Monticello
by Sally Cabot Gunning is a fascinating historical novel about
the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his eldest daughter
Martha. Because the author based this book on actual correspondence
between father and daughter it is immersed in reality.
The book begins with a letter from Martha to her father at
the age of fourteen, “I wish with all my soul that the
poor Negroes were all freed. It grieves my heart when I think
that these our fellow creatures should be treated so terribly
as they are by many of our countrymen.” This sets the
tone for the rest of the book where readers see the struggle
throughout their life with family, relationships, and issues
of the day, including being a good wife, a good mother, honoring
her father, and shaping his legacy.
The author’s research included, “I poured through
her letters to her father and his to her and realized that
she and I had embarked on a similar mission, to figure out
her father. I read all the letters they wrote each other,
letters to other people and numerous biographies. I searched
through endless Jefferson documents online. I learned that
as Martha matured she came to spend many evenings at her father’s
dinner table in the company of Europe’s greatest men
of arts, letters, politics, and science, enhancing her education
still further. I took many trips to Monticello and discovered
something new with each trip, not just about the people who
lived there, black and white, but also about the significance
Monticello held for them.”
Martha idolized and admired her father and considered him
a renaissance man with his greatest accomplishments as the
author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the
University of Virginia, and an advocate for religious freedom
as well as an end to slavery. Telling the story from her point
of view Gunning is able to have the characters come alive
and takes readers back in time to the early days of America
where Jefferson is viewed in a different light, that of father
and grandfather. There is a scene in the book where he sends
Martha and her children gifts, “books and toys for the
children, chinaware, a Turkey carpet, and a pair of chairs...When
Martha’s father realized she had no horse to ride, he
lent her a gentle bay and paid the overdue mortgage bill.”
Monticello is also a character that played a significant role
in their lives, the family's beloved Virginia plantation among
lush mountains. It was a place where Jefferson escaped his
political worries and thrived, and Martha sought security,
as it became her haven. Both yearned for it when they are
absent, and it became the soul of the family with its seasonal
beauty, treasured gardens, walking and riding paths, as well
as the Palladian house designed by Jefferson.
But it was also the family’s Achilles heel. Their increasing
financial strain forced them to continue to own slaves, even
as their conscience and beliefs told them slavery was wrong.
It became a necessary evil where they needed to have slaves
to manage the plantation. He did try to find a way to turn
his slaves into tenant farmers, but the Virginian laws did
not accept it.
Gunning noted, “It definitely was a character in the
book. The place itself became so significant in their lives,
especially if you think what they did to preserve it. They
were hell-bent on holding on to it. It was their sanctuary.
She actually moved back during her troubled marriage. It explained
many things including slavery, the relationship with each
other, and the extreme debt of Jefferson. This is just my
observation, but I believe had he not inherited slaves from
his father and an enormous debt from his father-in-law he
would not have been a slave owner. I also think had he not
been in such financial trouble he would have freed his slaves
after he died. Although he thought slavery was wrong, it became
a necessary evil, a way to manage the plantation.”
Furthermore,
she points out, “Jefferson did what he could to end
slavery, but was stifled by others and the law. While in France,
he had decided to set up tenant farming for those of his slaves
who he felt were ready to take on the responsibility. He also
believed legislation was needed to do away with slavery in
its entirety. In 1769 he had someone file an emancipation
bill because he was only a junior legislator. He had an elder
respected legislator put it forth, but it was instantly tabled
and not put up for a vote. He wrote this into the first draft
of the Declaration of Independence, calling slavery ‘a
cruel war against human nature itself,’ but others in
the Congress had it deleted. He also said, ‘There is
no G-d that would side with us in this conflict.’
This
brings up the question of the relationship between Sally Hemings,
his sixteen-year-old slave, and Thomas Jefferson. No one has
a crystal ball and can only speculate on it. Beginning while
he was the Minister to France, Hemings could have chosen to
be free, but instead chose to come back to America with Jefferson.
She was able to negotiate freedom for her children at the
age of twenty-one and privileges for herself, including not
doing the work of enslaved women. Her brothers were granted
freedom of movement, paid for work, sometimes given spending
money, and were taught to read and write. Whether the relationship
was fondness or love between them cannot be determined, but
regardless she was a slave and he was the master even though
he never supposedly forced himself on her.
Gunning explained, “When she was fourteen she accompanied
Jefferson, the American envoy to France, to take care of his
youngest daughter Maria. I do think she had some agency in
it although not a total agency. She could have remained free
if she stayed in France so she did have some decision making
power in agreeing to return to America Hemings negotiated
freedom for her children and privileges: their children would
be set free once they reached 21, and Hemings would never
again do the work of the other enslaved women at Monticello.”
This book takes readers on a fantastic journey about one of
America’s greatest Founding Fathers and his daughter.
Through her life, starting with her return from France to
a mother of eleven children people get a glimpse of the complicated
and complex era. |