WHERE DID HARRIET JEFFERSON GO INTO FREEDOM WHEN SHE LEFT HOME AT THE AGE OF 21?

With this excerpt, I end my focus on this wonderful book! I hope you'll get a copy to read through.

 My notes re pages 262-263  :

Harriet, the daughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, was to be freed from the slavery she was born into at the age of 21.Her older brother could have left earlier but he stayed till he was 24. It would seem that they were to leave together, and perhaps they continued to know each other? Any woman who was self supporting in the 19th century was living in poverty. So, despite her skill at weaving, marriage to a man who could provide would be important. Was that possible?  Jefferson let them go WITHOUT MANUMISSION PAPERS. In his farmbook he said they had 'run' but though they were fugitives, no one was looking for them either, and he didn't pursue that.

Excerpt:

"To avoid the paper trail that would connect them to him, Jefferson facilitated Beverley's and Harriet's departures without furnishing them manumission papers. In fact, for anyone who might examine his papers after his death, he wrote in his Farm Book "ran" next to their names. So by law they remained fugitive slaves until the Untied States abolished slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Although some states had already abolished slavery or put it on the path to extinction by gradual emancipation before then, the force of the Federal government had always been marshaled in support of slavery, first with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, and then its stronger successor in 1850. Not only was it a federal offense to assist fugitive slaves, the 1850 act required the free states to return runaway slaves to their masters so that even in the North they were not safe.

For forty-three yeas then, Harriet risked forcible return to Virginia and slavery if her identity was discovered and reported... And so would her children.

But Jefferson was not as uncaring as one might think.

Jefferson had his man pay her stage fair to Philadelphia and gave her fifty dollars.  Population 64,000 better than Washington City (D.C.) The city had attracted many manumitted slaves from Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, as well as from the Pennsylvania hinterlands, between 1790 and 1820. 

Basically it seems he covered his daughter's tracks.

Since Jefferson had been in Philadelphia and the Continental Congress he would have been able to arrange for her to make to Philadelphia. But perhaps she got off in Washington City rather than Philadelphia... There also her father had spent 8 years as President of the U.S... Beverly Hemings was in Washington City and went there as a white man....

She was supposedly married to a white man of good standing in Washington City.  Her brother Madison said she raised a family of children but he refused to give any surname or names of children and as late at 1863 said her identity as Harriet Hemings of Monticelllo had never been discovered...

I wonder:

With so many people doing genealogy, it is always possible that someone will discover they are descended from Harriet?

I suspect that there was some chain of communication between Jefferson and his children with Sally. 

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy Blogspot

MARRIAGE AND MOTHERHOOD - THE PRIMARY WOMAN'S CONCERNS

 Excertps; page 104-105

Marriage , of course, was serious business for women, who surrendered their names, legal identity, property, and bodies to their husbands with the pronouncement of their wedding vows. For all the levity of the young girls' letters, the calculations in choosing a husband were a vital part of their conversations  Perhaps remembering her own parent's loving marriage as she learned about matchmaking in aristocratic circles, Martha was incredulous to hear the manner in which some European men searched for wives; "I recollect you would not believe that now and then people advertise for a wife," Bettie Hawkins wrote from London, enclosing just such an ad from The Morning Post and hoping, "you will believe your own eyes"

***

From pages 108-109 My notes:

Unlike her older sister Martha, Maria Jefferson did not like to write letters. This might have been because she aimed to please - was a perfectionist - or because she expected her father or someone else would also read her letters - and thus could not speak her mind.  

When the two Jefferson daughters were withdrawn from Panthemont, the exclusive and expensive Catholic girl's school in Paris that they attended while their father attended to his representation of the new United States in France, Maria was probably the one who was glad, while Martha would miss it terribly and no doubt be influenced by her experience there for the rest of her life.

To ease the transition, the girls were able to have the student friends they had made come to visit them at their home base in Paris....

In April of 1789 Jefferson brought them back into the family circle at the Hotel de Langeac. This "hotel" was a townhome, a three story building with a nice garden and courtyard and was quite comfortable. They had sometimes visited for weekends away from their convent school, and the building was semi public and any Americans who needed the help of the American government could stop by. Perhaps a result of visitors both girls caught typhus which is caught from fleas or body lice.  (I've seen those death records in Catholic church records from Europe in which it is noted that various people died of typhus. The bacteria gets into the blood stream, a high temperature results, lasting a couple weeks and can cause some permanent damage.) Maria's bout with typhus was severe.

