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The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family Paperback – September 8, 2009

by Annette Gordon-Reed (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,606 ratings
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the National Book Award
New York Times Bestseller
#1 on Esquire's List of the 50 Best Biographies of All Time

"[A] commanding and important book." ―Jill Lepore, The New Yorker

This epic work―named a best book of the year by the Washington Post, Time, the Los Angeles Times, Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a notable book by the New York Times―tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family’s dispersal after Jefferson’s death in 1826.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    816 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    September 8, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    6.1 x 1.4 x 9.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0393337766
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393337761
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A sweeping, prodigiously researched biography."
― Motoko Rich, New York Times

"A monumental and original book."
― Fergus Bordewich, Washington Post

"A brilliant book…It marks the author as one of the most astute, insightful, and forthright historians of this generation."
― Edmund S. Morgan and Marie Morgan, New York Review of Books

"[A] very important and powerfully argued history of the Hemings family…[Gordon-Reed] has the imagination and talent of an expert historian."
― Gordon S. Wood, The New Republic

"This comprehensive biography of Hemings’s family before, during, and after their lives at Monticello belongs on the biography genre’s Mount Rushmore thanks to Gordon-Reed’s revelatory investigation and her stellar narration of history from a previously hidden perspective."
― Adam Morgan, Esquire

"A riveting and compassionate family portrait that deserves to endure as a model of historical inquiry…stands dramatically apart for its searching intelligence and breadth of humane vision…We owe Annette Gordon-Reed tremendous thanks."
― Kirk Davis Swinehart, Chicago Tribune

"The Hemingses of Monticello makes a powerful argument for the historical significance of the Hemings family not only for its engagement with a principal architect of the early Republic, but also for the ways the family embodies the complexities and contradictions of slavery in the United States. "
― James Smethurst, The Boston Globe

"The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed, a historian and law professor, is a doorstop corrective to early American history, painting a composite portrait of a family that stood at the wellspring of the Jefferson, slave Sally Hemings, their children and kin fascinate and surprise. "
― Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Because of Gordon-Reed, Hemings and her ancestors and descendants achieve full personhood. For that, the author deserves praise and lots of readers. "
― Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"An epic saga of the Hemings family, whose bloodline has been mixed with that of Thomas Jefferson since our third president took slave Sally Hemings as a mistress. "
― Dallas Morning News

"Gordon-Reed has pulled off an astonishing feat of historical re-creation, involving equal measures of painstaking archival detective work, creative historical imagination, and balanced judgment."
― François Furstenberg, Slate

"As the title suggests, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family brings an entire family out of the historic shadows that have been cast across Jefferson’s famous Virginia home. The book succeeds on this score by showing how generations of Hemingses labored at Monticello. It offers a stunning illustration of the tragedy that slavery could wreak. "
― Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Hemings and her extended family receive a worthy biography. "
― St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"The Hemingses of Monticello explores a thorny but important chapter in American history with distinction and clarity, offering a poignant, if also often ugly, chronicle of slavery, secrecy and family tension. "
― Ron Wynn, Bookpage

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (September 8, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 816 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393337766
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393337761
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.21 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 1.4 x 9.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,606 ratings

About the author

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Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed

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Annette Gordon-Reed is a professor of law at New York Law School and a professor of history at Rutgers University. She is the author of "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy" and "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family." She lives in New York City.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
1,606 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dalton O
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read!
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2023
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This book was shockingly incredible. I say shockingly because, honestly, who picks up a book on American political history and goes, "Wow, that was incredible!" After this book, the answer is me.
This is not your standard, run-of-the-mill political history book- it's not Ulysses, or that one George Washington book, or that one other Hamilton book (although let's be honest, if you're considering purchasing this book it is very likely you know all about Hamilton). This book is a truly in depth study on the cultural perception of Sally and Jefferson. The author starts at the very, very beginning with a detailed study on Elizabeth Hemings' life, and spends the entire book doing deep dives into slavery, sexism, colorism, the systems that play a substantial role in enforcing all these issues and more. That being said, just because this is a piece based on socio-political issues, does not mean it is boring, AT ALL! I found myself flying through this book after the first fifty pages because the other writes in such a compelling way. It is very rare to read a book about slavery that is anything more than quantitative and, frankly, objectifying. This book is not that. It is a very real, in-depth, examination of the lives of people who were enslaved- researching their interests, the personalities, and their own day-to-day lives. I wish I had something intelligent to say but I don't. You just need to read this book. It's incredible and the systems the author studies and reports on in the book are still relevant and important to know about today. The only book I could compare it to that offers the same level of real-world applicability and background to American legal history is The New Jim Crow or The Color of Law. Please read this!
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Curtis Raymond
5.0 out of 5 stars Well-researched, well-written & plausible
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2014
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This book is (1) well-researched; (2) good history; (3) beautifully written. It is NOT (1) overly speculative; (2) wordy or repetitive; (3) hostile to Jefferson; (4) boring. It amazes me to read some of the negative Amazon reviews of this award-winning study.

