Finally, Hemings’ story affected members of Jefferson’s white family, notably his grandchildren, who, for the benefit of the historians who they knew would one day come calling, fashioned an image of life at Monticello designed in part to obscure her relevance. It had resonance within black communities as ministers and black journalists in the early American Republic preached on and referred to Hemings’ family situation, one that would have seemed quite familiar to their predominately mixed-race audiences, most of whom were free precisely because their fathers or immediate forefathers had been white men. Her connection to him inspired the first novel published by a black American. On the other hand, politically ambitious men with power used Hemings and her children as weapons against Jefferson while he was alive and in the decades immediately following his death. Much has been written about Jefferson’s daughters and grandchildren, and they are treated as historically important simply because of their legal relationship to him, even though none of them ever figured in the politics and public life of his day. Sarah Jefferson.” She was depicted in cartoons and lampooned in bawdy ballads-all alongside Jefferson.Įven though she was not in control of her life, Hemings must be seen as a figure of historical importance for a multiplicity of reasons, not the least of which is that her name and her life entered the public record during the run-up to a presidential election. During the early part of the 19 th century, Sally Hemings appeared in newspapers as “Dusky Sally,” “Yellow Sally,” and even “Mrs.
Others-journalists, Thomas Jefferson’s enemies-determined how she entered the spotlight and they put her there with no real interest in her as a person.
She neither spoke publicly about her life nor engaged in any public acts that have been recorded, but she, her children, her mother, and other members of her family were dragged into the national spotlight in a way unprecedented for individual American slaves.
Hemings does not fit the bill on any of these accounts.
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