The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (103 page)

30.
See Cissie Fairchilds,
Domestic Enemies: Servants and Their Masters in Old Regime France
(Baltimore, 1983), 158–59, on the high value of mixed-race servants and those of African origin and on the reasons for the preference. See also Sarah C. Maza,
Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century France: The Uses of Loyalty
(Princeton, 1984), 206–8.

31.
Perrault to TJ, Jan. 9, 1789,
Papers
, 14:426.

32.
John Jay to William Temple Franklin (unpublished), Nov. 11, 1783; Sarah Van Brugh Livingston to William Temple Franklin (unpublished) (undated). I thank Professor Edmund Morgan for bringing this correspondence to my attention and graciously sending me copies of it. I also thank Elizabeth M. Nuxoll, editor of
The Papers of John Jay
, and Kate M. Ohno, one of the editors of
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
, for providing me with relevant correspondence and for sharing their insights about this matter.

33.
Peabody, "
There Are No Slaves
," 97–103, on Henrion de Pansey; 103–5, on the motives of other lawyers involved in freedom suits.

34.
Ibid., 103. In discussing
Roc v. Poupet
, a freedom suit brought in 1770 in which the lawyer for the slave submitted his expenses to the court, Peabody notes that "evidence concerning slaves’ sources of money to pay lawyers is rare." Ibid., 177 n. 86. More work must be done on this question, but one can speculate that the submission of a bill to the court in 1770 suggests that the legal culture had evolved in a way that suited both lawyers’ needs and the preferences of the Admiralty Court. By 1770 the court’s position on the freedom suits should have been clear to everyone who held slaves in Paris; a master who resisted the slaves’ desire for freedom was going to lose. Fee shifting is seen as a way of affecting the behavior of the litigants—if the law is clear, the party in the wrong has an incentive to settle and not waste court resources fighting the inevitable. If there is no case to be made, the party who wants to sue will think twice before wasting the court’s time. The court’s action in
Roc v. Poupet
was in perfect keeping with the overall goals of fee shifting. This outcome might be attractive to lawyers who could make relatively easy money doing rote petitions with an entirely predictable result. The case suggests that Jefferson might have had to pay Hemings’s lawyer had the young man filed a freedom suit.

35.
See Jacqueline Sabattier,
Figaro et son maître: Maîtres et domestiques à Paris au XVIIe siècle
(Paris, 1984), 24–27. See, generally, Jean-Pierre Gutton,
Domestiques et serviteurs dans la France de l’ancien régime
(Paris, 1981); Olwen Hufton, "Women and the Family Economy in Eighteenth-Century France,"
French Historical Studies
9, no. 1 (Spring 1975): 6; Fairchilds,
Domestic Enemies
, 54–58; Maza,
Servants and Masters
, 164–67. See also, e.g.,
MB
, 681 for James Hemings’s salary, and 691, for Sally Hemings’s salary.

36.
See Fairchilds,
Domestic Enemies
, 13–20, on the history of wages and customs about wages.

37.
Peabody, "
There Are No Slaves
," 105.

38.
Ibid., 119, quoting Antoine de Sartine, one of the architects of the
Police des Noirs,
who linked the posters about and published accounts of successful freedom suits as a reason for the new law.

39.
Marcel Dorigny and Bernard Gainot,
La Société des amis des noirs, 1788–1799: Contribution à l’histoire de l’abolition de l’esclavage
(Paris, 1998); TJ to Brissot de Warville, Feb. 11, 1788,
Papers
, 12:577–78.

40.
Daniel Resnick, "The Société des Amis des Noirs and the Abolition of Slavery,"
French Historical Studies
7 (1972): 558–69.

41.
Martha Jefferson to TJ, May 3, 1787,
Papers
, 11:334.

42.
Paul Bentalou, Aug. 9, 1786,
Papers
, 10:205.

43.
Ibid.

44.
TJ to Paul Bentalou, Aug. 25, 1786,
Papers
, 10:296.

45.
See Peabody, "
There Are No Slaves
," 19, 39, 49, 90, 119, 154 n. 71, discussing the various parlements’ reactions to royal declarations; Laurent Dubois,
A Colony of Citizens
, 147, on Bordeaux and the slave trade.

46.
See, generally, Peabody, "
There Are No Slaves
," and Boulle,
Race et esclavage
.

47.
Peabody, "
There Are No Slaves
," 129–30.

48.
William Short to TJ, May 14, 1784,
Papers
, 7:254.

49.
Winthrop D. Jordan,
White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812
(Chapel Hill, 1968).

50.
Peabody, "
There Are No Slaves
," 3.

51.
Boulle, "Racial Purity," 35.

52.
Ibid., 38.

53.
Shelby T. McCloy, "Negroes and Mulattoes in Eighteenth-Century France,"
Journal of Negro History
30 (July 1945): 279–80.

54.
Boulle, "Racial Purity," 39.

55.
McCloy, "Negroes and Mulattoes," 280 n. 17. I follow Louverture’s spelling of his name.

56.
Alain Guédé,
Monsieur de Saint-George: Virtuoso, Swordsman, Revolutionay: A Legendary Life Rediscovered
, trans. Gilda M. Roberts (New York, 2003), 18, 3; Dominique-René de Lerma, "The Chevalier de Saint-Georges,"
Black Perspective in Music
4 (1976): 3–21.

