| Episodes |
The Freeing of Harriet Hemings [AGR 31-34]
Casey Hollawell
[1] In the "Why Jefferson Freed Harriet Hemings: The Defenders Explain" section of her Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (31-34), Annette Gordon-Reed examines a key component to the Jefferson-Hemings controversy: the freeing of Sally Hemings's daughter, the only female to ever be freed from Monticello. Gordon-Reed argues that Harriet must've been freed "for some reason, special to Jefferson," against the notions of Dumas Malone and Douglass Adair that she was freed to "protect her virtue." Gordon-Reed offers three main arguments against the virtue explanation: the simple fact that Jefferson had never freed a female before, factual errors by Malone and Adair, and the plans for Harriet's protection.
[2] Perhaps Gordon-Reed's most successful argument arises from the simple assertion that Jefferson had never freed a female slave before. She poses the simple question, "Why didn't any other young women receive similar treatment, particularly in the years when Jefferson could have better afforded it?" Why Harriet? Why now, especially in a time at which Jefferson was in such economic decline? To free a slave in a time of such deep debt is simply asinine, and no man, especially one of such intelligence as Jefferson, would do so unless it was absolutely vital. Gordon-Reed claims that Jefferson "treated [Harriet] differently in the most important way that a slave could be treated differently by a master: he allowed her to go free." He bestowed the greatest gift a master could bestow on a slave: freedom. There is therefore almost no question that Jefferson was treating her with more importance than her fellow female slaves. Though Gordon-Reed's argument is rather simple, it is compelling. It's difficult to argue that the freeing of Harriet Hemings, the only female of Monticello ever freed, to be coincidental, and what makes it even more compelling was that she was the daughter of Jefferson's supposed lover, Sally.
[3] Gordon-Reed's second point is that there is a major flaw in the information Malone and Adair give about where Harriet would live when freed. She states, "If [Jefferson] was concerned about getting [Harriet] through Virginia to a safe place, might not he also have a concern for her safety once she got there?" To the unobservant eye, the explanations of both Malone and Adair seem plausible, but Gordon-Reed shows them completely unreliable. Malone suggests that once freed, Harriet was sent to Philadelphia to live with "her brother James." Harriet had no brother James. Malone very well may be referring to Sally Hemings's brother James Hemings, but, nonetheless, this is a major discrepancy of fact. Adair digs the historians into a deeper hole by suggesting that "If James was established in the city, he would have been in a position to give Harriet a home and offer her protection." Harriet left Monticello in 1822; James Hemings committed suicide in 1801. "That neither Malone nor Adair knew this, or had forgotten it, shows the degree of attention they gave to this important aspect of the story." The simple lack of knowledge on a matter so important by such acclaimed historians just makes Gordon-Reed all the more trustworthy and believable.
[4] Gordon-Reed's third point revolves around her personal explanation of the living situation arranged for Harriet after freedom. She begins by suggesting that "Jefferson took a paternalistic attitude toward women." Surely a man with a paternalistic attitude would not thrust an unskilled girl into the world to be subject to predators, poverty, and danger. He would want a certain degree of protection for Harriet once freed. Into her argument comes Beverly Hemings, Sally's oldest child, who left Monticello in 1821 for Washington, exactly where Harriet went in the following year, suggesting that this arrangement was created to please "a mother's likely desire . . . that an older brother would provide protection to a younger sister." Surely there is no direct documentation or tangible evidence of such an assertion, but logically one can easily infer that this would be a mother's wish: why would a mother want her family separated that she had committed so much effort to holding together for so long?
[5] This "desire" that Beverly look after Harriet in Washington is questionable, however, because the only evidence of Harriet even going to Washington to meet Beverly is directly contradicted by a significant source. Edmund Bacon, Jefferson's caretaker, attests to buying Harriet a ticket for Philadelphia, while Madison Hemings attests that she moved to Washington. And Gordon-Reed's only explanation of this is that Jefferson did not want Bacon knowing Harriet's exact location -- thus, Harriet took a stagecoach to Philadelphia, she hypothesizes, and then traveled to Washington. Bacon was a high-level trusted employee, the man who cared for Jefferson's more than beloved home for two decades. Why wouldn't Jefferson want Bacon to know Harriet's destination? Gordon-Reed does not say.
[6] Gordon-Reed almost completely and successfully refutes the reasoning of the Jefferson defenders and offers acceptable and believable explanations as to the reason why Jefferson freed Harriet and the arrangements he created for her once freed. Aside from one far-fetched inference, Gordon-Reed's succeeds in fulfilling her goal of portraying the very weak nature of arguments by Jefferson defenders.
