Week 3: Betty to the Hemingses


To the Hemings Family:

In all my life, I never thought I’d see a black man on a boat destined for anything but the most wretched slavery, but I heard young James recently boarded a ship with Master Jefferson to Paris. Now somebody like me wouldn’t know nothing about a place like Paris, but I bet it ain’t nothing like slaving away down here in Master Jefferson’s fields.

You know what else ain’t like it? Serving Master in the big house. Now, I never been in the big house either, but I know you all got it a lot better than the rest of us do down here. The Hemings women prance around in their fancy dresses doing light work in a well-built mansion while the Hemings men walk around as if they as free as any white man. Me, I work all day in the fields in rags and then I sleep on the floor at night in them same rags.

You think you’re better than me and the rest of us, but I tell you this, I’d rather toil endlessly, day and night, with my fellow slaves, free from the constant watch of Master than to wear all the pretty dresses in the world. You might think yourself family to the Jeffersons, but you can believe the Jeffersons don’t see you that way. What we got down here is real family. We got real traditions, real culture, real community. Though you live with the white man, you ain’t white, don’t forget that.

Keep looking down on us, but we got our own down here.

Truly,
Betty 

[a letter found in Jefferson’s records, by a field slave named Betty. Betty was not listed with a surname.]

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