57.
Ibid.

58.
Alexandre Dumas,
My Memoirs
, trans. E. M. Waller, 3 vols. (New York, 1908), vol. 1, xx; Gilles Henry,
Les Dumas: Le secret de Monte-Cristo
(Paris, 1999), 55.

1.
TJ to Francis Eppes, Aug. 30, 1785,
Papers
, 15:622 (supplementary letters).

2.
See, e.g., TJ to Martha Jefferson Carr, Aug. 20, 1785,
Papers
, 15:620–21, expressing his growing impatience with delays in sending his daughter—"It is upwards of 10. months since I have had a letter from Eppington; this is long for a parent who has still something left there"; Francis Eppes to TJ, Sept. 14, 1785, ibid., 623; Martha Jefferson Carr to TJ, May 5, 1786, ibid., 618–19.

3.
Francis Eppes to TJ, Oct. 23, 1786,
Papers
, 10:483; Martha Jefferson Carr to TJ, Jan. 2, 1787, ibid., 15:633; Elizabeth Wayles Eppes to TJ, March 31, 1787, and Mary Jefferson to TJ, ca. March 31, 1787, ibid., 11:260—"I should be very happy to see you, but I can not go to France and hope that you and sister Patsy are well"; Stanton,
Free Some Day
, 59, 108.

4.
Francis Eppes to TJ, April 14, 1787,
Papers
, 15:636.

5.
Stanton,
Free Some Day
, 195 (family tree of the Hern family).

6.
Gordon-Reed,
TJ and SH
, 240;
Farm Book
, 13.

7.
Elizabeth Wayles Eppes to TJ, May 7, 1787,
Papers
, 15:356; Abigail Adams to TJ, June 26, 1787, ibid., 11:501 (Jefferson’s SJL records this letter as received on June 30, 1787); Abigail Adams to TJ, June 26, 1787, ibid.; Abigail Adams to TJ, June 27, 1787, ibid., 502 (Jefferson’s SJL records these letters from Adams as received on June 30 and July 6, respectively).

8.
Farm Book,
13, 18.

9.
Pierson,
Jefferson at Monticello
, 107–8.

10.
Elizabeth Eppes to TJ, May 7, 1787,
Papers,
15:637; Stanton,
Free Some Day
, 108.

11.
TJ to Elizabeth Eppes, July 28, 1787,
Papers
, 11:634–35.

12.
Abigail Adams to TJ, June 26, 1787,
Papers
, 11:502.

13.
Abigail Adams to TJ, June 27, 1787,
Papers,
11:503.

14.
Abigail Adams to TJ, July 6, 1787,
Papers
, 11:551.

15.
See discussion of SH’s probable birthdate, in chap. 14, below.

16.
Abigail Adams to Mrs. Shaw, March 4, 1786,
Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams
, ed. C. F. Adams, 2 vols. (Boston, 1840), 2:125.

17.
John Quincy Adams, "Misconceptions of Shakespeare, upon the Stage," reprinted in James Henry Hackett,
Notes and Comments upon Certain Plays and Actors of Shakespeare
(New York, 1863), 224–26.

18.
Fanny Kemble’s Journals
, ed. Catherine Clinton (Cambridge, Mass., 2000) 127.

19.
Ibid.

20.
Joseph Tate,
Digest of the Laws of Virginia
(Richmond, Va., 1823), sec. 11 S. 3, p. 127. The age was raised to twelve, Patton and Robinson,
Code of Virginia
, tit. 54, chap. 191, sec. 15, 715, quoted in Diane Miller Sommerville,
Rape and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South
(Chapel Hill, 2003), 44, 276–77 n. 8.

21.
Francis Eppes to TJ, April 14, 1787,
Papers
, 15:636.

22.
Paul Bentalou to TJ, Aug. 9, 1786,
Papers
, 10:205.

23.
Andrew Ramsey to TJ, July 6, 1787,
Papers
, 11:556.

24.
Abigail Adams to TJ, July 6, 1787,
Papers
, 11:551.

25.
Ibid.

26.
Brodie,
Thomas Jefferson
, 217.

27.
Boulle,
Race et esclavage
, 255.

28.
MB
, 594 n. 87, discussing TJ’s expenses.

29.
Sue Peabody, "
There Are No Slaves
," 90–91.

30.
Passports issued by Jefferson, 1785–89,
Papers
, 15:485; TJ to Abigail Adams, July 1, 1787, ibid., 11:514–15.

31.
Abigail Adams to TJ, July 6, 1787,
Papers
, 11:550–51; TJ to Abigail Adams, July 10, 1787, ibid., 572.

32.
TJ to Abigail Adams, July 1, 1787,
Papers
, 11:514. See also
MB
, 677 n. 93, detailing expenses for tickets for Petit, SH, and Polly Jefferson.

33.
Malone,
Jefferson
, 2:135.

34.
Brodie,
Thomas Jefferson
, 218.

35.
Conor Cruise O’Brien,
The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785–1800
(Chicago, 1996), 23–25.