Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

by Jon Meacham

What little evidence we have strongly suggests that Sally Hemings was an intelligent, brave woman who did as much as she could with what little the world had given her. She began this phase of her life as she apparently intended to carry on: with strength and an instinct for survival. For in this opening hour, geography and culture—those things that had conspired to enslave her—were on her side. In France, enslaved persons could apply for their liberty and be granted it—and there was nothing their masters could do about it.12 Jefferson knew this well. As the American minister he had once advised a fellow slave owner on the system.13 And Sally Hemings was no lonely slave girl in Europe: Her big brother James was there with her, at the Hôtel de Langeac, and could have helped her win her freedom. According to their son Madison Hemings’s later account, Sally, who had become “Mr. Jefferson’s concubine,” was pregnant when Jefferson was preparing to return to the United States.14,15 “He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred,” Madison Hemings said.