Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings is a 2016 historical fiction novel by American writer Stephen O'Connor. The novel depicts the relationship between Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, and Sally Hemings, his slave and sister-in-law. The depiction, which portrayed the relationship as consensual and romantic, was the focus of controversy due to questions about Hemings's status as a slave and her age difference with Jefferson.
The novel utilizes several storytelling devices through which O'Connor depicts a fictionalized account of the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson. Per the book jacket, " O’Connor’s protagonists are rendered via scrupulously researched scenes of their lives in Paris and at Monticello that alternate with a harrowing memoir written by Hemings after Jefferson’s death, as well as with dreamlike sequences in which Jefferson watches a movie about his life, Hemings fabricates an "invention" that becomes the whole world, and they run into each other "after an unimaginable length of time" on the New York City subway." [1]
O'Connell chose to title the novel Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings after discussing it with his editor, as there was concern that the title "indicated that this book was neither nonfiction—history or biography—nor a conventional historical novel." He further noted that the novel presented Jefferson who "has and lacks power simultaneously" and that the novel's dream-like and surreal states was chosen because he "wanted to render some of the complexity of the real world, especially when it comes to someone like Jefferson, whose character seems such a mix of the admirable and despicable that his biographer, Joseph Ellis, called him an “American Sphinx.”" [2]
Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings was first released in the United States on April 5, 2016 through Viking in hardback. [3] A paperback edition was released through Penguin Books the following year. [4]
Upon release Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings has received both praise and criticism. [5] Criticism for the novel focused on the portrayal of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings; praise centered upon O'Connell's writing.
Jean Zimmerman of NPR gave the novel a favorable review, praising O'Connell's research and writing while also noting that the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings made them uncomfortable but that "history's discomforts have their attractions all the same." [6] Ron Charles of the Washington Post also praised O'Connell's writing and research. [7] Meredith Maran of the Chicago Tribune felt that O'Connell "takes a risky stance, characterizing a multi-decade sexual relationship between a slave owner and a slave as anything other than rape. What justifies the risk is his insistence on using a full palette and tiny brushes to draw these characters, rejecting broad brush strokes in black and white." [8]
O'Connell's depiction of the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings received criticism from some media outlets and on social media. Points of contention focused on whether Hemings was capable of consenting to a relationship due to being a slave as well as the age difference between the two; Jefferson was in his 40s while Hemings was approximately 14 years old when their relationship is believed to have begun. [9]
Constance Grady of Vox and K.W. Colyard of Bustle both noted that as Hemings was a slave, she would be incapable of giving or withdrawing consent, with Colyard further stating that "You can't wave a magic wand and make historical tragedies disappear because you want to write a shocking, "sexy" story." [10] The novel was criticized on social media and by authors such as Ijeoma Oluo and Roxane Gay. [10] [9]
Of the relationship between the two historical figures, O'Connell wrote in an author's note that he "At the beginning I assumed that Jefferson and Hemings' relationship had commenced with rape and amounted to, at best, a grudging submission on her part to demands she was powerless to resist …. Eventually I came to believe that Hemings's feelings for Jefferson might well have fallen somewhere along the spectrum between love and Stockholm syndrome." [8] Ron Charles noted that depicting the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson was difficult, as if "he makes Sally a willing participant in this relationship, he risks excusing the malignancy in our national mythology. But if he portrays Sally as a wholly powerless victim, he denies her ability to negotiate the contradictory forces at work in Jefferson’s delusional paradise." [7]
Brendan Wolfe of Encyclopedia Virginia was critical of Grady's Vox article, as he felt that they were viewing the novel and Hemings through a modern day perspective. He stated that there was no concrete evidence that Jefferson fathered Hemings's children as the DNA evidence could only show that a male of the Jefferson family was the father. Wolfe also wrote that the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings was something of which that historians only recently began to argue in favor. He also questioned the accuracy of the term 'teenager' in the time period that the book was set, as it was a more recent term and that in Hemings's time she would be seen more as an adult than a child or anything in between. [11]
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Among the Committee of Five charged by the Second Continental Congress with drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was the document's primary author. Following the American Revolutionary War and prior to becoming president in 1801, Jefferson was the first U.S. secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams.
Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 14. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the labor of African slaves for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current nickel, a United States coin, features a depiction of Monticello on its reverse side.
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was an enslaved woman with one-quarter African ancestry owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.
"Children of the plantation" is a euphemism used to refer to people with ancestry tracing back to the time of slavery in the United States in which the offspring was born to black African female slaves in the context of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and European men, usually the slave's owner, one of the owner's relatives, or the plantation overseer. These children were often considered to be the property of the slave owner and were often subjected to the same treatment as other slaves on the plantation. Many of these children were born into slavery and had no legal rights, as they were not recognized as the legitimate children of their fathers. This practice was a form of sexual abuse and exploitation, as the European men who fathered these children often used their power and authority to force themselves upon the black females who were under their control. The trauma and suffering that these children and their mothers experienced as a result of this practice continue to have a lasting impact on the African American community.
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brown, who escaped from slavery in 1834 at the age of 20, published the book in London. He was staying after a lecture tour to evade possible recapture due to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Set in the early nineteenth century, it is considered the first novel published by an African American and is set in the United States. Three additional versions were published through 1867.
Jefferson in Paris is a 1995 historical drama film, directed by James Ivory, and previously entitled Head and Heart. The screenplay, by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, is a semi-fictional account of Thomas Jefferson's tenure as the Ambassador of the United States to France before his presidency and of his alleged relationships with Italian-English artist Maria Cosway and his slave, Sally Hemings.
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.
Partus sequitur ventrem was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies in the Americas which defined the legal status of children born there; the doctrine mandated that children of slave mothers would inherit the legal status of their mothers. As such, children of enslaved women would be born into slavery. The legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem was derived from Roman civil law, specifically the portions concerning slavery and personal property (chattels), as well as the common law of personal property.
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 from Jefferson's presidency 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' children. Before changing his mind following the results of DNA analysis in 1998, Jefferson's biographer Joseph J. Ellis had said, "The alleged liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings may be described as the longest-running miniseries in American history." In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson is the father of one or more of Sally's children.
Thomas Jefferson is a 1997 two-part American documentary film directed and produced by Ken Burns. It covers the life and times of Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the United States.
James Madison Hemings was the son of the mixed-race enslaved woman Sally Hemings and her enslaver, President Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of her 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.
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.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph of Albemarle County was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, and as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The favorite grandson of President Thomas Jefferson, he helped manage Monticello near the end of his grandfather's life and was executor of his estate, and later also served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.
Barbara Chase-Riboud is an American visual artist and sculptor, bestselling novelist, and award-winning poet.
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.
Arc d'X (1993), by Steve Erickson, is an avant-pop novel. Upon publication in 1993 it received wide attention particularly from other novelists such as Thomas Pynchon, Tom Robbins and William Gibson, and has been translated into Italian, Japanese and other languages.
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.
Sally Hemings has been represented in the media in popular culture due to her association with Thomas Jefferson. She has been portrayed in films and the inspiration for novels, plays and music.
Stephen O’Connor is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His most recent novel Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings has been published by Viking. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker,The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, and New England Review. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, and Agni. His poems have been in Poetry,The Beloit Poetry Journal, and Missouri Review.
Since his death, Founding Father and third U.S. president Thomas Jefferson has been an iconic American figure depicted in many forms. Jefferson has often been portrayed by Hollywood, and has been depicted in a wide range of forms including alternative timelines, animation, documentary, small cameos, and fictionalized interpretations.