The Sally Hemings Story: History as His-Story
The story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson is a scandal, in most histories, primarily because of what the historian thinks that it says about the character of Thomas Jefferson. Only in recent years has the story also included speculation about Sally Hemings herself: her feelings, her thoughts, her motivations, her decisions, the kind of life she would have been leading -- all of which are just as much part of a complete story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.
"Women's history" says that the story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is incomplete without the story of Sally Hemings. Yet, because women were part of the private sphere, legally and publicly less powerful than men -- and because, as a slave, Sally had even less legitimacy as a public figure -- the evidence is simply not likely to be complete enough to tell the whole story.
For women's history to do its job, it's important to reconstruct as much of the second half of the story as is possible -- yet far more often the evidence for that second half is hidden or lost.
Questions from a Women's History Perspective
From the perspective of women's history, we'd like to ask questions such as these about the Hemings/Jefferson scandal, even if we know that clear answers cannot always be found:
- Who really was Sally Hemings? What kind of life did she have? How did her relationship with Thomas Jefferson, master of the plantation, change her life? How much choice did she really have in saying "yes" or "no" to an intimate relationship with her master? How rewarding was the relationship to her, and in what way?
- What does the story of Hemings and Jefferson tell us about the life of women in slavery? about the advantages and disadvantages to slave women who caught the sexual interest of their masters? about the life of wives of slaveholders -- wives whose husbands were often sexually involved with slave women?
- In a society in which legitimate male descent was important for legal power, what did that imply for males, such as slaves, who could not claim the rights that legitimate descent conferred, and often could not even claim the descent itself?
- How much of the current theorizing over Hemings/Jefferson is based on trying to claim legitimate male descent for the Hemings descendents? How much is based on trying to claim legitimate humanity for all the people involved, including Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson?
- How does racial difference affect sex and gender issues, and vice versa?
Like many details of the story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, answers to these questions may not be easy, found indirectly and inconclusively if at all. Such is often the case in the world of women's history!
