The Hemingses of Monticello

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The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
The Hemingses of Monticello- An American Family.jpg
AuthorAnnette Gordon-Reed
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistory, biography
Publisher W. W. Norton
Publication date
2008
Publication placeUnited States
Pages800
ISBN 0-393-06477-8
OCLC 225087744

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family is a 2008 book by American historian Annette Gordon-Reed. It recounts the history of four generations of the African-American Hemings family, from their African and Virginia origins until the 1826 death of Thomas Jefferson, their master and the father of Sally Hemings' children. [1]

Contents

Content

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family provides a comprehensive account of the Hemings family, their lives at Monticello, and their complex relationship with Thomas Jefferson. Gordon-Reed wanted readers to "see slave people as individuals" and to "tell the story of this family in a way not done before". [1] It is based on the author's study of legal records, diaries, farm books, letters, wills, newspapers, archives, and oral history. [1] The book is divided into several parts, each focusing on different aspects of the family's history and their connection to Jefferson.

Gordon-Reed begins by tracing the origins of the Hemings family, starting with Elizabeth Hemings, the matriarch. She details how Elizabeth came to be owned by John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law, and explores the mixed-race ancestry of the Hemings family. [2]

Much of the book is dedicated to the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Gordon-Reed presents evidence supporting the long-debated claim that Jefferson fathered Hemings' children. She explores the complexities of their relationship within the context of slavery and the power dynamics of the time. [3]

The author provides detailed accounts of daily life for the Hemings family at Monticello. She describes their roles and responsibilities on the plantation and the privileges they enjoyed compared to other enslaved individuals. Gordon-Reed also discusses the skilled trades learned by some Hemings family members, which set them apart from field laborers. [4]

Gordon-Reed dedicates a section to the time Sally Hemings and James Hemings spent in Paris with Jefferson. She examines how their exposure to French society, where slavery was illegal, influenced their perspectives and negotiations with Jefferson upon their return to America. [5]

The book delves into the intricate family dynamics among the Hemingses, as well as their relationships with Jefferson's white family. Gordon-Reed explores the tensions and connections between these intertwined families, offering insights into the complex social fabric of early American society. [6]

The book's final sections discuss the eventual emancipation of some Hemings family members and their lives after leaving Monticello. Gordon-Reed traces the descendants of the Hemings family into the present day, exploring how they have grappled with their complicated heritage. [7]

Gordon-Reed employs an interdisciplinary approach throughout the book, combining historical research with legal analysis and social psychology to provide a nuanced understanding of the Hemings family's experiences. [8]

Reception

While The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family has been widely praised for its comprehensive research and groundbreaking narrative, historians and reviewers have also criticized it.

Some critics have questioned Gordon-Reed's interpretations of the available evidence. Historian Jan Lewis, while praising the book's "prodigious research," argued that Gordon-Reed occasionally "presses her evidence further than it can easily go" in her attempts to reconstruct the emotional lives of her subjects. [8]

The book's focus on the Hemings family has been commended and critiqued. While many applaud Gordon-Reed for highlighting previously marginalized historical figures, others, like historian David Waldstreicher, have suggested that this focus might overshadow other important aspects of Jefferson's life and times. [9]

Gordon-Reed's portrayal of Thomas Jefferson has also been a point of contention. Some reviewers, such as historian Gordon S. Wood, have argued that her depiction of Jefferson is overly sympathetic, potentially downplaying the moral complexities of his relationship with Sally Hemings. [10]

Historian Peter S. Onuf noted that while this approach offers valuable insights, it also risks making assumptions about historical figures' thoughts and motivations that cannot be definitively proven. [6]

Jefferson scholar Joseph Ellis has called the book "the best study of a slave family ever written". [1]

Despite these criticisms, the book remains highly regarded in academic circles. It has been credited with significantly advancing the study of African American genealogy and the complex dynamics of enslaved families in early American history.

Awards

The book was a finalist for 18 awards, of which it won 16 awards. In 2010, Gordon-Reed was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her works on colonial and early American history, race, and slavery. The Foundation noted that her "persistent investigation into the life of an iconic American president has dramatically changed the course of Jeffersonian scholarship." [11] [12]

2008

2009

Related Research Articles

Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a female enslaved person with one-quarter African ancestry who was owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wayles Eppes</span> American politician (1772–1823)

John Wayles Eppes was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1803 to 1811 and again from 1813 to 1815. He also served in the U.S. Senate (1817–1819). His positions in Congress occurred after he served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Chesterfield County (1801–1803).

