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Justus Trees the Hemings
Ann O'Connell
[1] Throughout the course of over two hundred years, curious and answer-seeking individuals have continuously pursued the love life of the third president, Thomas Jefferson. Accused of having had a relationship with one of his slaves, Thomas Jefferson's intimate affairs have stimulated much controversy throughout history. While master-slave sexual relations were a common occurrence throughout Jefferson's era, his relationship was far from an accepted and harmless fling. This relationship with his vibrant, young slave Sally Hemings supposedly carried on for thirty-eight years, producing not only five children, but also laying the ground roots for a very large and intertwining family tree. In Judith Justus's Down From the Mountain: The Oral Traditions of the Hemings Family (1990), this family tree is broken down and elaborated on in more detail to shed a light on the genealogy behind the "black side" of the Jefferson clan. While establishing not only an introduction as to who each of these people were, Justus also stresses the importance of their existence and the contributions that they have made to society. Through her analysis, therefore, Justus is able to demonstrate the significance of the relationship and the family network it created, while also elaborating on the importance of each individual and their pursuit for authentication.
[2] Historian Justus works to connect and analyze the inner workings of the convoluted family networks within the black side of the Jefferson family. Since slaves were basically given the bare necessities needed to survive, it isn't very surprising that their records were not kept in an organized fashion. Because of this in combination with the already over-abundance of uncertainties that exist within the case, it has been difficult to formulate sufficient evidence and trace back family lineage. Justus however, challenges the faulty recording system and not only gathers essentially all records of those possibly related to Jefferson but also illustrates how exactly each member is related to one another.
[3] Aside from mere lists of genealogical records, Justus's book offers further analysis about the family members and slave life in general in order to facilitate the reader's understanding about the Hemings family. First, Justus offers perhaps what some may call "common-knowledge" about the everyday affairs of a slave. Presenting historical facts as well as details with regards to the work slaves had to perform, their family life, and master-slave relations, Justus suitably establishes the context of slave life. From this basis, Justus works her way into describing each segment of the Hemings family network, beginning with each of Sally's five children. By providing not only essentially a map of where each descendant falls within the family tree but also whatever background information and photographs available with regards to each member, the reader is able to finally put into perspective who the Hemings descendants really were. Therefore, Justus's work serves to give the public a better understanding of the Hemings family, while also compiling for the Hemings descendants themselves factual justification for their relation to Thomas Jefferson.
[4] Though published over a hundred years after the Jefferson-Hemings relationship was at its climax in the media, curiosity with regards to the case has led to the publication of Justus's work as well as others alike. Written in 1990, Justus pours salt into an old wound and draws attention to the case once again. Making its way onto the literary scene a mere two years before the Jeffersonian Legacy Conference in Virginia, it is evident that Justus's work may have added fuel to the bold Robert Cooley's (a Jefferson-Hemings descendant) fire. Throughout this time period, it appears that extensive interest in the Jefferson-Hemings case emerged once again. Evidently, Justus was not alone in presenting information concerning the descendants but was perhaps influenced herself by the writings of Fawn Brodie in the 1970s and Minnie Shumate Woodson in the 1980's. Hence along with interest by Justus and others in information regarding the descendants came an attraction to researching the case amongst the descendants themselves as well. Moreover, while attending the Jeffersonian-Legacy Conference, Cooley took a bantam stance and spoke out not only about how he was a Jefferson-Hemings descendant not receiving proper recognition but also how there were probably hundreds of others in the same position. Justus's presentation of the genealogical records of the Hemings family acts as icing on the cake for those descendants seeking authentication. Thus, Justus provides Jefferson-Hemings descendants with more sufficient evidence to support their lineage to Jefferson.
[5] In all, Sally bore five children who survived infancy; she did have two other children, who died during their first few months. As Jefferson had promised Sally during their stay in Paris, all of Sally's children (Thomas, Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston) were to be freed upon turning twenty-one years old. From this point, the children were essentially given a fresh slate to start over and go in whichever direction they wanted to go in life. Nevertheless, the childhoods and adulthoods of Sally's children were far from consistent.
[6] Sally gave birth to her first child, Thomas, in 1790. However, because of James Callender's malicious words, Thomas experienced a childhood vastly different from all of her other children. In angst against Jefferson for un-kept promises, Callender publicly accused him in the Richmond Recorder of having an affair with Sally. At the time, Sally's son Thomas stuck out like a sore thumb on the Monticello plantation with red hair and a light complexion. Thus, in order to pervade any more accusations, Thomas was sent to live on the Woodson's (relatives of Jefferson) plantation at the age of thirteen; as a result, Thomas took on the last name Woodson. Prior to attaining his freedom, Thomas lived the rest of his years in slavery being passed between the Woodson plantation and Monticello. Furthermore, when members of the Woodson family moved to Ohio, Thomas followed suit and inevitably ended up staying in Ohio once he was granted his freedom. At that point in time, however, Thomas had already had a wife, whom he met on the Woodson plantation, and children. Therefore, to free his family, Thomas worked in Ohio to earn enough money to buy their freedom from the Woodsons and move them to Ohio.
