Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings Read Free Page A

limits to the horror my life—or any life—could contain. How could I have lived in such ignorance? How could I have believed so many lies, and lied so often to myself? Why is it that every time I glimpsed the faintest shadow of the truth, I covered my eyes and ran as far as I could in the opposite direction? I feel as if I never actually lived my life but only sleepwalked through it, dreaming. . . .

T here must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.
    â€”Thomas Jefferson
    Notes on the State of Virginia
    Written in 1781–82, published in 1787

E arth has covered the face of Martha Jefferson, and Thomas Jefferson will not come out of his private chambers. Jupiter knocks on the door with the knuckle of his index finger.
    â€œMr. Tom,” he calls. None of the other servants dare call the master anything other than his last name, but Jupiter has served Thomas Jefferson since they were both boys at Shadwell, and is in the habit of saying they are as close as brothers. He knocks a second time. “Mr. Tom, Ursula got some soup here for you. Barley soup! You want her to come in and leave it on the table?”
    All four servants—Betty Hemings and Sally Hemings, in addition to Jupiter and Ursula—hold their breath as they wait for a reply. Thomas Jefferson has been locked in his chambers ever since the funeral, two days ago. He hasn’t addressed a word to anyone in all that time, not even his three daughters, nor has he had anything to eat or drink. The servants listen but hear only the insistent tweedle of a Carolina wren.
    Jupiter knocks a third time. “Mr. Tom?”
    Still no response, nor any sound that might indicate a living soul behind the door. The servants craning their ears in the dim hallway cast one another worried glances. “Maybe we should try the library,” says Jupiter.
    The library is connected to Thomas Jefferson’s bedroom and study but has a separate door just a few feet down the hall. Jupiter knocks on that door, waits, then says, “Mr. Tom?” He is about to knock again when a long, doglike moan sounds within the room and ends with an emphatic, “Leave . . . me . . . be!”
    All of the servants, except Sally Hemings, exchange relieved glances. Sally Hemings is afraid of Thomas Jefferson. She is nine years old and she can’t remember ever having said a word to him.
    As they make their way to the kitchen staircase, Ursula says, “Least now we know we not going to have
two
funerals.”
    â€œNot yet anyway,” says Jupiter.
    Ursula doesn’t say anything because she is descending the steep staircase and has to concentrate on not spilling the soup.
    â€œNever in my life,” says Betty Hemings, “have I seen a man more crazy for a woman than that Mr. Jefferson.”
    â€œThat’s the truth,” says Jupiter. “He worshipped