Eston Hemings Jefferson was born into slavery at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race enslaved woman. Most historians who have considered the question believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that a descendant of Eston matched the Jefferson male line, and historical evidence also supports the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson was probably Eston's father. Many historians believe that Jefferson and Sally Hemings had six children together, four of whom survived to adulthood. Other historians disagree.

John Hemmings was an American woodworker. Born into slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello as a member of the large mixed-race Hemings family, he trained in the Monticello Joinery and became a highly skilled carpenter and woodworker, making furniture and crafting the fine woodwork of the interiors at Monticello and Poplar Forest.

The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors that he had a slave concubine, Sally Hemings. Based on his grandson's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings's children. In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson was the father of one or more of Sally's children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madison Hemings</span> American freed slave (1805–1877)

Madison Hemings was the son of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of Sally Hemings’ four children to survive to adulthood. Born into slavery, according to partus sequitur ventrem, Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation, where his mother was also enslaved. After some light duties as a young boy, Hemings became a carpenter and fine woodwork apprentice at around age 14 and worked in the joiner's shop until he was about 21. He learned to play the violin and was able to earn money by growing cabbages. Jefferson died in 1826, after which Sally Hemings was "given her time" by Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lewis Woodson</span> American academic

Lewis Woodson was an educator, minister, writer, and abolitionist. He was an early leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Woodson started and helped to build other institutions within the free African-American communities in Ohio and western Pennsylvania prior to the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Jane Woodson Early</span>

Sarah Jane Woodson Early, born Sarah Jane Woodson, was an American educator, black nationalist, temperance activist and author. A graduate of Oberlin College, where she majored in classics, she was hired at Wilberforce University in 1858 as the first black woman college instructor, and also the first black American to teach at a historically black college or university (HBCU).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monticello Association</span>

The Monticello Association is a non-profit organization founded in 1913 to care for, preserve, and continue the use of the family graveyard at Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The organization's members are lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. The site is located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Thomas Jefferson was the designer, builder, owner, and, with his family, a first resident of Monticello.

Mary Hemings Bell was born into slavery, most likely in Charles City County, Virginia, as the oldest child of Elizabeth Hemings, a mixed-race slave held by John Wayles. After the death of Wayles in 1773, Elizabeth, Mary, and her family were inherited by Thomas Jefferson, the husband of Martha Wayles Skelton, a daughter of Wayles, and all moved to Monticello.

James Hemings was the first American to train as a chef in France. Three-quarters white in ancestry, he was born into slavery in Virginia in 1765. At eight years old, he was purchased by Thomas Jefferson at his residence of Monticello.

Elizabeth Hemings was a female slave of mixed-ethnicity in colonial Virginia. With her owner, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were considered slaves from birth; they were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other slaves were inherited, along with 11,000 acres and £4,000 debt, as part of his estate by his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annette Gordon-Reed</span> American historian

Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is formerly the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gordon-Reed is noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson regarding his relationship with Sally Hemings and her children.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, owned more than 600 slaves during his adult life. Jefferson freed two slaves while he lived, and five others were freed after his death, including two of his children from his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. His other two children with Hemings were allowed to escape without pursuit. After his death, the rest of the slaves were sold to pay off his estate's debts.

Harriet Hemings was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his presidency. Most historians believe her father was Jefferson, who is now believed to have fathered, with his slave Sally Hemings, four children who survived to adulthood.

John Wayles was a colonial American planter, slave trader and lawyer in colonial Virginia. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Wayles married three times, with these marriages producing eleven children; only five of them lived to adulthood. Through Betty Hemings, a woman he enslaved, Wayles fathered six additional children, including Sally Hemings, who was the mother of six children by Thomas Jefferson and half-sister of Martha Jefferson.

Israel Jefferson, known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for years, and also rode with his brothers as a postilion for the landau carriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter S. Onuf</span> American historian and professor

Peter S. Onuf is an American historian and professor known for his work on U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and Federalism. In 1989, he was named the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of the University of Virginia, a chair he held until retiring in 2012. The chair's previous occupants included Jefferson biographers Dumas Malone and Merrill D. Peterson; he was succeeded by Alan Taylor.

Martin Hemings was an American man enslaved to Thomas Jefferson. He worked as Jefferson's butler at Monticello.

The Hemings family lived in Virginia in the 1700s and 1800s. The family consisted of Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings and her children and other descendants. They were slaves with at least one ancestor who had lived in Africa and been brought over the Atlantic Ocean in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some of them became free later in their lives. For part of their history, they were owned by the Eppes family, to the Wayles family, and to Thomas Jefferson. The Hemingses were the largest family to live at Jefferson's house, Monticello.

References

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  4. Wiencek, Henry. The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson. Smithsonian Magazine, Oct. 2012.
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