[7] Subsequent to Thomas, Sally gave birth to her son Beverly in 1798 and her only daughter Harriet in 1801. While accurate information about all the children is scarce, it is especially limited with regards to these two children. It has been said that both Beverly and Harriet left Monticello and immersed themselves in white society, completely disengaging themselves from their African roots. First, it is believed that Beverly did indeed grow up at Monticello but that he ran away in 1822, fleeing to Washington. Taking advantage of his near-white complexion, Beverly married a white woman in Maryland and had one daughter who was also raised as white. On the other hand, Harriet left Monticello around the age of twenty-one when she was formally granted the freedom that she was promised. Similar to Beverly, Harriet utilized her light skin tone to gain acceptance into white society; she too married a white spouse and raised her children as white. Questions with regards to their true skin color never arose for either Harriet and Beverly or their children. Because they both seemingly disappeared and sought to leave behind all possible connections with Monticello and African American-ness in general, information with regards to their family lineage and their whereabouts is essentially non-existent.
[8] On the contrary, the greatest abundance of knowledge that we do in fact
know about the Hemings clan is derived from Sally's last two children. In comparison to the perhaps three or four sentences worth of information that exists about Beverly and Harriet, heaps of informative facts regarding Sally's sons Madison and Eston are available. Madison was born in 1805, followed by Eston three years later in 1808. Madison was the darkest in skin tone of all of Sally's children and also the most vocal; without Madison's efforts to reach out and tell his story, direct information with regards to the Jefferson-Hemings relationship would be non-existent. As directed by Jefferson's will, upon the age of twenty-one, Madison and his brother Eston were to engage in apprenticeships with their uncle John Hemings prior to being permitted their freedom. Thus, after twenty-one years of living on the Monticello plantation and completing said apprenticeships, Madison and Eston left slavery and entered new lives as free men. Going a completely different route in comparison to their other siblings before them, Madison and Eston opted to stay in Virginia and eventually marry: Madison married a black woman, Mary McCoy, while Eston married a mulatto woman by the name of Julia West-Isaacs. According to census records, the two lived with their mother for some time before they headed for Ohio and parted ways.
[9] It appears as if the most notability with regards to the Hemings family can be traced back to Madison and Eston Hemings. Eston, the youngest of the clan, draws attention to the family's genealogy in his daring last-name change from Hemings to Jefferson. While uncertainties with regards to the census records have amassed because of errors in spelling and race reporting, it is quite clear that both Eston and his wife took on this last-name. Throughout this time period, however, it was a common occurrence for slaves to take on their master's last name. Despite this possibility, though, the fact that Eston even made this name change stimulates further curiosity about the relationship. On the other hand, while Madison retained his mother's last name, he too went the audacious route and was not shy in attracting attention to his family's name. Madison provides essentially all the oral tradition and information with regards to the affair and who the Hemingses were in general. Because of this, "All Hemings authors, when it suits their case, rely heavily on Madison's ‘Reminisces' for much of the family history" (79). His efforts to highlight the case have thus influenced the later generations and descendants of not only the Hemingses but also of the Woodsons (Thomas Woodson), the Isaacs, and the Wests (Eston Hemings) to trace back and try to gain authenticity of their family's lineage.
[10] Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the significance of each and every member of the Hemings clan that Justus references in her work. In summarizing each branch of the family tree and listing each relative individually, she promotes the importance of the possible relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Through the compilation of genealogical records of the descendants, therefore, we are able to see the large scale of the relationship and just how many lives it has produced and impacted. "These members are variable productive members of society, ones that are labeled as high achievers," writes Justus, "Whomever their ancestors were from the extended Jefferson family that orchestrated this classic case of miscegenation, the survivors have proved that the amalgamation was a positive one" (133). Justus's writings hence enable us to better comprehend those who are actively seeking their recognition of lineage to Jefferson. We are able to more thoroughly understand why, in fact, it is of uttermost importance for these people to have formal recognition of their family roots, since, as Shelby Steele says, "The quest of acknowledgement became built into us." Engaged in an on-going pursuit now for over two hundred years, the descendants therefore have been seeking an established conclusion and recognition for who they are by blood. Thus, through formally presenting each individual descendant of the Hemings family, Justus establishes a better understanding of their individual lives and the necessity for authentication of their relations to Jefferson.
[11] Justus shows that the intimate relations between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings have left a momentous impact on history. Far from a local affair, the Jefferson-Hemings relationship produced not only five children but also waves of family descendants after its conclusion -- creating a large and convoluted family network. However despite their evident existence, many continue to deny and ignore the possibility that these people may, in fact, be related to Thomas Jefferson. In an effort to change this, Justus's work serves to offer a better understanding of who these descendants actually are and why their pursuit of authentication is so important. In compiling genealogical records and summarizing each branch of the family tree's story, Judith Justus thus works to establish the significance of the Jefferson-Hemings descendants and identify their probable lineage to Jefferson.
