Bring to you one of our most prestigious speakers and one of his cleverest biographers. Dresser and it gordon reed is the one who definitively cracked the case as our speaker on tuesday mightve said. On one of American History both conflict and now expunged stories which is the relationship between the jeffersons and the hemmings. Is theor gordon reed trolls warren professor of american legal history at Harvard Law School and professor of history at harvard university. She has a jawdropping list of honors. Fellowship from the Dorothy Lewis b Coleman Center for scholars and writers at the new york public library, a guggenheim fellowship, a , and awardellowship from the National Organization for women in new york city. On both seen and unseen americans, including a biography of Andrew Johnson in her most recent book is most blessed of the patriarchs. It comes to jefferson, were fortunate to have her here. No one knows the public and private jefferson quite as well as she does. The relationship between our third president and his own slaves is one she first exported explored back in 1997. Thats both Thomas Jefferson and sally hemming, an american controversy. She came to the subject again more than a decade later with her 2009 book the hemmings is of monticello and american family, which won both the natural book award in the Pulitzer Prize for history. Its this book and subject that bring us together tonight. It is an important topic, and for some, uncomfortable topic, to be sure. As a historian, joseph ellis said quote, Thomas Jefferson is described as a slave described his slaves of monticello as, my family. Gordon returned that description seriously. Surely more than jefferson avenue ever intended. Its not a pretty story, but its poignant beyond belief. It is indeed and is touchingly told. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, the wonderful, and at Annette Gordon reed. [applause] thank you very much. It is wonderful to be here. I was in charlottesville earlier today for the presentation of the Thomas Jefferson medal. One of my dear friends, letter loretta lynch, received a medal for loss. I stopped in charlottesville i got in the car and came here to be with you today. Im very happy to be her in a beautiful, spring day. Ive been able to enjoy the hospitality of people here command the beautiful campus. This is interesting for me. Im sort of in the middle of the book tour with my coauthor, who helped me write both Thomas Jefferson and the empire of the imagination. We have been going together so flying solo is interesting. I was used to doing it before but ive gotten used to having him here. Tonight is a hemmings story. Im glad to talk to you about this. My first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, unamerican and american controversy, i thought was about historians, the way people approach history. Particularly the way historians had handled the story about whether or not Thomas Jefferson had children with an enslaved woman, Sally Hemmings, who lives on his plantation, monticello. I was concerned about the practice related to the stories of the white families, upperclass people. Dismissing the story of enslaved. Youll who took about their life and slavery, about something that as we know now, was from the familys stories of africanamerican. We know now from the innate testing im not talking but hemmings testing geneticists have done, who shows very much the kind of mixing that was going on at monticello, was going on across the south. This was not something that was rare. It was not something that people talked about in their letters. But we could see it visibly in the faces and bodies and contour, the hair of African Americans all over the United States. I was concerned about the way of dismissing the story of africanamericans, crediting the story of the legal family. After my book came out in 1997, and dna testing followed in 1998 that cooperated corroborated what i was suggesting in my first book, it occurred to me that one of the reason that it was easy to dismiss the story of the hemmings family was because people didnt know anything about the hemmings family, other than that there was a scandal. They knew the name of sally hemming. They may have known the name james hemming come hemmings, her brother. I was thinking, if i could tell their story and a way that made people feel that they had a stake in them, then it might give people pause in the future about dismissing the story of enslaved people. I live in manhattan. But when i am in manhattan, its a big, crowded city, anonymous. When you meet somebody if i meet somebody in the neighborhood, i begin to see them after that. When you are introduced to someone, you walked past them before, but you didnt know them. Once you know them, you notice their children, when you dont see them, when you expect to see them. They become a part of you in a way. Thats what i want to sue with the hemmings family, to give people a stake in this family. This is an interesting time to be thinking about this. You may have seen an article in the Washington Post not long ago that talked about the fact that monticello now is redoing the rooms where they think Sally Hemmings may have lived. If you have been to monticello, you know or any public museum, it has to pick a particular moment in history they cant show the entire range of 50 years worth of development of monticello. This is an area where they think Sally Hemmings lived. The story appeared in the Washington Post, as i said. It got a lot of attention. The tour that they will be doing will get a lot of attention. Shes there, but not really there. The idea of actually having the room, having it as part of the tour, and