaved at that, stood toe-to-toe with one of America’s most revered statesmen and authors, and though her freedom was not immediately impacted, she secured it for the family that would come to be so important to her.

So Sally returned to Virginia, transported with her brother to a nation that considered her property.  Sadly ironic that, two years before their return, delegates in Philadelphia agreed to allow the trans-Atlantic slave trade to continue for at least another 20 years.  This implicit inclusion of something that forbade discussion of slavery helps explain why Congress refused to do anything about the subject for at least that time period, and here she was being transported like so many others whose fate was that of bondage.  Sally formally held a variety of roles at Monticello, one of the more prominent being that of a seamstress.  Unfortunately, little is known about her perceptions of her life with Jefferson, whether it be in France, New York, Philadelphia, or back at Monticello.  Her level of literacy, if any, also continues to be a subject of debate.  What is known is that her first child with Jefferson died shortly after birth, and she would give birth to six more children…and Jefferson would honor his promise to free them by age 21, in some cases, earlier.  James Callendar, a Scotsman who has entered into the American consciousness as a “scandalmonger,” publicly exposed the relationship between the two during Jefferson’s first term as president and attempted to engage in what was called “character assassination.”  Jefferson publicly said nothing, and it was clear that Callendar was simply upset that he had not been given a role in Jefferson’s government, so the latter’s popularity actually improved following the revelations.  Jefferson would precede Sally in death by nearly one decade; Sally’s death in the mid-1830’s would come as the nation was a decade and a half removed from the controversial Missouri Compromise, and two and a half decades away from the Civil War.  Slavery had become a firmly entrenched institution by this point, and the emancipation granted to the children of Sally Hemings was becoming an increasingly rare occurrence.  Yet this woman remained strong and courageous throughout her life, selflessly putting familial interests ahead of even her own, proving that conviction and determination can help one overcome the steepest of odds.

Next week on History: Beyond the Textbook, our final of season 3, we close out our “continuity and change” arc with the deal that created the national capital, and one of the men charged with surveying the land…yet he accomplished so much more.  Our next episode of History: Beyond the Textbook spotlights Early America’s Unsung Renaissance Man: Benjamin Banneker.