| Episodes |
Lawdy, Massa Joe, you betta git in here 'fo' you ketch yo' death! [AGR 166-69]
Anna Robertson
[1] In Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, Annette Gordon-Reed critiques the historiography behind the Jefferson-Hemings controversy. She is bothered by how white historians portrayed Thomas Jefferson throughout history and how those historians treated the testimonies and lives of African-Americans; she analyzes how those historians argue to "rid" Jefferson of any "charges" against him concerning Hemings and uses rhetorical questions, logic, and general public perception to confront the white historians that previously reported on and documented the Jefferson-Hemings controversy.
[2] In the section of her book entitled "Mammy Love versus Romantic Love," Gordon-Reed counters the notion that love between a master and a slave could not take place because the idea is "fanciful" (166). She calls upon people's perception of human nature and of the caricature of Mammy, the black mother who takes care of the master's babies and children. According to Gordon-Reed, people are "programmed" to respond to infants and to develop an attachment to them (166). She argues that although slavery ran counter to human nature, "no man-made system can stamp out all constitutive aspects of the human personality" (166). After establishing the idea of Mammy, Gordon-Reed continues by asking the reader a compelling rhetorical question: "If a woman who was a slave could love her child who was her future master for all the reasons that women love children, why could not a woman who was a slave love her present master for all the reasons that women love men" (166-167)?
[3] Gordon-Reed considers human nature in how men and women are attracted to people who are "intelligent, attractive, kind" (166), and who would make better lives for their children. On one hand, the use of a rhetorical question is strong in that the reader almost subconsciously agrees with Gordon-Reed because of the nature of the question. On the other hand, the argument that Thomas Jefferson possessed all these attributes and freed Sally Hemings and her children, although legitimate, is not extremely convincing. By stating that her hypothesis concerning attraction "has been a fact of life driven by the relative positions of women and men with respect to child-bearing and family life" (167), Gordon-Reed ineffectively takes evidence from generalizations of the complex issue of love, which, even she admits, is "beyond our control" (167).
[4] Gordon-Reed then discusses how, according to white historians, maternal love is acceptable and almost expected across the color line, and yet romantic love is "absurd and perhaps slightly alarming" (167). She then questions the nature of the reciprocation of love. It is acceptable and almost celebrated for a child to love the Mammy caricature because Mammy will never "become part of the white person's family by blood" (167). The mingled bloodline that occurs as the result of romantic love across the color line goes entirely against the slavery-based view that blacks and whites must be kept separate. She claims that the view is still pertinent today, although she doesn't present any specific evidence to support the idea.
[5] Here, Gordon-Reed allows her bias to enter her writing. Her argument that the view that blacks and whites must be kept separate is still pertinent today is greatly weakened in that, although the reader would like to believe otherwise, Gordon-Reed is slightly prejudiced in her background experience. In order to understand where she is coming from mentally and emotionally, one must have grown up where and when she did, and around the same people. Despite this quick lapse in her impartiality, her argument regains strength when she points out that individuals don't always act according to "the dominant ideas expressed in either law or culture" (168). From the reader's standpoint, this individual vs. society idea is easily proved by everyday experience.
[6] Gordon-Reed's introduction of the idea of individuals against society prompts her to present the example of Thomas Bell and Mary Hemings. She logically reasons that the relationship could not have simply been a matter of exploitation because Mary Hemings asked to be sold to Thomas Bell. Gordon-Reed again argues with a rhetorical question for the reader: "Who would ask to be sold to his or her rapist?" (168). This logical inference greatly strengthens her argument that Thomas Bell and Mary Hemings must have had a romantic relationship. Her argument begins to lose its ground, however, in the way that Gordon-Reed proposes that Thomas Bell and Mary Hemings could have used their master-slave relationship to their advantage. She acts as though it was common for slaves and masters to have had romantic and loving relationships, although this is easily countered by the numerous rape-relationships that occurred during this time. Gordon-Reed concludes by stating that there was no better place or time in America where or when it would have "been easier for a white man to keep a black woman in his home than in the antebellum South" (168), which, although true in the reader's mind, does not solidly prove that a romantic love existed between Thomas Bell and Mary Hemings.
[7] Finally, Gordon-Reed weakly questions the white historians' idea of a romantic relationship. Where white historians would claim that "love makes people unselfish, strong, and brave enough to stand openly against all convention" (168), she counters by explaining how cowardly and selfish many white masters acted with respect to their relationships with their black slaves, although that does not prove that those men did not love their slaves. Here, again, Gordon-Reed provides no supporting evidence and does not back up her point beyond face value, although her conviction in the matter would lead the reader to believe she is relying almost entirely on the public's opinion and her own opinion of love and the balance of power between men and women in relationships.
[8] At the end of the section, Annette Gordon-Reed claims that history "seeks control over the circumstances under which love could exist" (168-69). The way in which white historians recorded the Jefferson-Hemings controversy indicates that some types of love were acceptable only for some types of people, and there was not even a possibility for romantic love across the color line or slave-master relationship. By asking rhetorical questions, reasoning through logic, and relying on heavy generalizations, Gordon-Reed attempts to confront white historians in their biased and prejudiced presentations of the Jefferson-Hemings controversy.