interpreting that, will probably cause a lot of talk, controversy talk. Thats what you want. The museum is supposed to be an educational experience. You have to have talk, controversy and discussion to do it. Thats what you want. But i thought i was thinking about writing this book, i wanted to do something other than focus on Sally Hemmings. I was adamant that i would not talk that much about, which of course is crazy. She is the pivotal part of the family, we know the family. Thats because of the scandal the story about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. It was unrealistic for me to think i wasnt going to leave her out but i wanted to the emphasize her. Then i realized, that didnt make any sense. I had it to be realistic about this. I had to understand the pivotal role that she played in her family, try to see the hemmings as just not just as her, but seeing her as part of a web of relationships that made this story of monticello, how it made sense. Thomas jefferson and Sally Hemmings dont make sense just as the two people. Theyre part of, as i said, a web of relationships, his relationship with her brother, her mother, her brother, sisters. It flows together if you think about it. When i was working on my first book, i was puzzled by Sally Hemmings. I was doing my own version of the book to her then. People would always ask me about her and say, she was in paris with jefferson and his daughters and her brother. At one point, when he is about to come home, the story is told, that she did not want to return with him. She did not want to be reenslaved, and she did not want her children to be enslaved. The question Jefferson Madison hemmingss story, jefferson promised her, if she came back home with him, she would have a good life and monticello, and her children would be freed at 21. In france there was a possibility of becoming a free person. Every person who filed a petition for freedom in paris at this time had a petition granted. So there was a good chance she and her brother could have remained in paris as free people. It would have been difficult. But people who ran away through swamps and all kinds of hardships in the United States had a difficult time when they ran away. The fact that it was difficult did not mean it would have been impossible, or that she was crazy to think that that she could do this. I was puzzled. People always ask me when i went around to give talks, why did she come back . Why would she come back to the United States when she had a chance to be a free person . Why would she not try to get away from the jefferson family . People had ambivalent feelings about her. I have to admit, i had ambivalent feelings about her as well. While i was working on the first book i was thinking mainly about historians and what they had written. It wasnt focusing as much on the hemmings family story. I was writing about this controversy. When i decided to read the book about the hemmings is as a family, and to begin to flesh of the individuals, their particular role in the family, how they saw themselves, she saw herself apparently within this web of relationships, it began to make sense to a 16 Year Old Girl who has a chance to be a free person but would be born in a foreign country, we think her brother james, who was about seven years older than she, wouldve been there for for support as well. But she wouldve left the family behind, and mother, sisters. If you think about the way women are today, and even where then, certainly socialized to think about family, responsibilities to family, it makes sense to me. She says she implicitly trusted jefferson. That was the 1 even more so than not coming back, that was the one that gave me pause. The question would be, why would you do that . I would couldnt construct him as her enemy and see him that way for my position, writing in 1996, 97, when i was working on this book. My first book looking at Sally Hemmings, judging her, implicitly trusting him. That seemed to dubious proposition to me. But then, working as the hemmings is of monticello, and seeing the family as a whole, thinking about them as a whole, learning about how jefferson dealt with them and how they dealt with him, learning how he took this family and made them, in some ways, different than other enslaved people. They were not free. They were still slaved. But he treated differently from other people looking back as a historian, i can say that all of those perks, those things that you think are favors or whatever, youre still enslaved. They knew that. If you imagine yourself in that circumstance, how difficult it would be or how it could affect you if someone was treating you in a different way, was telling you the you are different than those other people who have the same legal status as you but are being treated very differently, it might affect the way you feel. One of the things about being a scholar of slavery, and you are looking at the situation, it is so hard to imagine being in that position. But you have to remember as well, you are dealing with people who are human beings. You are dealing with human beings who are strong in some ways, and who are weak in other ways. Every kind of personality that exist among whites during that time or now, or whatever, existed within the enslaved community. The system of slavery was the overlay of their lives. There were individuals with their own personalities, their own quirks, strengths, weaknesses treat those played out within the context of this system. So once i began to think about the hemmings family as a group, understanding how jefferson handle them, how and i want to use the word coopt because that judgmental, its easy for me from the safety