Week 3 Letter


Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you wrote the book you wrote. It’s a step in the right direction for sure. And believe me, I always liked Sally! She was kind, in her little way, and had these watchful eyes. Smarter than she looked if you know what I mean. Oh, c’mon! Know you probably think I’m jealous. Don’t get me wrong. She was good-looking. Really good-looking. Anybody could see that. She was good-looking any which-way you slice it. Some of the other girls (they were jealous) said he liked her just for her skin, the way it fell in that certain shade men (black and white) always are falling over themselves for, but it wasn’t about that. She moved in a certain way, had an openness about her, you know what I mean. Men just liked her. It was the same with her mother. But look, I’m not just writing to you to talk about how good looking Sally Hemmings was. You made that plenty clear in your book! I am writing to say something that maybe is going to have you think that I am jealous. I get that you were trying to write the life of an erased person. I get you were trying to tell the story of an individual enslaved person as a compelling American narrative. But in choosing the person you chose didn’t you just capitulate to the same strange hierarchies you seem to so loathe? You chose a beautiful, light-skinned woman, who had been to Paris, was already a part of history, basically let to go free by the end of your life. The way you write about her, talking like she really liked Tom (not that I know either way), you find her a little glamorous almost.  I’d like to see one of you historians write a history of someone like me. Dark-skinned, living on one of the outer plantations, spending my days dealing with plantation work and caring for men Thomas Jefferson worked so hard their souls broke at one point or another. That’s a book I want to read. 

Yours,
An enslaved woman without a big book about her. 

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