The emotional content of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship is a mystery. He may have loved her, and she him. It could have been, as some have argued, coercive, institutionalized rape. She might have just been doing what she had to do to survive an evil system, accepting sexual duty as an element of her enslavement and using what leverage she had to improve the lot of her children. Or each of these things may have been true at different times.