of now to talk about it or criticize people for the ways they try to make the best deals they can for their lives in the suppressive system. I have the luxury of making that kind of judgment but i dont want to do it because its not fair. The thing is to trot that i was trying to do was to think about this family is human beings. Thats within the context of this particular system. I had to start at the beginning. Talking that the matriarch, Elizabeth Hemmings, who was the daughter of an englishman, a woman who was african. She may have actually been from africa, or her parents could have been african and she was born in virginia. Elizabeth is, therefore a myth of mixed race. She was owned by family. A man named john wales married to the ups family, had a daughter with murtha apps, who died a couple of weeks after her daughter was born he married twice after that. He lost those two wives, and at some point, took Elizabeth Hemmings is a concubine. Madison hemmings was a man who gave his recollections about his life and monticello in 1873 trade he said he was the son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. Hes telling the story of his family and grandmother. She became the concubine of john wales, and had six children by him. The youngest of those children was sarah. Sarah was sally, the nickname at sally was given to her. John wales have these six children, his daughter was martha. Thats one of the tough names about this book, they are all named martha and mary. [laughter] this family tree that i have to keep consulting to figure who was home in here. But martha grows up and mary struck Thomas Jefferson. When the john wales dies, the hemmings family and 135 other enslaved people, under the ownership of martha and Thomas Jefferson. As the husband, the blackstone quote, theres marriage the husband and wife become one, though one is him, the man. He is in control of this particular they bring the hemmings children to monticello and install the women as a Favorite Health offavored house servant martha. The boys become servants to jefferson. Jefferson had a man named jupiter, we believe his last name was evans, could been with him from the time he was a little boy. Jefferson moved him makes Robert Hemmings his manservant. Robert is 12 at the time. You have to figure up what kind of manservant he couldve been. At age 12 that is. He travels with jefferson, he is jefferson in philadelphia, he writes declaration of independence you can sense his family melding together. Not just jefferson and his wife martha, but marthas enslaved siblings. We dont know much about Martha Wales Jefferson the letters between jefferson and his wife were destroyed. We think he destroyed them. Even as an older man he was writing people letters asking if they had any of her letters so they could take command destroy them. This was not uncommon among unmarried couples, they didnt think people should know about the intimacies of their relationship. We dont know much about them. Its an interesting thing that she brought her brothers and sisters to live with her at monticello. They have them in her life on a daily basis. A lot of times in a Slave Society when the master or his sons or whatever, had children with enslaved women, the women of the household sometimes they make themselves the family members. They put them away somewhere. Its interesting that she brought them with her and put them in the house. Shes around these women. Elizabeth as well. She was not adverse to having them around. When she dies in 1782, they are around her deathbed her legal sisters, white sisters, sisterinlaw, and jefferson. They are the ones who tell the story about martha asking Thomas Jefferson not to remarry. She says, their story was that she did not want she said that she did not want another woman over her children. It wasnt like, i want thomas, i want to even in death. She may have had some difficulty with her stepmothers. And she, according to this story, did not want her children to have those problems. He promised that he would not marry again. And he never did. She died when he is 39 years old. He dies when he is 83, and he never remarried. After her death, jefferson is shattered. He decides to take a mission to paris that had been offered to him. He takes james hemmings, another person in the story, another or some in the family who, most people who read the book many people who read the books say he is the favorite member of the family jefferson takes them to paris to learn how to become a chef. Jefferson loves french cooking. He wanted a french chef. He goes to paris with james and his eldest daughter, martha, another martha. Its just the three of them for a few years that are there, until jefferson has, makes the request that a younger daughter he has left behind be brought to him in paris. He asks that his daughter, mary, the accompanied by he said, a careful negro woman such as isabel. He is talking about isabel hearn, who was 28 years old. Instead, eversons sisterinlaw, who is in this convoluted story, was actually Sally Hemmings is half sister, because she was jeffersons wife sister wifes sister. She is the aunt of the girl she is taking care of. Instead, they send a Sally Hemmings is 14 at this time, and she is the guardian, or the companion of a nineyearold girl. She is supposed to be the babysitter for this nineyearold girl. They arrive in london. Abigail adams who is there to greet them is aghast. She basically says, you have a kid looking after another kid. Shes very upset about this. They go on to paris. At some point, and we dont know when, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings began heres the difficulty. The Washington Post article, one of