Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

Thomas Jefferson yanks the reins a second time. “I will not discuss this matter any further,” he says as he passes. “You have been more than adequately compensated for your work. I agree that your imprisonment was a travesty of the law, but I pardoned you as soon as I took office, and now I have seen to it that your fine will be returned to you. I owe you nothing more and consider our association ended.”

Callender shambles alongside the horse as Thomas Jefferson speaks. Several times he reaches for the horse’s reins, intending to bring it to a halt, but they repeatedly elude his fingers. Only when the horse bucks and grazes his knee with a hoof does Callender leap back and give up his efforts.

“You’re fucking arse wipe, Jefferson!” he shouts at the president’s retreating back. “You’re twice the tyrant that Adams was, and even Washington would be staggered by your self-serving hypocrisy. You’re the fucking traitor! Do you hear me? You don’t give a rat’s arse for democracy! But you can’t escape your own actions! Mark my words: Even you don’t have the power to change the facts! I know why you’re always in such a hurry to get back to Monticello! I know that every word you have ever uttered about niggers is a damnable lie! Rind may have been too afraid to publish what he knew, but I am not! Do you hear me? I am not!”

It is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor , keeps, and for many years past has kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is SALLY. The name of her eldest son is TOM. His features are said to bear a striking although sable resemblance to those of the president himself. The boy is ten or twelve years of age. His mother went to France in the same vessel with Mr. Jefferson and his two daughters. The delicacy of this arrangement must strike every person of common sensibilities. What a sublime pattern for an American ambassador to place before the eyes of two young ladies!… By this wench Sally, our president has had several children…. THE AFRICAN VENUS is said to officiate, as housekeeper at Monticello.

— James T. Callender

Richmond Recorder

September 1, 1802

On September 3, 1802, Mr. Lilly sends Tom Shackelford into Charlottesville to dispatch several barrels of nails to Baltimore and London. Sally Hemings goes with him so that she might visit Mickel’s Millinery to buy cloth for the quilts she is making for Maria’s son, Francis, and for her own little Harriet, who is a year and a half old. But also it is a fine day for a ride: sunny and coolish, one of those days in which the sky seems to have expanded and the breezes to move about more freely — an enormous relief after three solid weeks of nearly one-hundred-degree heat.

She gets off the wagon at the stage office and walks east on Main Street, which is still muddy from the previous day’s thunderstorm. A white man in shirtsleeves and a pink waistcoat is sitting on a bench in front of a grocery, smoking a pipe. Sally Hemings’s eye is drawn to him more by his perfect stillness than anything else. He is gaunt, with deltas of shadow under his cheekbones. His brow is gnarled, one corner of his mouth is pulled down and his china-blue eyes are staring directly at her. “Yellow bitch!” he says, and spits at her feet.

Sally Hemings is so shocked that she stops in her tracks.

“Abel!” the man shouts through the grocer’s door. “Come on out here! Jefferson’s nigger slut is right in front of your store!”

“What?” a voice calls from the dark interior.

“Just come on out! That yellow bitch whore is right here! Right on your doorstep!”

Sally Hemings has lifted the skirt of her gown and is hurrying with her head lowered along the muddy street.

“Dusky Sal!” a voice calls from behind her. “Dusky Sal!”

She hears laughter — from two men and a woman.

She doesn’t know where she is going; she only wants to put as much distance between herself and the man at the grocery as she can. But other people have heard the shouting and have stopped in twos and threes to watch her go by.

“That’s her,” one woman tells another as she passes.

“Who?” says her friend.

A man lurches in front of her — drunk, or pretending to be drunk — then gives her upper arm a stinging, three-fingered slap as she dodges past. She hears several people speak the words “nigger wife.”

At last she is in Mickel’s Millinery, the door shut behind her and its little bell still jingling. She leans her back against the door for half a second, then steps away, trying to regain her self-possession.

Yesterday Edy Fossett told her that an article about her and Thomas Jefferson had appeared in a Federalist newspaper — but Edy had only heard tell of the article, not read it herself. When Sally Hemings asked what it had actually said, Edy replied, “Just silliness and balderdash! I don’t know why people trouble themselves with those rags!”

Mrs. Mickel glances at her as she stands by the door but doesn’t meet her eye. There are two other people in the store — a white woman and her grown daughter — and Mrs. Mickel is explaining to them that she is all out of baleen and won’t have any more until the week after next, but if Miss Clark — the daughter — is in a hurry, the wooden stays are almost as good. There follows a long conversation comparing the virtues of various types of stays, during which Sally Hemings keeps a few steps to the rear, waiting her turn, grateful for the opportunity to calm her hammering heart. She doesn’t know what she will do when she finally has to leave — except that she won’t go back to the stage office along Main Street, but maybe along Market and Little Commerce, although that would take her considerably out of her way.

Sally Hemings has been coming to this store for close to thirteen years, ever since she got back from Paris. Mrs. Mickel used to love it whenever she brought in Martha’s or Maria’s French gowns for copying or repair, and she could talk for hours about the quality of their materials and the fineness of the design and the stitching. Even those beautiful dresses became old-fashioned, however, and Mrs. Mickel was close to tears the day Maria asked to have one of Martha’s passed-down Parisian gowns altered so that it might look more stylish. Ever since Maria’s marriage, however, Sally Hemings has mostly come into the shop on her own business. She and Mrs. Mickel have that placid affection that arises between shopkeeper and customer over years of counter-side chitchat, and of learning bits and pieces of each other’s life, and of watching each other age. It is clear Mrs. Mickel thinks Sally Hemings a kindred spirit.

Miss Clark and her mother simply cannot decide whether to settle for the wood stays or hold out for the baleen and hope the latter come in on time. Sally Hemings keeps waiting for Mrs. Mickel to cast her a surreptitious eye-rolling glance, but no such glance is forthcoming.

At last the women reach a decision: They will have the dress made now and perhaps substitute baleen stays for the wood at a later date. Mrs. Mickel tells them she has just exactly the material they will want for the bodice and skirt, and then she calls for Nora, her Irish servant, to bring out the new shipment of silk.

Nora does as instructed, and while Miss Clark and her mother consider the skeins of evergreen, midnight blue and burgundy silk, Mrs. Mickel retreats to the back room with Nora for a couple of minutes. When she returns, she continues to ignore Sally Hemings, even though her two other customers have little need of her attention.

After a couple of minutes, Nora also emerges from the back room and indicates to Sally Hemings with a lateral glance and a hook motion of her hand that she should go out the front door and meet her in the alley.