| Episodes |
Here, to give you the flavor of the invective backhandedly hurled at a woman none of Jefferson's critics had seen, is a list of epithets for Sally Hemings and her children gathered from Callender's writings and from the Federalist press.
The effectiveness of the attacks by Callender and the Federalist critics depended to a great extent on their characterization of Sally. How do they want their audience to "see" Sally? What are their characterization strategies? Given their audience, what makes their strategies effective? To what in their audience do these characterizations appeal? What impact do you think such characterizations will have later in the controversy? In other words, what seeds of future "trouble" are being planted here?
For full context, selected articles from the Recorder are available here on the JHC website and in Rebecca L. McMurry and James F. McMurry, Jr., Jefferson, Callender and the Sally Story: The Scandalmonger and the Newspaper War of 1802 (Toms Brook: Old Virginia Books, 2002).
It is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps and for many years has kept as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 1, 1802
By this wench Sally, our president has had several children.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 1, 1802
The AFRICAN VENUS is said to officiate as housekeeper at Monticello.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 1, 1802
When the adoption of the federal constitution was agitated in the convention of Richmond, there was produced a letter from Mr. Jefferson, who was then in France, along with his two daughters, and his wooly-headed concubine.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 1, 1802
In the background of the picture, there appears a stout African wench, with a complexion, which in the original canvas, halts, between a mahogany colour and a dirty greasy yellow. She is holding a mop-stick in one hand, and a pair of black silk breeches in the other. She stands in a profile attitude towards the president, sobbing.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 15, 1802
The inside of a Negro cabin. Sally [a whore] is romping with half a dozen black fellows.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 15, 1802
Sally at tea upon her voyage to France. -- She [a whore] is in dalliance with the captain of the vessel.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 15, 1802
The French ambassador returning to Monticello, sitting in a private room with his mistress. Five healthy mahogany featured children frisking about the floor.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 15, 1802
The negro wench did not go to France in the same vessel as the president.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 22, 1802
Every store would have been decorated with prints of president TOM, and his mother, who is a slut as common as the pavement.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 22, 1802
Sally's business makes prodigious noise here. . . . But what will your pious countrymen upon the Connecticut say to such African amours? After this discovery I do not believe that, at the next election of 1804 Jefferson could obtain two votes on the Eastern side of the Susquehanna.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 22, 1802
Or else he esteemed his sable Helen an exception to his general rule. Perhaps she is favoured with peculiar charms and graces ----- Perhaps Mr. Jefferson discovered, that her "love" was something more than "an eager desire:" That it was "a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation"! Perhaps she understands "Euclid" -------- or she may be "a poet:" faculties, which, he says in his "Notes on Virginia," that none of our Africans had ever then attained. Perhaps too that "disagreeable odour," ---- But oh fie! Whiter are we following Mr. Jefferson? Into what indelicate speculations would he conduct us. Modesty orders us to drop the curtain.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 29, 1802
After we thought that the public had enough upon the remission business, Mrs. SARAH JEFFERSON, was brought forward. . . . In a word, the political character of Thomas Jefferson has been safely deposited in its grave and The Recorder shall take the trouble of erecting it's tomb-stone. . . . It is only doing justice to the character of Virginia to say that his negro connection has [no?] defender, or apologist in Richmond. Any man, that even looks through a spyglass at the hope of a decent character, would think himself irretrievably blasted, if he had lisped a syllable in defence of the president's mahogany coloured propagation.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 29, 1802
Mr. Jefferson was a man of fortune! A man of admitted abilities! A man who stood in the very first rank of political characters! A man, who had been in possession on a virtuous and amiable wife! He was a man, who had daughters to be educated, and who could hardly have forgot the name of their mother! He could almost have commanded whatever his utmost ambition desired, as to the female sex, in the state of Virginia. He plunged at once into a connection, from which, the debauchee, that prowls St. Giles [notorious London slum], would have shrunk with horror.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 29, 1802
The lowest drab of the [white] sex would not have sent to her stable for a black fellow, as Jefferson before the eyes of his two daughters, sent to his kitchen, or perhaps, to his pigstye, for this mahogany coloured charmer.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 29, 1802
Now, as Mr. Madison has been acquainted with Jefferson for at least 30 years, he must have been acquainted with this mulatto business, which, in the course of the present rupture, has burst into history. The name of SALLY will walk down to posterity alongside of Mr. Jefferson's own name. The name of Agrippina is as distinctly remembered as that of Nero. Madison must have known all about Sally, and when he assisted, in passing off the president as a prodigy of virtue, he differed from the president himself precisely as much as the man who circulates copper dollar, differs from the man that forged it.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, September 29, 1802
Of all the damsels on the green, / On a mountain, or in valley, / A lass so luscious ne'er was seen / As Monticellian Sally.
"A Song Supposed to Have Been Written by the Sage of Monticello," Port-Folio, October 2, 1802
What though she by the glands secretes; / Must I stand shil-I-shall-I? / Tuck'd up between a pair of sheets / There's no perfume like Sally.
"A Song Supposed to Have Been Written by the Sage of Monticello," Port-Folio, October 2, 1802
You call her slave -- and pray were slaves / Made only for the galley? / Try for yourselves, ye witless knaves--- / Take each to bed your Sally.
