The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

This is an extremely well researched book that is both fascinating and horrifying. I feel like the boundaries of what I know about slavery and racism in America have been expanded, and I thought I was well informed before. I have visited Monticello before but now I want to go again and look at everything with new eyes. I did find the author to be long-winded the way academics sometimes are, and repetitive. Pay attention when she warns you that, “To do this we will step away from strict narrative for the following four chapters to analyze closely the world of the enigmatic enslaved woman…” because those four chapters are worth skipping, or at the very least skimming, or they will give you a bad headache. Nevertheless it’s a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

The Hemingses of Monticello is quite intriguing. It demonstrates the ties that bind in a multi-ethnic society, even those forcibly applied. Love in any context is weird and fraught with need, we just glamorize and compartmentalize things today.(Observe: James/Robert Hemings relationship with Jefferson and his wife's bond with their mother). I do agree with other reviewers that Ms. Reed's anger in some respects makes the book a little more tense than it has to be, but the assessment of the relationships within and the drama, is fascinating. The book itself is rich and thorough, giving a voice to all involved. Indeed, here is a group with blurred lines. Everyone lived too closely for 'nothing' to have happened; if not with her, then with someone else in that close knit circle, I have no doubt. I think a lot happened, more than we know, but thankfully, walls never tell.As to whether or not Jefferson fathered Hemings' Children, I am going to agree with the insights of The DNA results--claiming at least one, if not all, and the deer in headlights historians possessing enough dignity to admit they were wrong. (Joseph Ellis.)If others don't, whatever. I'm not going to hold Jefferson to Christian morals that he didn't believe in, and say simply because he was a good politician, he was a good person. Not all good store employees are good mothers; law and politics were his trade; flirting, presumably sleeping with, married women, going shopping, and getting his hair done were his past times. (Smoking weed and making mac & cheese are rumored too. Those are most peoples' fetishes--shoes, drugs, and cheese--so why do we in The US view our politicians as some how different and above our grasp and creed, when we unflinchingly scrutinize others abroad? Why are we so hero obsessed and full of who we think we are?That's truly the problem: the argument that he didn't do it is centered around mores and propriety. There's nothing to honestly prove that he didn't charm and or seduce Sally Hemings after rewarding her job well done. 'It was wrong, so why would he?' is empty as a defense, but he was a lawyer, so he'd appreciate it.Eventually, after Sally showed up, he dumped the kids in boarding school and added time with here to his "superior-person's" to do list. If nothing else, I'm thoroughly convinced that they had sex in France; deny a relationship if you want but: do you know a guy in his 40's who adds a giggly 15 year old to his staff, and then pretty much gives everyone else the heave-ho, just to be kind and fatherly, when she should have gone with his daughters to the school at least as support? Then he pays her $$$ to clean and assist him, and buys her stuff. Lol. I don't. And each of her later children, resemble him, but nobody had an answer for that until after people began asking questions; the answer was consistent, but...the DNA showed otherwise, it was not Sam Carr, his nephew, and it could have been some one else. Yet, he never moved her to another plantation, or sold her, for his own sake, which with no genetic tests, cameras, or facebook then would have solved the problem. But yet, he chose not to respond to not appear guilty? What? She was never pregnant when he wasn't there, but still, nobody could prove that at the time, so...how? It's Jefferson logic which my feeble mind cannot grasp. Oh well.Any way, it's a great book. If you decide not to accept the strong likelihood and presentation of various facts, okay. But if you are so offended by the fact that Jefferson was a man, and probably satisfied himself in ways that are questionable--just like we today, then read something else.I know those who deny this adhere to the findings of a scholarship committee--which if those are true the white house will endorse them over time, and all will be sorted out. Until then, read "Where's Waldo?" the TRUE story of how Waldo Hanford (great-great-great grand uncle of the series' author Martin Hanford) did in fact father the children of Sally Hemings, but in a jealous rage, Thomas Jefferson threatened him with death and grievous injury, chased him from the plantation at Monticello, and poor Waldo hid in crowds all over the country and was never seen again. Martin Hanford's classic picture books tell only part of this tragedy.LOL.

