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Gordon-Reed Turns the Tables on Bacon [AGR 27-30]
Adin Greenwald
[1] Edmund Bacon was an overseer at Monticello from 1806 to 1822. Because of his position, it can be assumed that he knew much about the lives of the slaves there. In one comment he wrote concerning the slaves of Monticello, he mentions a young woman that Jefferson freed as she reached adulthood:
He freed one girl some years before he died, and there was a great deal of talk about it. She was nearly as white as anybody, and very beautiful. People said he freed her because she was his own daughter. She was not his daughter; she was ......'s daughter. I know that. I have seen him come out of her mother's room many a morning, when I went up to Monticello very early. When she was nearly grown, by Mr. Jefferson's direction I paid her stage fare to Philadelphia, and gave her fifty dollars. I have never seen her since, and don't know what became of her. From the time she was large enough, she always worked in the cotton factory. She never did any hard work.
This girl is believed to be Harriet Hemings, the daughter of Sally Hemings.
[2] In her chapter about Madison Hemings's interview in Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (27-30), Annette Gordon-Reed closely studies Bacon's statement concerning Harriet Hemings. This statement is important because it "stands as one of the two pillars supporting the defense of Jefferson against the charge of miscegenation." She identifies three allegations made by Bacon:
First, there is the declaration that Harriet was not Jefferson's daughter. The second is that Bacon had often seen someone other than Jefferson coming from Sally Hemings's room in the morning. The third is that Jefferson arranged for this young woman to leave Monticello, with money, bound for a safe destination" (28).
The author cleverly responds to Bacon's statement by discussing his allegations in order of decreasing plausibility for use as evidence.
[3] The strongest of these statements is that Jefferson instructed Bacon to give Harriet fifty dollars and to put her on a stagecoach to Philadelphia. Gordon-Reed asserts this as fact and as the strongest piece of evidence because Bacon was personally involved, and she believes if he were lying, which is less plausible, he would be admitting to stealing Harriet and sending her to Philadelphia. Gordon-Reed views the truth of this statement as supportive evidence towards a relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings because Jefferson -- who had never freed a female slave -- was "acting in a way that suggests that Harriet Hemings was not just another slave to him" (29).
[4] The next strongest statement, in which Bacon had seen a man emerging from Sally's room some mornings, can also be considered factual if Bacon was being honest. It is important to note that this statement alone does not prove or disprove a relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: "The lack of a time frame for Bacon's observation makes this statement not useless but deficient as evidence that Jefferson was not Harriet's father or the father of Sally Hemings's other children" (28). Gordon-Reed states that this allegation creates the possibility that Sally was possibly involved with another man. The author's strengths shine when she exercises her skills as an attorney here, for she points out a critical error in the assessment of evidence by Jefferson defenders: "Bacon's statements, with no independent extrinsic evidence to back them up, are accepted uncritically while Madison Hemings's statements are treated as mere ‘oral tradition' that is not fact" (29).
[5] Bacon's weakest statement is his straight-forward acknowledgment that Harriet Hemings "was not his [Thomas Jefferson's] daughter; she was ‘......'s' daughter. I know that" (28). Interestingly, Gordon-Reed notes that "This is the weakest of all the statements. Yet it has been given the most prominence by Jefferson's defenders" (29). Immediately after stating this, Gordon-Reed discredits Bacon by indicating that his arrival to Monticello was not until five years after the birth of Harriet, which means there is no possible way that he could know the paternity of Harriet Hemings. Since there is no proof of Bacon being told anything about the paternity of Sally's children, Gordon-Reed assumes that this statement is his opinion on the matter. Her accredited reason for this "generally weak item of evidence" being used to disprove a relationship is "eagerness to establish a defense of Thomas Jefferson" (29).
[6] Looking closely at Bacon's evidence, then, Gordon-Reed finds two statements suggesting there was no relationship between Jefferson and Sally and one statement that suggests there was. She writes, "The question is, does the strength of that first statement support the veracity of Madison Hemings's account more than the two weaker statements hurt it?" (29). Answering her own question, Gordon-Reed calls attention to Jefferson's financial status at the time he freed Harriet Hemings. It is known that by the time of his death, four years after freeing Harriet, "Jefferson was over $100,000 in debt" (30). Female slaves, through their children, were essentially a source of capital. Gordon-Reed makes the readers ask themselves why, then, would Jefferson give up "a potential source of more capital" in this time of dire need? The common sense reply is that he wouldn't, unless Harriet were special to him. The bottom line is that Gordon-Reed takes the Bacon statement widely used by Jefferson defenders and shows how it may also be used to prove the Jefferson-Hemings relationship.
