I don’t actually remember requesting this book by Catherine Kerrison from my library, but I got a notification from Overdrive a couple months ago that this audiobook was available for me to borrow. With a subtitle like: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America, how could I not be intrigued?
I’ll admit that I didn’t know much about Jefferson, much less his daughters, before listening to this audiobook. Most of what I knew about him before reading this book I read in Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton.
Obviously, we all know about Sally Hemmings, although I had not realized that Hemmings was probably Jefferson’s wife’s half-sister, meaning Sally’s children were not only half siblings to Jefferson’s legitimate children, but also their cousins. It doesn’t get any more redneck than siblingcousins.
Unfortunately, this book doesn’t paint Jefferson as a very considerate father, at least where his daughters were concerned, although that was pretty much par for the course at the time. Women existed to entertain men and keep them comfortable, and Jefferson raised his daughters with these expectations.
We learn a little about Martha Jefferson Sr., Jefferson’s wife, before her untimely demise, at which point the book starts to focus more on Maria and Martha Jefferson Jr. Shortly after the death of his wife, Jefferson became the American ambassador to France and headed to Paris with Martha while leaving very young Maria behind with family members. He promised to send Maria a doll, but never came through, and unlike most young children, Maria did not forget about the promise and continued to remind her papa about the deal in her letters to him. Not that it did any good.
Young Maria became so attached to the aunt, uncle, and cousins she was staying with that she didn’t want to leave them when Jefferson finally called her to France a couple years later. Her aunt and uncle tried to argue on her behalf, but Jefferson never changed his mind the way they expected him to, so they ended up having to trick Maria by bringing her on a ship and leaving her when she was asleep. Her only traveling companion was a teenaged slave named Sally Hemmings.
Meanwhile Martha was adjusting to life in Paris, France, which was very different from life in rural Virginia. For starters, she was educated in a Catholic school, and despite the fact that Jefferson was assured she would not be in danger of converting while living and studying in a Catholic institution with Catholic teachers, her time there did persuade her that Catholicism was the one, true religion, even though she never officially converted.
She also learned to discuss politics like a French lady, although women in America were discouraged from discussing such topics. Instead, when Jefferson visited her once a week, he insisted she learn to play the piano, and practice, so she could entertain him and his guests. He also scolded her for wearing her school uniform when he visited, insisting that she should dress in a manner more pleasing (to men) when she was not in school.
Maria was so young when her father left for France, and he was gone so long, that she didn’t even recognize him when they met up in France.
Poor Sally Hemmings was only 16 when she arrived with Maria in France and was already pregnant by the time they returned to Monticello not much later, so the Hemmings deniers who want to claim it was Jefferson’s brother who fathered Sally’s children would have a hard time explaining that one, since Jefferson’s brother wasn’t with them in France. I’m sure they would claim it was some Frenchman, despite the fact that Sally’s son’s resemblance to Thomas Jefferson was remarked on in several letters from Jefferson’s lifetime.
Sally’s brother had arrived in Paris with Jefferson and Martha and was well on his way to becoming a French pastry chef by the time Sally arrived. Kerrison points out that France was technically a free state, although it did allow American travelers to bring their slaves with them if they paid a fine. Jefferson apparently did not pay this fine on either Sally or her brother, and Kerrison makes it sound like they could have made a run for it and remained free in France, rather than go back to Virginia in bondage, but if that’s the case, why didn’t they? She mentions the fact that the rest of their family was still in bondage back in Monticello and that the pull of blood ties would have drawn them back to slavery, plus the fact that they didn’t know anyone else in Paris.
But Sally’s brother must have learned at least some of the language while studying to become a pastry chef. And he had marketable skills! It should have been easy for him to find a job. And as for not wanting to leave their family and not knowing anyone, slaves ran away from their masters all the time, leaving behind family members and heading north to unfamiliar cities with nothing more than someone’s word that they might be safe there.
Nevertheless, Kerrison posits that Sally might have used her status as Jefferson’s concubine to negotiate better terms for her and her children: that they would be house slaves, rather than field slaves, that they wouldn’t have to work until they were 14 (much older than most slaves were put to work), and that her children would eventually be freed. I have to admit I like this version of Sally, a slave with absolutely no power, successfully negotiating with a wealthy white man who had all the power. Although it doesn’t explain why her brother chose to return to Virginia with them.
Jefferson ended up reneging on the part about freeing her children, although he apparently allowed Harriet to run away and might even have paid for her train ticket north. Still, by not granting Harriet her freedom, he let her live out the rest of her life in danger, since any black person without freedom papers (and many with freedom papers) could be sold south into slavery.
Since Harriet was more white than black, it’s possible she chose to pass for white, marry a white man, and have kids with him. She was in contact with her brother for a few years, who gave vague reports as to how she had fared, but wouldn’t say who her husband was or where they lived, knowing that to do so would put her in danger.
It’s too bad that this book spends so much more time on Martha and Maria than on Harriet, but since they left behind journals and letters and Harriet couldn’t leave behind any of that, it makes sense that Kerrison had more to draw on when talking about their lives, compared to Harriet’s life. She combed the census records of the time and gives a few theories as to whom Harriet might have married, but has to admit that she can only ever guess at the life Harriet led after fleeing Monticello. She covered her tracks too well for anything else.