"A Song Supposed to Have Been Written by the Sage of Monticello," Port-Folio, October 2, 1802
Yankee doodle, whose the noodle? / Wine's vapid, tope me brandy-- / For still I find to breed my kind, / A negro-wench the dandy.
"A Song Supposed to Have Been Written by the Sage of Monticello," Port-Folio, October 2, 1802
But banish, Tom, all vain alarm, / Altho' I paint each ‘witching charm / That grac'd your sooty bride; / The heyday of my blood is o'er; / For I am verging to three score, / And have a wife beside.
"Another Imitation of Horace, Book II, Ode 4, Addressed to a Certain Great Man," Port-Folio, October 30, 1802
Who knows but Quasheba may spring / From some illustrious sable king.
"Another Imitation of Horace, Book II, Ode 4, Addressed to a Certain Great Man," Port-Folio, October 30, 1802
Dear Thomas, deem it no disgrace / With slaves to mend thy breed, / Nor let the wench's smutty face / Deter thee from the deed.
"Horace, Book II, Ode 4, Imitated by Thomas Paine (not the Boston poet, but the sophist of Thetford) and addressed to Thomas Jefferson," Port-Folio, October 30, 1802
Though nature o'er thy Sally's frame / Has spread her sable veil, / Yet shall the loudest trump of fame / Resound your tender tale, / Her charms of person, charms of mind / To you and motely scores confin'd / Shall scent each future age; / And still her jetty fleece and eyes / Pug nose, thick lips, and ebon [thighs] / Shall blacken Clio's page.
"Horace, Book II, Ode 4, Imitated by Thomas Paine (not the Boston poet, but the sophist of Thetford) and addressed to Thomas Jefferson," Port-Folio, October 30, 1802
In glaring red, and chalky white, / Let others beauty see; / Me no such tawdry tints delight--- / No! black's the hue for me! / What though my Sally's nose be flat, / ‘Tis harder, then, to break it--- / Her skin is sable -- what of that? / Tis smooth as oil can make it. / If down her neck no ringlets flow, / A fleece adorns her head---- / If on her lips no rubies glow, / Their thickness serves instead. / Thick pouting lips! how sweet their grace! / When passion fires to kiss them! / Wide spreading over half the face, / Impossible to miss them.
"A Philosophic Love-Song. To Sally," Port-Folio, November 6, 1802
Thou, Sally, thou, my house shalt keep, / My widow'd tears shall dry! / My virgin daughters -- see! they weep---- / Their mother's place supply. / Oh! Sally! hearken to my vows! / Yield up they swarthy charms---- / My best belov'd! my more than spouse, / Oh! take me to they arms!
"A Philosophic Love-Song. To Sally," Port-Folio, November 6, 1802
Some of our papers have hinted at the amours of a certain great personage, which are said to be of a dark complexion. In the language of poetry, there are "jetty loves," as well, as "rosy loves."
"A New Song, being a Parody of an Old One," Port-Folio, November 13, 1802
The banjo shall play, and the song shall go round / With a bumper then here's to you boys. / Come Sall, a buss, my yellow joy.
"A New Song, being a Parody of an Old One," Port-Folio, November 13, 1802
Jones introduces black Sally; and as he says not one word in defence or exculpation of Mr. Jefferson, we presume that he has given up the point.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, November 17, 1802
The following ludicrous letter, supposed to be addressed to a philosophic personage, by a jetty mistress.
"Phillis to Demo-Phoon," Port-Folio, December 4, 1802
Other information assures us, that Mr. Jefferson's Sally and their children are real persons, that the woman, herself has a room to herself at Monticello in the character of sempstress to the family, if not as house-keeper; that she is an industrious and orderly creature in her behavior, but, that her intimacy with her master is well known, and that on this account, she is treated by the rest of his house as one much above the level of his other servants. Her son, whom Callender calls president Tom, we are also assured, bears a strong likeness to Mr. Jefferson.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, December 8, 1802
But as Duane continues to deny the existence of black Sally, and her children. . . . I profess myself prepared to meet Mr. Jefferson in a court of justice, and to prove, by a dozen witnesses, the family conviction, as to the black wench and her mulatto litter.
James Thomson Callender, Recorder, December 8, 1802
From white to black his features change! / His tresses fall, and in their stead, / A fleece shoots curling from his head, / Flat sinks the bridge, that prop'd his nose, / Which round his nostril plumper grows: / His jaw protrudes, his lip expads, / Pah! he secretes by all the glands. . . . / In darkness sneak to Sally's bed: / With philosophic nose inquire, / How rank the sable race perspire. / In foul pollution steep his life, / Insult the ashes of his wife: / All the paternal duties smother, / Give his white girls a yellow brother; / Mid loud hosannas of his knaves, / From his own loins raise herds of slave.
"The Metamorphosis," Port-Folio, December 18, 1802
Resume thy shells and butteflies, / Thy beetle's heads, and lizard's thighs, / Thy state no more control; / Thy tricks with sooty Sal, give o'er; / Indulge thy body, Tom, no more; / But try to save thy soul.
"In Thoman, Jam Senem," Port-Folio, January 22, 1803
Tom Paine mounted Button, and rode off full speed, / And since that no white, men presume, / To make free with the blacks, for by order sublime, / There Sally the false suffers pain for her crime, / And sends forth an African fume.
"Black and White, In the Modern Style," Port-Folio, April 9, 1803
