DO YOU HAVE A PRE-MISTRESSING FINANCIAL AGREEMENT?

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a pre-mistressing verbal agreement witnessed in Paris by her brother.  Pregnant in Paris, where she and her brother who were there with Jefferson could have walked away and lived in freedom from slavery, he promised the teenager that if she came back with him to the United States - Virginia - Monticello - that he would free their children once they became adults - and he did.  At that time, in my opinion, Sally was both vulnerable and at the height of her negotiating power.  (I believe modern women are generally at the height of their negotiating power with a man before they move in with him and I think a Mistress should keep her own residence.) But his willingness to make this deal communicated that he saw them having a future together and that she trusted him.


There is such a thing as a pre-nup, and there has been among the wealthier people for some time.  For instance, before Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis, there were negotiations of how much she could spend a year and how much she would get for each year of marriage should they divorce. Though controversial when he died without completing a divorce from her, Onassis, his lawyers, Ted Kennedy - the brother of her deceased husband President John F. Kennedy, and her lawyers are all rumored, depending on what book about them you read, to have taken part in these negotiations as a legal financial understanding before the wedding.  In some cultures such discussions could be called "bride price" or while a "dowry" is the money that a woman brought into a marriage with her; many poor women without a dowry were unmarriageable.


If you are a Mistress, or contemplating accepting a man's offer to be Kept by him, I strongly suggest you do negotiate, but it feels tacky to many and not romantic.


DO YOU HAVE A PRE-MISTRESSING FINANCIAL AGREEMENT?

HARRIET HEMINGS? DAUGHTER OF SALLY and THOMAS JEFFERSON?

 So identified on a Pinterest site.  That a person could be mostly Caucasion (be it appearance or DNA) and still be a slave is more mystifying to us presently than it was back in the day.  Sally's father was Thomas Jefferson's wife's father too.  Sally may have also been "mulatto" - biracial. I notice that there are a lot of people making YouTube videos of the results of their DNA ancestry tests.  I wonder if these informational moments are actually backed by one of the DNA test companies. 

Update August 2021.  I learned a slave was a slave based mostly on the mother's status.

MONTICELLO MEANS LITTLE MOUNTAIN in ITALIAN

MONTICELLO OFFICIAL SITE - TOUR


That's Monticello on the back of the nickel (United States coinage) and here you can take a virtual tour.  Sally Hemmings took care of Jefferson's private quarters.

JEFFERSON IN PARIS - MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

JEFFERSON IN PARIS: This historical drama has some amazing scenes such as the hot air balloon rides that amused the wealthy Parisians and is taking place in the 1780's and pre French Revolution, but focuses on the forbidden love that Thomas Jefferson partook in as a widower.  First with the married Maria Cosway, British, whose parents arranged for her to be married to an artist rather than go into a nunnery; likely her husband was gay.  It is said that they did enjoy a sexual relationship, that he did propose marriage to her but she could not see living in the United States or understand slavery, and that they remained friends and wrote letters to each other for the rest of their lives.  And then with Sally Hemings, his slave brought to Paris as a servant to him and his daughters. Sally was underage by today's standards, and so the lovers story has modern notions of child abuse, seduction, and rape, as well as the power-over of a Master to a Slave. But perhaps the truth is in the long relationship Jefferson continued to have with Sally.  

 
IMDB JEFFERSON IN PARIS (1995)
As you can tell from this YouTuber's selection of frames from the film, it looks loving.

AN 1804 POLITICAL CARTOON MOCKING THOMAS JEFFERSON and SALLY HEMINGS

There had been speculation about Thomas and Sally, but it would seem discretion was used by his friendly peers and he in writing to each other about their lives, families, and politics.  But Thomas Jefferson had his detractors, those who thought the relationship scandalous either because they thought he should have fought against slavery, or because they thought it was wrong to mix with slaves.  The question of how willing Sally was to be his Mistress looms large and one that I myself have struggled with. In this cartoon we see an image of Sally in which she is dark but her facial features including her nose are not stereotypically "African" and I do wonder if this image is actually accurate, based on the testimony of those who actually saw the woman.


Missy

OFFICIAL WORD on SALLY HEMINGS CHILDREN and DNA

MONTICELLO - SALLY HEMINGS brief account

MONTICELLO ORG - ON THOMAS JEFFERSON and SALLY HEMINGS


EXCERPT: According to Madison Hemings, Sally's mother Elizabeth Hemings (1735-1807) was the daughter of an African woman and an English sea captain. By Madison Hemings's and other accounts, Sally Hemings and some of her siblings were the children of John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law, making her the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748-1782). Elizabeth Hemings and her children lived at John Wayles' plantation during his lifetime.

Read the Report of the Monticello Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings for yourself.

