| Episodes |
A Slave to Love
Jenna Goldenberg
[1] The Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings controversy is very intricate since it is difficult to determine Sally Hemings's real character. We cannot draw any definitive conclusion since we know so little about her. From historical documents, we develop only a perception of her. Fortunately, Barbara Chase-Riboud gives us another perspective of Sally in Sally Hemings: A Novel (1979). She characterizes Sally as a complex woman who gradually becomes a strong woman throughout the development of her relationship with Jefferson. At first she continually succumbs to Jefferson's needs, but later in her life she rises in character. Madison Hemings, Sally's son, expresses his account of the promise Jefferson made to Sally while in France this way, "To induce her to do so [return to Virginia] he promised her extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promises, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia" (138). This promise between Sally and Jefferson symbolizes the continual manipulation of Sally into placing the interests of Jefferson above everything else. The powerful relationship of Jefferson as both a lover and a fatherly figure to Sally hinders her opportunity to stake her claim of freedom in France. Sally cannot free herself emotionally and physically because she continues to be manipulated by Jefferson, as seen in the promise made between them (141-43).
[2] It is puzzling why a black person who is free in France would return to his or her life as a slave in the United States. Sally, on the other hand, gives away her opportunity to be free. Her brother James says, "Slavery is outlawed in France. We are on French soil. That means we are emancipated. Free" (89). A typical slave who had a life of bondage would be ecstatic at this news. After all, slaves were fighting for their freedom every day. However, Jefferson convinces Sally that he is the most important part of her existence. Whenever James is able to, he tries to persuade Sally to claim her rights as a free woman on French soil. He tries to get Sally to see it from a different perspective, to see how manipulative Jefferson really is: "Once the demigod was back, his powerful compelling presence would again dominate their lives, and their only chance would be lost, perhaps forever" (109). Thomas Jefferson is Sally's weakness, which causes her to remain with him rather than seek freedom.
[3] Chase-Riboud describes the beginning of Jefferson and Sally's relationship: "They seemed drawn to each other, master, and slave, by mysterious threads that Sally Hemings did not completely understand" (92). When Jefferson and Sally have sex, their relationship grows and changes, and Jefferson imposes a stranglehold on Sally: "Nothing would ever free me of him. Nothing would erase those strange words of love which I had to believe in my weakness" (103). Their sexual relationship only attaches Sally more to him and brings her under his command.
[4] While in France, Sally becomes pregnant. She runs away because she wants her child to be free. While she is away, she speaks with Madame Dupré, with whom she is staying. She gives Sally advice to go back to Jefferson to demand her and her child's freedom. However, she also tells Sally to give him a chance to express his affection for her, since he may love her. Sally replies, "I don't want to be loved. I want to be free" (141). In this scene, Sally seems confident that she will assert her and her child's freedom to Jefferson. She feels that she wants to be not only free of slavery but also free of her master Jefferson.
[5] One of the reasons why Sally is unable to free herself both emotionally and physically is because of her feelings of low self-worth. When she returns to the mansion where Jefferson is staying in Paris, she immediately feels guilty for his physical collapse by leaving him: "I had stolen myself now and now I tried to replace the object quietly, as if it had been taken from its owner" (141). It is terrible how she thinks of herself as an object of Jefferson. She feels guilty for "stealing herself" from Jefferson. Sally demands the freedom of her child. Jefferson tells Sally that they have to go home to Virginia but that they will return eventually to France. Sally tries to assert what she wants for herself, but her concerns change when Jefferson begins to cry. This manipulation is to play on Sally's feelings of guilt to stay with him. Sally even somehow saw "promises on his lips": "My own needs, my own loneliness, seemed nothing compared to his---his needs were so much mightier than my small ones, his space in the world so much more vast and important than any place I could imagine for myself. Slowly, I succumbed to his will" (143). She feels as if she has caused him pain for running away. Asserting her independence by running away, Sally was unable to fulfill her top priority of serving Jefferson. Sally does not consider her own feelings and needs and continues to place Jefferson's feelings and needs first, ultimately throwing away her chance of freedom.
[6] The promise consists of Sally's promise to not abandon Jefferson again and his promise to free their children at the age of twenty-one. Sally is extremely weak in this scene as she gives up her chance for freedom. Jefferson says to Sally, "I recognize that you are free, as free as your heart permits" (143). This is ludicrous since her heart was his, so she was not free at all. Jefferson says this to divert Sally's focus on actual freedom. This is extremely unreasonable and ironic. Her unusual relationship with Jefferson is the primary reason why she is not free. Sally cannot, and will not, leave Jefferson in order to gain her freedom.
[7] Although the scene in which Sally makes the promise portrays Sally as a weak character, Sally did become a stronger woman throughout the novel. Her power is exemplified when James dies. Sally knows that for her brother James to truly be free, she needed to free herself. After James' death, Sally becomes a stronger woman. She blames Jefferson for James' unhappiness:
Never would he forgive himself or the world for it, and never would he escape from it. It would be the master who would be branded and bonded to me forever. I would turn love against the possessor and daze him into the everlasting hell of guilt! . . . If I could not hate him, I would kill him with love. And if I could not kill him, I would maim him forever, cripple and paralyze him, so that he would have no possibility to walk away from me, no voice to deny me. A ruthless joy took hold of me. I fled from the room and from the mansion out the doors. I would free his sons. (242)
Sally realizes that she never got what she wanted in life. Realizing her failure in gaining freedom for herself, she concentrates on gaining freedom for her children. The final example in which Sally is seen as a strong woman is when Jefferson is on his deathbed. He asks her if she loved him, and she replies with silence. This is a moment in which she does not say what he expects her to say. At the very last chance Sally has to speak with Jefferson, she finally does not succumb and give him what he wants. This was her way of moving herself one step closer toward freedom and a very small measure of vindication. Finally, as Barbara Chase-Riboud explains in this novel, we can understand Sally Hemings' complex and developing personality.