The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed is an historical epic about Thomas Jefferson and the enslaved family who served him. Anyone who has ever done research based on the letters, memoirs and records of a family will know how difficult it can be to piece the information into a coherent narrative. For this reason, Dr. Gordon-Reed's work is truly awe-inspiring, in that she pulls together scraps of information about the Hemingses from the writings by and about the Jeffersons in order to craft a moving and insightful chronicle of slave life in America. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and our third President, was quite outspoken about the rights of the man, rejoicing in the French Revolution and the overthrow of monarchy. Jefferson, however, excerized more power over his slaves than did any absolute monarch over their subjects. Jefferson chose to govern his slaves with a certain benevolent paternalism, letting the Hemings brothers James and Robert come and go pretty much as they pleased as long as they came when he called. Neverthless, the fact that his entire existence was entwined with an unjust institution from which he never sought to extricate himself is one of the great ironies of American history.The book delves into the origins of slavery in Virginia, and how the "peculiar institution" became deeply engrained in the culture of that time and place, not going away when free Virginians won their independence from Great Britain. Dr. Gordon-Reed relates how John Wayles, Jefferson's father-in-law, made his fortune as a lawyer who oversaw the buying and selling of slaves. Through his wife Martha Wayles, Jefferson inherited the Hemings family, many of whom were the children of John Wayles and his slave mistress, Elizabeth Hemings. Therefore, many of the enslaved servants of the Jefferson family were close relatives. When Jefferson made the teenage Sally Hemings his mistress, after Martha died, the situation became even more complicated. Even if Sally had not been enslaved, Jefferson could not have married her because under Virginia law it was illegal to marry the sibling of one's spouse. Jefferson kept a promise which he had made to Sally in Paris, where their liaison began, that he would free each of her children when they came of age, and it was a promise he kept. Most of the other Hemings and the Jefferson family slaves remained in slavery and were sold at auction after Jefferson's death to cover his enormous debts.One aspect of the book which I found distracting was the author's propensity to remind the reader every few pages that various injustices were the result of the "doctrine of white supremacy." With such impeccable research presented in a flowing and compelling manner, it was unnecessary to be constantly preaching to the reader about the evils of such a "doctrine." It would have been better to let the injustices speak for themselves. Furthermore, there were others besides enslaved Africans who suffered from exploitation in the early days of our country, including white indentured servants, although they, unlike the African slaves, could at least look forward to freedom. In the cemetery of the parish church in Maryland where I went as a child there is a mass grave of Irish workers who died of cholera while constructing the C&O Canal and B&O Railroad during the epidemics of 1822 and 1832. The Irish immigrants rather than the African slaves were sent to do certain dangerous jobs because the slaves cost money and the Irish cost nothing. This form of servitude still does not compare to chattel slavery, since the Irish could not (usually) be sold.The power of Dr. Gordon-Reed's book lies in exposing once again the sad and tragic fact that many white Americans were convinced that Africans were subhuman. Examples are given in the book of Jefferson's conviction that Africans were biologically inferior to whites. That those who framed our system of government had such an approach to other human beings is a jarring commentary. It has always been a mystery how leaders like Thomas Jefferson could cry so loud for liberty and then live off the labor of those in chattel bondage. After reading The Hemingses of Monticello my understanding of the enigmatic Jefferson has been expanded as well as my compassion for those whom he held as slaves.

I'm only a few chapters into this brilliant work and I have no qualms with the research or writing itself. Rather, I'm annoyed that having purchased it via Kindle instead of in hard- or soft-cover, I am missing out on any illustrations, copies of portraits of the subjects, etc. There was a notification when I started reading that illustrations had been left out due to 'licensing restrictions', but surely this is not the case for tangible copies of this book. It's extremely irritating and had I known in advance, I would have purchased a different copy.

This is a rivetting account of Jefferson's "shadow" family - in more ways that one! The culture of the Old South was one of immense hypocrisy and one which created terrific moral problems not easily solved. This is a must for Jefferson fans.

A beautifully bound book with special-cut paper of high quality. I was really impressed.

Definitely second hand, cannot offer that copy of the book otherwise no problem.

Annette Gordon-Reed's research and its presentation is unlike any other work of history or biography I have ever read. She enters situations and raises questions about them that have not occured to biographers and historians of Slavery. They are always asked out of an African-American interest and insight into the subject of a nameable and traceable family and the personal histories of its members, or parts thereof. She enlists historic and political dimensions and details for explanation of the fact of the Hemings existence abd particular hopes and trials in their geneologicy. Rather than leave the story of Elisabeth Hemings in the realm of oral transmission, Gordon-Reed persisted in her desire to find more about the Hemings. What can be known about them is "in pieces" and needs to be buttressed also by a model of a "secondary time frame" that African-American entered by virtue of the slave trade. The complexities and ambiguities of such a history would have discouraged another investigator. Much of Gordon-Riggs undertaking depends on understanding that such traditional assumptions about history would be counterproductive, as what is to be held up in order to be seen seems prosaic and minute only because it is not "recognized" within the white American framework. This gigantic endeavor has resulted in a unique form of organizing and exploring evidence , as well as the creation of a complex edifice of evidence that constitutes something unprecedented in American historiograpy. It is the historian who decides significance.