re: #505 abolitionist

I believe Jefferson was accompanied by Ms Hemmings during his ambassadorship to France. By the laws there, she was free, not slave, and was advised of those facts, personally by TJ. Yet she returned to the States later. (Such was the portrayal in a biographical made-for-tv movie.)

She was a young teenage girl (Abigail Adams was horrified that this little girl had been sent to take care of Jefferson’s daughter, thinking her little more than a child herself), and Jefferson went to some lengths to make sure that other slaves of his who might have been able to support themselves in France were NOT apprised of that right—Sally’s brother James, for one, who later turned down an offer to be Jefferson’s White House chef. I’d take the movie with a grain of salt.

I like to imagine that she loved him. It’s better than the alternatives. She was his late wife’s half-sister, and I suspect that for him she was a way of getting Martha back.