Afterword

Every time I have written a piece of historical fiction, I have been asked afterward which parts of my book were really true. The answer for this book, like the story itself, is complicated.

I believe Thomas Jefferson was the father of all of Sally Hemings’s children. So does almost everyone else who’s investigated the subject—and there has been a lot of careful research done, including what DNA testing could be done without actually digging up Thomas Jefferson’s body. If you want to read further, the “Report of the Monticello Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings,” which can be found online at www.monticello.org, is a good place to start.

Every named character in this book comes from history—their ages, situations, and relationships to each other are all historically documented. Most, though not all, of their actions in this book are also historically documented. However, we really know very little about them. We know what they did, but not how they felt; where they worked, but not how they spoke or what they said.

For example, we know that Beverly Hemings left Monticello right around the time of his twenty-first birthday. We know that he returned a few months later, and that he left for good three years after that. But we don’t know why he returned. We don’t know anything about what happened to him during the months he was gone; we don’t know how he felt about leaving his family, or how they felt about seeing him again. I’ve had to, as best as I am able, put myself in Beverly’s shoes—to imagine, if I were Beverly, what could make me go back to Monticello. And if I were Sally, or Maddy, or Harriet, how would I react when he did?

As another example, we know that Maddy was taught to read and write by one or more of Jefferson’s grandchildren. We know that Miss Ellen was the most scholarly grandchild, and we know that Maddy later named one of his own daughters Ellen. We don’t really know whether it was Miss Ellen who taught Maddy—that’s an educated guess.

We know that Miss Cornelia gave John Hemings a dictionary. We know that Peter Fossett secretly carried a primer he treasured with him to his new master’s house after the auction. We don’t know where Peter’s primer came from; when I wrote the scene where Maddy gives it to him, I was making that up.

We know James Fossett became the property of Thomas Randolph around the time of his eleventh birthday, but we don’t know why. We don’t even know whether he was sold or was given away.

Different people might draw on the same facts I did and come up with a very different story. That’s okay. This is Beverly’s story, and Maddy’s, Eston’s, Harriet’s, and Sally’s. It is Peter Fossett’s story, and Joe Fossett’s, and James Fossett’s. It is Thomas Jefferson’s story, and Martha Jefferson Randolph’s, and Burwell’s and John Hemings’s and mine. I have done what I can with what we know now. I’ve told all the truth I can find; so far as I know, nowhere have I written anything that couldn’t be true—that contradicts something we know for sure.

But history changes; that’s part of the wonder of it. Even during the three years I have been writing and researching this story, historians have uncovered new information in old letters, census records, and long-buried documents, and I’ve had to revise my story accordingly.

Madison Hemings, the overseer Edmund Bacon, and Peter Fossett all left personal recollections of their lives at Monticello. Maddy’s tells us that Harriet and Beverly both married white people, and had children. Neither ever told their new families about their past. They are lost in history; though Madison said they lived in Washington, D.C., he and Eston died without revealing the names Beverly and Harriet lived under.

Madison and Eston stayed in Charlottesville with their mother until her death in 1835. They then moved to Ohio, which had become a free state. Both married light-complexioned free black women and had families. Among Maddy’s eleven children were sons named after his brothers and himself, and daughters named Sally, Harriet, and, as I said before, Ellen. Although Maddy never passed for white, some of his children did.

In the early 1850s, Eston, his wife, and their three children moved to Wisconsin, changed their last name from Hemings to Jefferson, and passed into white society. Eston was a professional violinist whose signature tune was Jefferson’s favorite, “Money Musk.” I don’t know where or how Eston acquired his violin. Thomas Jefferson was known to have owned at least five violins; three of them, including his expensive Italian violin, can be traced after his death.

Joe and Edith Fossett and their children Daniel, William, and Betsy-Ann (whom Joe was eventually able to buy), along with Lucy and Jesse, who were born after the auction, moved to Ohio around 1840. Peter escaped slavery when he was thirty years old, and joined them. He became a Baptist minister and a conductor on the Underground Railroad. We don’t know exactly what happened to Patsy, but she may have run away from her new owner after the auction: She is listed in the 1850 census as living free in Cincinnati. Peter is said to have forged a pass allowing Isabella to run away, but we don’t know if she succeeded; she does not seem to have reunited with her family. Neither did Maria; we don’t know what happened to her.

Historians believe James Fossett married a woman named Mary. Nothing else about his adult life is known.