From Sally to Mary

Dear Mary,

I have heard that you are to move to Thomas Bell's house with your children that he fathered and that you have requested this move. If it is to make you happy, then I am glad of it. But I am also curious as to what encouraged you to make this decision. Have you decided that you would prefer to make a home with this white man and your children, whom he now owns, rather than find a man as enslaved as you are? With a slave, you are more of an equal, a partner. In this relationship, should he choose, your master could sell you or any of your children at any moment. Should you anger him, he could not only hit you – and a slave husband could do that too, it's true – but he could take your children away.

Is it perhaps that you trust that this situation will, in fact, provide you were more of a possibility to stay with your children and family? If he has promised never to sell any of you, I do hope it's true. I know that some say that you should keep your body for a black man, but if this white man is a good master to you and your children, then I can see it working out for all of you. Particularly if you are actually willing in this situation – you and your daughters are now safe from situations in which you might not be so willing. Too many are in situations in which they are not so willing, and I sincerely hope that this situation is, for you, not like that. The line isn't ever clear with a master, I suppose.

Though I would never compare your lot to that of a white woman and say you are the same, in some ways, I think, your master owning you is not entirely different from the way he might own a white wife and white children. He'll make you, and the children, work in the house and the field, but some white wives do that too. This ownership is more complete, but seeing as how you've asked to be sold to him, the differences between this and a white woman bringing with her a dowry to a white husband are less sharp. There is money involved when white women move in with white men, just as there was with you; and if he should treat you well or poorly, he could treat a white woman well or poorly just the same.

It is impossible to separate the facts that you are a slave and a woman. I hope that in this situation, for once, the fact that you are a woman is working to your benefit.

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To which Jefferson should we give more credibility – the one whom we read about so extensively in The Hemingses of Monticello, or the one whose words we read in the primary source? Is it possible for these two Jeffersons to be the same person, and what does that say about the complexity of slave-master relationships in general and his relationship with Sally and the Hemingses in particular?