If you want to come as close as is feasibly possible to learning the truth about Thomas Jefferson and his relationship with the slave Sally Hemings, read Kansas City area author N.M. Ledgin’s book, “Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother.”
It has been a known fact for a while that Jefferson and Hemings had an ongoing relationship. The controversy among historians is whether Jefferson took advantage of this Monticello slave or if it was a mutual, loving relationship.
Ledgin makes the case in his historical novel, written from the point of view of Hemings herself, that it was a real love affair. Ledgin, who is 83 years old, has been interested in Jefferson since he was in high school. He has done extensive research, basing his premise on books; all of Jefferson’s diaries; Jefferson’s precise recordkeeping; and his collection of letters. Everyone named in Ledgin’s book was a real person.
He said he asked himself one question when reconstructing Sally Hemings: “What kind of woman would Thomas Jefferson have given 38 years of love and loyalty to?”
“The answer is full of negatives and positives. She couldn’t have been an ignorant slave. She was a slave technically, but she had to be somebody who was challenging enough for him to carry on a relationship that resulted in eight children and loyalty on his part, because I’ve checked his daily records through his entire life and have never found any reason to suspect him of cheating on her,” Ledgin said. “And as far as the emotion of love is concerned, that comes through very strongly on both sides — especially on hers.”
Ledgin said he sifted through every fact he could find about Hemings and put them in the context of Jefferson’s personality, his habits and his quirks, and was able to then construct what he considers not only to be a believable relationship, but a real love affair.
Paris
At the age of 14, Hemings accompanied Jefferson’s younger daughter to France, where Jefferson was Minister to France. Hemings was a free woman there because France did not recognize slavery, and she was well aware of that fact. When they were ready to return to Monticello two years later, Hemings was pregnant.
Ledgin says she made a deal with Jefferson that she would return to Monticello as a slave if he would free all of their children at the age of majority. He agreed and carried out his promise.
“I’m impressed with the fact that she would re-enter bondage voluntarily, although she could have walked away in Paris,” Ledgin said. “You know there has to be a strong emotion involved for a free woman to agree to go back into slavery.”
Ledgin said he was disappointed in some of the material he has read about Hemings, making her appear to be more of a victim than the assertive woman he thought she might be.
“I felt that historians had shortchanged her and that she needed to be represented in a way that was believable in the context of Jefferson’s stature, intelligence, bequests, etc.,” he said “I’m finding that historians often overlook simple human logic. They don’t reason out human behavior as well as they might and this is what I’ve tried to do in my book.”
Brother- and sister-in-law
Ledgin said there is another fact that many historians overlook. Hemings was Jefferson’s wife’s half-sister, both having been fathered by the same man, John Wayles. So she was Jefferson’s sister-in-law.
“This is what people have overlooked and the logical playing out of the relationship is what the historians have neglected to do. I felt there’s a gap to fill and I wanted to bring her to life,” Ledgin explained.
“When [Sally] got to Paris, I think she felt an obligation to take care of her brother-in-law, who desperately needed taking care of because here’s a man who was a widower. Bingo, along comes this amazing young lady, only 14 and he’s 30 years her senior, but in those days, so what,” Ledgin said.
He pointed out that it was common for women to get married at the age of 13 in Virginia.
“I’m quite sure that by the time she was 14, having known her special status at the house in Monticello, her mother ran the place, and being sent on this very special assignment to Paris, I’m sure she declared to herself, ‘Well, I’m family. I’m going to take care of this man.’ And she did.”
Asperger’s Syndrome
Ledgin is also the author of the 2000 book “Diagnosing Jefferson,” which poses the theory that Jefferson had Asperger’s Syndrome, a neurological condition on the high end of the autism continuum.
“The fact that he was a man who needed to be taken care of also fits the Asperger’s diagnosis,” Ledgin said. “Asperger’s people feel very comfortable with familiar settings and with family and [Sally] was family. …
“So Sally was in awe and I think she felt she had a role to play in this man’s life. It was partly because of his condition that I felt the relationship was quite a logical choice for both of them.”
Ledgin brings to vivid life the characters and a credible assumption that Jefferson and Hemings were indeed very much in love with each other.
“Anybody who vets this book to check any of Jefferson’s records to see could this really have happened will have to say, ‘Yeah, he reconstructed the dialogue between the two of them, but yes, this is what happened on that day or that week.’ And that to me was an important point to make.”
“Sally of Monticello” is available through amazon.com as a paperback and for Kindle e-readers.
Ledgin often speaks to various organizations, retirement homes, even in people’s homes, with tales about Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Anyone who would like to invite Ledgin to speak can reach him at or 913-897-3220.