The Monster of Monticello

[Peace Patriot]

14. The best book on Jefferson was written by an African-American woman, Annette Gordon Reed.

It's entitled "The Hemingses of Monticello." Its main subject is Sally Hemings, Jefferson's slave mistress, and her brothers, but as for laying out the excruciatingly complex, conflicted, tragic personality of Thomas Jefferson, there is no better author.

She both hates slavery--and really gets into it, and makes you feel it deeply (a very good writer!)--and DOESN'T HATE Jefferson. It is an amazing book in this respect. While she never relents in her stark portrayal of what slavery is and what it does to people, she also has the ability to see things from multiple perspectives--to see things through Jefferson's eyes, through Sally Heminges' eyes, through her brothers' eyes. Jefferson was very kind to Sally and her brothers. Gordon Reed documents all that he did for them. She makes a good case for love--Jefferson loved them! But he was also a slave holder--born to it, inherited it. He isn't really able to see out of that context--what he was born to--until he goes to Paris for a long period (taking Sally and her brothers with him). We can hardly fathom now, the distance between Virginia and Paris. The instant communications we have now did not exist. These two places were like two different planets. Virginia was home. But Paris was...the Enlightenment!

Paris was in pre-revolutionary tumult, and already had legal procedures by which slaves from the French colonies could easily obtain their freedom. Jefferson knew this. Sally's brothers, who had the run of Paris (with Jefferson's permission), knew it. And Sally probably knew it. But none of them chose to leave him. They eventually went back to Virginia with him, voluntarily. One of the brothers had become a master Parisian chef (training paid for by Jefferson), eventually worked in Boston and Jefferson wanted him to be White House chef when Jefferson was elected president, but the young man refused. He was happier and freer living on his own and making a living working in Boston. Back in Virginia, he was a slave. In Boston, he was not. And what was he to Jefferson? The best answer to that is that Jefferson treated him like a son! He was surprised by his rebellion and hurt that he wouldn't work at the White House--just like a surrogate father would be.

You could take the cynical view that Jefferson had paid for "his slave"'s expertise and expected slave service in return. But Gordon Reed does not indulge in easy, cheap cynicism. That is the glory of her book.

Gordon Reed is simply wonderful at portraying the complexity of this situation--the psychological conflicts, the tangle of family relationships in a southern household, the mixed blood lines, the social context--the denial, the hypocrisy--and then certain things arising in this quite baffling society--the brilliance of Jefferson, the love between him and a slave and that love and regard extended to her brothers. These are remarkable people, in every way. We simply must not dismiss them cynically. That is disrespectful and de-humanizing (and Gordon Reed makes this point as well--these are human beings, all of them, caught in excruciating dilemmas).

The farm slaves that Jefferson "owned" did not enjoy such privilege (education, fine clothes, trips to Paris). Their lives were more typical of slavery--drudges forced to work for no pay and with no rights. Gordon Reed does not let us forget this. But the evidence is that Jefferson was not a brutal slave-owner (was not personally mean, violent or rapacious); also, he did very poorly, financially, and died penniless. This was probably because of his generosity. He was simply not interested in making money. As for the circumstances into which he was born, it was remarkable, in itself, that he could even see that slavery was wrong. No one else in his circumstances could see that. He once wrote that slavery was psychologically damaging for BOTH slave and slave-owner--an amazing insight for a slave-owning Virginian in that era. But Virginia was HOME--to him AND to the Heminges. It was the "given" of their lives. And they did the best that they could to function in that impossible, "given" context.

I love this book. It is the first book on Jefferson that sees the whole man, and, oddly, he is not its main subject. It is also a great work of research. Sally Heminges is an elusive character because Jefferson's white descendants tried to erase her from history. Gordon Reed pieces her back together on the basis of brilliant research and well-grounded, educated guesses. And in bringing her to life, Gordon Reed brings Jefferson to life in a way that no other author has ever done.