Page 175  (After Maria made it though a birth)

Childbed fever, also called then puerperal fever, could kill as infection invaded the uterus after delivery. Long before doctors understood the impotence of cleanliness in avoiding infection, and the invention of antibiotics, expectant mothers prepared as much for their death as for the new life they would bring into the world. Jack (her husband) was relieved that Maria showed no such symptoms.

Their job was short lived. Within two weeks, their little girl was dead and Maria was suffering greatly from abscesses on her skin. It is possible that she had been instructed, as many eighteenth century mothers were, to withhold milk for the infants' first few days. Today's mothers know that colostrum, the first secretions of the breast after childbirth, contain a rich combination of vitamins and anti-allergens that protect newborns. In the eighteenth century, however, colostrum was thought to be toxic, so mothers waited for what they considered a purer milk flow to be established before nursing. But the baby's death suggests that she had difficulty nursing, rendering Maria vulnerable to mastitis and infections. The milk ducts in her right breast became clogged, and, inflamed with infections and pus, sores broke through to her skin in several places....

Notes:  Sometimes I wonder how humanity survived when so many people seem to have been so ignorant about women's health. 

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

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 white 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 Harriet  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.

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

COLONIAL AMERICA CENSUS WORK - LIMITS OF THE 1790 U.S. CENSUS : 13 ORIGINAL COLONIES and THEN SOME

The first census taken in what was the United States was taken in the year 1790 and its a statistical census. It features the names of heads of households, mostly men. There were less than four million people counted. Thomas Jefferson was then the Secretary of State, not yet President, and under his direction the census was taken not by census takers, but by the marshals of the various districts. The census was of the ORIGINAL 13 COLONIES that became STATES but also the districts of Kentucky, Southwest Territory (mostly what is now Tennessee), as well as Maine and Vermont. 

The 13 COLONIES WERE :  New Jersey (NJ), Maryland (MD), Virginia (VA) which included an expanse of what is now South West Pennsylvania*,  Rhode Island (RI), Connecticut (CT), New York (NY), Pennsylvania (PA), North Carolina (NC) and South Carolina (SC) - the state was split in two in 1712, Georgia (GA),  New Hampshire (NH), Massachusetts (MA). We tend to think of the 13 original colonies as all in the North East, as New England, but as you see, three of the states were actually in the South.

* Were your ancestors Colonial's living south of Pittsburgh? Yohoghania County Virginia is the name of the County that was disputed between the state of Virginia and the state of Pennsylvania, also called the District of West Augusta. As land grants and legalities were in dispute, you may want to look at records from both states.

C 2023  Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

 

 

SALLY HEMINGS EXHIBIT AT MONTICELLO

The exhibit dedicated to Sally Hemings (also spelled Hemmings) at the home of President Thomas Jefferson, in Virginia, includes genealogy documents.  This African-American woman was a half sister to Jefferson's wife, sharing a father with her, and had lived in the Jefferson household as a slave since childhood.

Controversy around this story has brewed for years, but the story has now been accepted as truth.  She returned from Paris with him, pregnant, and in agreement that any children she had would be freed upon adulthood.

Many have tried on this story, wondering if there was love.  I tend to think so.

So see the video, the timeline, some of the documents...

MONTICELLO ORG

Descendants of slaves of Monticello also have participated in an oral history project called Getting Word https://www.monticello.org/getting-word/people/people

WHO REALLY DISCOVERED AMERICA : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

WHO REALLY DISCOVERED AMERICA : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

Christopher Columbus? His day has gone bust, in part because Native Americans rightly say they were on the American Continent (North and South) well before he arrived.  This film embraces the fact that there were possibly many excursions, by those sailing all sorts of ships from massive junks to simple canoes, that brought DNA into the America's which is the best evidence yet that people from Polynesia, China, Ireland, Norway, as well as, possibly, Hebrews, coming in to explore and some of them very likely had sex with individuals from previous populations.