*********

If it is true that Sally's mother was one half African/Black and father, the English sea captain, was European/White, then Sally's mother was one half White. If Sally's half-White mother then conceived her with another European/White Man, Mr. Wayles, that would make Sally three quarters White and one quarter Black.  If Sally then had children with Thomas Jefferson, another White/European man, these children would be mostly White.  But color is not the only identifier when it comes to race or ethnicity.  When someone tells me how they identify I respect them by believing them. I know that appearances aren't everything. 

-Missy

FOURTH OF JULY - DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

 This vintage postcard is from 1901.  In it Jefferson looks quite youthful compared to later portraits of the man.  He wrote the Declaration of Independence  well before he became the 3rd President of the United States and was SELECTED for two terms.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE at the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS


Thomas Jefferson's Draft of a Constitution for Virginia was an important part of the evolution of his Declaration Of Independence for the United States.

 
Image from WikiMediaCommons

SALLY HEMINGS - WAS SHE A WILLING MISTRESS of THOMAS JEFFERSON or A RAPED SLAVE?

Video added November 2018

Long ago I read a historical novel by an African-American author about Sally Hemings and that was the first I'd heard of her. Since then I've been become familiar with the controversies involved and the historical and family research and DNA science that have been applied to resolve the question of the biological identity of her children. Sally did have children, and they are named in Thomas Jefferson's farm book records, but were any one of them or all of them actually fathered by Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers and an early President of the United States?

Often I begin a Mistress of the Month post with a photo, drawing, or painting of that Mistress, but none exists of Sally.  Though exposed for his relationship with her in what might be considered a tabloid press or political cartoon, as "Dark Sally," Sally was estimated to be one eighth African ancestry.  (How light or dark she was is unknown, but we might want to ask Paris Jackson's opinion about color and what artists or photographers do!)  We do know that she was one eighth Black because we know that she was the daughter of a woman who was the daughter of an English sea captain and an African woman, and also that her father was Thomas Jefferson's late wife's father.  Perhaps she even looked like his wife.  Sally was one of the slaves that his wife inherited from her father than came with her into her marriage to Thomas Jefferson and so she had served them and had known his wife.
Sally gave birth to six children.  Is the fact that they were named in the farm book important?  Many slave owners did not name their slaves in their record books. Were all of them fathered by Jefferson?  If so we could say that Sally and Thomas settled with each other.  Two of those children were so light that when they were granted freedom and left Monticello, with some funds from Jefferson, it is said they went north and joined White society.  One son was said to look so much like Jefferson that if you saw him afar on horseback you would think you were looking at Jefferson.


Today there are many people who consider themselves to be ethnically and culturally Black who are light and do not have especially stereotypical "African" features.  Sometimes they are described as having "one drop" as in any African at all makes you all Black.  And here we are a couple hundred years after Jefferson and Sally were a pair.


This month I will be providing you some links to look at and consider such as the link to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's house in Virginia, where he lived with Sally and where officially she was the maid who was assigned to his private quarters.  He had many slaves and these days their humble housing is part of the tour. You can consider the history, the times they lived in, the prevailing life style, and Jefferson's role in the creation of the United States of America.


The issue of how willing Sally was, that is to say if she was continually raped or consenting, is also complicated by the fact that Jefferson was a slave owner and owned Sally but their sexual involvement likely began outside the slave state of Virginia in the very new United States, in Paris, France.  There her brother was Jefferson's cook and they could have walked away and been free.  When in Paris do as the Parisians?  More troubling to us these days is that Sally was about 14 years old she was sent across the seas with his daughter to England and then Paris to be a companion and maid to his daughter.  Let it be known that marriage at that age was not unknown or even illegal in parts of the country. According to Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, another President of the early United States, who met the ship in England and then took Sally and a Jefferson daughter Martha in until they were to sail for France, Sally was a child caring for Martha. According to the film I had once seen that suggested that once in France,  called "Jefferson in Paris," Jefferson treated Sally as special and began a sexual relationship with her, which his daughter, enrolled in a Catholic girls' convent school though they were not Catholics, found disgusting.
To me there are so many gray areas but it's important is to try to understand how different those times were than the ones we live in.

For instance, what about slave mentality?  If your mentality is that you must agree with whatever the person(s) who own you tell you to do, then you have no right to consent in the first place, and you also might not even consider that you have the right to say no.
Another issue is that if you live in an environment where you know other enslaved people are treated with violence or punished for not working hard enough physically, well, you might want to have easier work, or get along, or be especially favored. 

But something I consider is that Jefferson offered Sally a deal which means that in Paris he showed that he thought she was in a position of power, of being able to decide.  He said that if she returned with him (already pregnant) and stayed with him then any children they had he would free when they reached adulthood.  Theirs was a long relationship and he did free the children as promised. 

Were they tender with each other?  Did they love each other?  Were slaves there at Monticello jealous of her position in the household? It's speculation.

Many choices and agreements were made to be in this enduring relationship.

After Jefferson died, Sally went to live with a son in Ohio, a free state, and so in her old age she was free and attached to her own family.

Read on and learn more!


Missy

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