JEFFERSON'S DAUGHTERS by CATHERINE KERRISON : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

This book was outstanding!

It's a biography of three of Jefferson's daughters.  They were Martha and Maria, by his wife Martha Wayles, and Harriet, by Sally Hemings, who was his mistress or common-law wife but also his slave. The man who became 3rd President of the United States (1801 -1809) had a long marriage-like relationship with Sally but could not lawfully marry her if he wanted to because she was also his slave. Martha, his daughter, lived a long life and had thirteen children. Her descendants were the ones to refute that Jefferson had children with Hemings. Maria, his younger daughter, died young also due to pregnancy.  

Early in the book we are presented with a genealogy chart. I always love to reference these charts in books and it is the beginning of surprises.  If you, like me, thought of Sally Hemings as isolated, well, we were wrong.  The Hemings family were all special among slaves, brought into the Jefferson family as "House" slaves, often given special educations that not only helped the family but provided useful skills for them to earn their living should they be free.  Initially they were brought in as belonging to his wife Martha Wayles, who he dearly loved and lost young because of childbirth.

No other book I've encountered does such a good job of showing how Sally Hemings was not sequestered in a secret room adjacent to his or a secret at Monticello.  Though as he retired and entertained fewer visitors his private life could remain fairly private, what the slaves of Monticello knew was that the Hemings family were special.

Sally Hemings was significantly of European DNA (i.e. "White,") and so their daughter Harriet was 7/8ths "White," but still enslaved.  Since relationships of various sorts between European descent and African descent people occurred before and after the American Revolution, the question of who was or was not  ever a slave or a free person or who had bought their freedom from slavery was something up for discussion and legal determinations.  Surprisingly, Sally's sister lived as the known common-law wife of another man not far away - and apparently they were not given grief over this. 

This book also showed that Jefferson himself must have aided Harriet (as well as his sons) in leaving slavery and that Harriet might have had to go through her life as a free White woman, married to a White man who had to keep her secret and might not have ever seen her parents or siblings again.  (There is no evidence to refute this, but my guess is that there was some channel of communication, for her older brother who could have been freed three years earlier, waited until she was 21 and he was 24 before they left together. Testimonials of where she went and so on came down in history from other of her children who were freed.)

Harriet's special skill was to be weaving.  She not only learned the traditional skills but Jefferson also had her trained on the latest more commercial contraption showing foresight that she might have to work to support herself.

Much to my delight - and increasing my respect for author Catherine Kerrison, was to learn the extensive genealogy she did in order to locate Harriet.  She had about 48 possible Harriets (supposing she only changed her surname when she left, or perhaps married soon after leaving estate) in the Washington D.C. area, which is where family history says she went to, at least right after leaving. She eliminated them one by one and came up with two strong candidates, or maybe just one, but this was inconclusive.  (It seems to me that some day some genetic link could be established if Harriet has living descendants.)

As a result, I will be excerpting this book through the next several weeks bringing to you some key points that I think will be of interest to anyone interested in American History, and especially African-American History.

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