Sally Hemings / Thomas Jefferson

Actress in role of Sally Hemings

A year before Thomas Jefferson’s death, in 1825, Sally Hemings began a serious discussion with the man she had lived with for many years and for whom she bore six children. Much of what appears below was hinted at over the years.

Sally Hemings: So many years under the same roof and so many meals we shared and sometimes I still feel like a stranger.

Thomas Jefferson: How could you feel like a stranger when I’ve given you all that the law permits over the years?

Sally: I want to call you Thomas but I am a feared that it might slip out in front of company.

Jefferson: We have lived many years together. You have nothing to fear.

Sally: I was but a girl when you first held me. I was afraid then—oh so terribly afraid.

Jefferson: Did you not want me to hold you?

Sally: It was not my choice. I knew little of life and had no thoughts of what you wanted from me.

Jefferson: Let me ask you again. Did you not want me to hold you?

Sally: Later as I grew older, I was sure that I wanted you. First because it made me proud to be the woman the master of the house desired. Mostly though, I saw no wrong in giving you my love.

Jefferson: In the eyes of slave owners like me, there was no wrong in using slaves as we wished.

It was not until years later during my presidency that, in coming into the company of men who favored abolition, I had a glimpse of another side to slavery.

Sally: Is that why you treated our children differently than the children of slaves?

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson: The four children of the six who were fortunate enough to live beyond childhood were all made free. It was your desire and mine as well.

Sally: You never asked me if I wanted to be free like my children.

Jefferson: Of course not. When my wife died, did I look for another spouse? No, because you were my wife and I needed no one else. Please, Sally you worry me when you speak as you do.

I have always treated you as my daughter. Never did I buy Patsy a gift without buying you something as well.

Sally: It was not the generosity that was lacking. In part it was the look of our son Madison as he silently watched us both. His eyes would be saying: “Mother, I am free but you will never be.”

Did he wonder if I would stay with Thomas Jefferson if I had the choice?

Jefferson: I would never open the door wide and expect you to leave. This is your home and you are my wife for as many years as I have yet to live. The thought of your leaving me would hurry me to death. I am perhaps guilty of many things as a human being but insincerity in my love for you is not one of them.

Sally: Do you love this aging woman at your side as much as that young girl of sixteen who trembled in your arms?

Jefferson: With all my heart.

When Jefferson died in 1826, Sally did not become free but became the property of Jefferson's daughter Patsy but she lived with her two sons Madison and Eston. Her death came nine years later, never having had a single breath of freedom. She lies in an unmarked grave.