How would you react, my half-sister, in knowing that I have, as an enslaved person, mothered children with your husband? Could you believe that? With the way you white women condemn those aristocrats that sleep with their slaves, would you believe your Thomas (and your father) would do such a thing? Maybe he just has similar taste, seeing that we share a parent -- or does that thought disgust you?
Can you tell me why it is okay for him to be with you and not me. What makes us different? My skin's heritage you might say; but even your scholarly husband questions racial differences on his Notes On The State Of Virginia. "Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races?" Your dear husband questions our differences, do you?
Do you not see me as more than a slave and also as a woman? Am I not a woman? Do I not have feelings and emotions? Is part of your husband's power his ability to use me sexually? I'll bet you cannot imagine that taking place, but it has.
Sincerely,
Sally Hemings
Questions:
1. At the time was the fact that male slave owners fathered slave children commonly known and ignored or really a well kept secret?
2. How did Jefferson feel about racial identity? More specifically how do we parse Sally Hemings and Notes on the State of Virginia?
3. I know we have discussed this some already but the intersectionality of being a woman and black is prevalent again in the Hemings story and worth discussing again. (Not phrased in the form of a question).
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