Basically, the point of Ms. Gordon-Reed's book is to prove that a white man - especially one as important(!) as Thomas Jefferson - could be capable of being in love with a slave girl. With that, I have no issue as I am aware true love can cross any boundary, including race. To that end, Ms. Gordon-Reed more than succeeds in proving her point. The problem I have with Gordon-Reed's analysis of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship is that Gordon-Reed doesn't consider Sally's feelings at all, preferring to believe that ANY woman would have been grateful to be in a relationship with Thomas Jefferson, white or black!! She glides over the fact that Jefferson started his relationship with Sally when she was a mere 15 years old and Jefferson was THIRTY (30) years her senior, at age 45! Gee, how lucky to be so young and naive yet land a prospect such as Thomas Jefferson. It's also claimed that Martha Jefferson, on her death bed, asked Thomas NOT to remarry. I find that preposterous given Martha Jefferson was herself a young widow when she married Thomas, so why would Martha be a hypocrite and ask Thomas not to remarry, especially since he only 39 when Martha died? I don't believe for a minute that Martha Jefferson would make such a selfish request, given her own set of circumstances when they met.
But I read Gordon-Reed's book, for a different reason - to shed any light on the chance that Jefferson had murdered his wife Martha to be with Sally. I'd read Fawn Brodie's book on Jefferson back in 1975 when I was 18. What then surprised me about Jefferson's relationship with Sally MOST was the fact Sally was Martha Jefferson's HALF-SISTER. Now, 45 years later my curiosity about Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally is viewed through a "masonic" lens so to speak. Knowing now that Jefferson was a Lucifer-worshipping Freemason (ah, stop with your whining, my own family is freemasonic, so I know of what I type), what other mysteries are to be found in this relationship, if any? You should consider that Martha Jefferson died after ONLY ten (10) years of marriage with Jefferson at the age of 33(!), and that Jefferson destroyed ALL of Martha's correspondence, including Martha's correspondence with Sally. Why would Jefferson do that unless there was something to hide? (Remember: People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.) Also not included in the book is the revelation that Sally was a wedding present from Martha's father, which indicates the half-sisters probably had a close relationship, that Martha liked her half-sister, Sally. My question is: did Jefferson murder Martha? Martha was allegedly ill the last few years of her life, but hey! poison, especially arsenic, can give the impression of illness over time as the poison eats away at a person. And then there is the coincidence that Martha died at age 33, the FAVORITE masonic mystery number. Further, that both of Martha's parents predeceased her would have given Jefferson ample opportunity to do a deadly deed without much scrutiny. Oh sure, Jefferson is reported to have been distraught over Martha's death, but if you know anything about the masons, you know they are all great actors.
That Jefferson never remarried, preferring his relationship with a slave girl 30 years his junior tells me all I need to know about Jefferson: that he was a selfish, dominating son-of-a-bitch where everything had to be HIS way or the highway. If he had loved Sally, he would have FREED her after his dalliance with her and then provided for her until she found a suitable mate of her FREE choice. But no, Jefferson kept her on the plantation as chattel and freed Sally and her children only upon his death. WHAT A GUY!!!
Therefore, in the end, what you can deduce from this book is that nobody gave a hoot about Sally; not Thomas Jefferson and not this author, either.
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