As you probably know, the practice of genealogy relies on documents, but some people are having their DNA analyzed because of the matching services that usually come with having your hair, blood, bone marrow, or other body part analyzed.  Sometimes you can pick up the trail that you lost if you are matched with a "cousin" who knows more that you.  For many of us, the trail is lost after about three or four generations, but it is exciting to find out that in the deep past your people may have traveled the world, maybe by boat.

This film is exciting too because it brings the testimony of some experts who have made it their life's work to focus on micro-specialization, an assortment of archeologist, experts on how the ocean tides move ships, linguistics experts, people who can read ancient languages off rocks.

So here are some teasers!

Mysterious stones that are probably anchors from Chinese Junks have been found off the coast of Palos Verdes (Los Angeles) and in the 19th century the Chinese actually were fishing out there.  Maybe these are older from 1000 years ago?

It's believed the Welsh made it.  Could these be the blond haired "moon eyed" people who Cherokees interbred with the Mandan people.  President Thomas Jefferson heard there were Welsh speaking Indians.

Are carbon-dated Chicken Bones evidence that the Polynesians made it thousands of miles in 60 foot canoes about 1000 AD?

And the Chumash Natives (who lived from about where Santa Barbara is now and north) have fish hooks and boat building, and linguistic links to Polynesians as well!

The Vikings, The Irish (Saint Brendan the Navigator) and the Hebrews can all make claims, and evidence would include particular forms of building under the earth or with stone.

IT'S THE CHEROKEE, Chief Joe Sitting Owl, of the CENTRAL band, who got DNA testing.  Though only 1% of the Cherokee, Family Tree DNA did the work, and found no evidence of Hebrew or Jewish DNA.  Most Hebrew/Jewish DNA is in the G, J, T, or E haplogroups. but he says don't let this sway you away from the truth. 

My opinion: Maybe the Latter Day Saints can provide the funds for more Native American DNA testing, since their religious beliefs are that a Lost Tribe of Israel did make it to American.  Paleo Hebrew inscriptions in stones may appear in New Mexico, but perhaps most convincing is that a carbon dated rock with Hebrew inscriptions has been found in a Cherokee burial ground.

VISIT SKIRBALL "CREATING THE UNITED STATES" EXHIBIT Through February 17, 2013

SKIRBALL HOME PAGE LINK   Creating the United States Exhibit amazing!  Expect low light and take some time. You'll be reading handwritten documents straight out of the history of the United States of America.  Can anyone help but compare their own handwriting to that of our Founding Fathers?  Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln.  (Also ask to see the small exhibit of Abraham Lincoln's artifacts in another gallery!)

excerpt:

"Adapted from an exhibition organized by the Library of Congress, where it was seen by some two million visitors in the library's historic setting, Creating the United States illuminates how the founding documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—were forged out of imagination and vision, as well as collaboration and compromise. While fulfilling the principles laid down by the founders has been a struggle throughout the centuries, the documents they painstakingly wrote are living instruments, essential to the evolution of America and its future.

"It is a very rare opportunity to see these humble, handwritten pages up close," wrote Robert Kirschner, Skirball Museum Director, in a recent SkirBlog post. "They are surprisingly small. The ink is faded. The penmanship itself is an artifact. Yet these documents are as eloquent and powerful as any ever written. When their faded ink was fresh, the world was ruled by kings..."

On view are original documents and autograph letters by George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, and Thomas Jefferson; a first edition of Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776); engravings by Paul Revere; a William J. Stone copy of the Declaration of Independence (1847); a Members Edition of the United States Constitution (1787); a facsimile of Jefferson's desk on which he drafted the Declaration of Independence; and an original copy of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1863). Rarely has the history of American democracy been so vividly assembled for public exhibition in Southern California."

Did You Know THOMAS JEFFERSON and JOHN ADAMS BOTH DIED ON JULY 4th 1826 ?!?

Reading Pulitzer Prize winning David McCullough's JOHN ADAMS, a tome over 600 pages hardback published by Simon and Shuster, copyright the author in 2001. And it turns out that Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who had a life long friendship that went through many phases and who had a correspondence in their old age, died on the very same day, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence from Britain! YES!

These kinds of things make me think that so much is fate.

It's a great book and I highly recommend it to you!