Gordon-Reed's first book on Jefferson and Hemings addressed all the issues raised by earlier biographers and historians on the issue, and was thorough, fair, and, most importantly, free of the bias that derives from deifying Jefferson and from seeing his affair with Hemings as a crime of miscegenation, which is a racist concept, albeit one which was codified in law in Jefferson's time and place. In this book, we have the same sensitivity to the moral and social nuances inherent in a culture that makes one group of people the property of another and outlaws relationships between them other than those imposed by the master on the slave, and in which it is inevitable that human relationships, including love, will arise between people who find themselves placed in the different classes.

The reviewers who complain of G-R's so-called speculation are naive. All historians speculate to the extent that the historical record raises questions which it cannot definitively answer with one hundred per cent exactitude. G-R draws conclusions and posits theories, just as any historian does, and hers are far more plausible and well-supported than others I have seen among Jefferson biographers, and I refer to Peterson, some Dumas-Malone, Ellis, and Brodie to date. I'm happy to keep reading, but so far the nay-sayers seem to say nay because, to them, the Jefferson/Hemings relationship is unthinkable, rather than unlikely. Their views seem more emotional than studied.

One of the most fascinating and informative parts of the book deals with the Paris period, and the fact that under French law, an unregistered visiting slave could petition for freedom. Why Sally and James Hemings did not do so must necessarily be a matter of speculation, but it implies a relationship with TJ, which in turn implies the negotiation which is probably what most bothers those who complain of G-R's "speculation."

For me, one of the more telling episodes in the book involves an educator who visited Monticello during Jefferson's retirement to interview the neighbors and see if the rumors about Hemings were true. He came away with the view that they were true, and that, in what he considered mitigation, the practice of keeping slave concubines was considered normal in the region. This tells you something about Jefferson's world that some readers find hard to wrap their heads around.

In both G-R and Dumas Malone, you get a picture of Jefferson as someone who liked a comfortable, happy life, with music, books, family. Nothing shows him to have been ascetic by nature; his correspondence contradicts it (read the book). He was a man of his time in some ways; ahead of his time in others. His slaves were a foundation of his wealth, and he enjoyed his wealth. But he also wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence with a condemnation of slavery, which had to be deleted to maintain union with the Southern colonies/states. And yes, I have read the racist remarks in the Notes on Virginia.

For those who think G-R's message is that TJ was purely racist and loved slaveholding, I must say I don't get that precise message from this book. G-R describes someone who was separated from half his family by law. The freeing of the Hemings offspring was planned by TJ, although it was actually accomplished in different ways, but the book makes you realize that there would have been consequences for almost any action TJ took on this issue. Do a little "speculating" of your own: with the accusations of Callender a matter of public record since 1802, suppose TJ selectively freed the Hemings children. It would amount to a virtual admission of violation of miscegenation laws. It could have brought down opprobrium or violence on the children, or on Sally.

Don't be fooled by the negative reviews. The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award committees knew what they were doing. Read this important book if you are up to it.
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Lisa Carter
4.0 out of 5 stars Unique assessment
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2011
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The Hemingses of Monticello is quite intriguing. It demonstrates the ties that bind in a multi-ethnic society, even those forcibly applied. Love in any context is weird and fraught with need, we just glamorize and compartmentalize things today.(Observe: James/Robert Hemings relationship with Jefferson and his wife's bond with their mother). I do agree with other reviewers that Ms. Reed's anger in some respects makes the book a little more tense than it has to be, but the assessment of the relationships within and the drama, is fascinating.

The book itself is rich and thorough, giving a voice to all involved. Indeed, here is a group with blurred lines. Everyone lived too closely for 'nothing' to have happened; if not with her, then with someone else in that close knit circle, I have no doubt. I think a lot happened, more than we know, but thankfully, walls never tell.

As to whether or not Jefferson fathered Hemings' Children, I am going to agree with the insights of The DNA results--claiming at least one, if not all, and the deer in headlights historians possessing enough dignity to admit they were wrong. (Joseph Ellis.)

If others don't, whatever. I'm not going to hold Jefferson to Christian morals that he didn't believe in, and say simply because he was a good politician, he was a good person. Not all good store employees are good mothers; law and politics were his trade; flirting, presumably sleeping with, married women, going shopping, and getting his hair done were his past times. (Smoking weed and making mac & cheese are rumored too. Those are most peoples' fetishes--shoes, drugs, and cheese--so why do we in The US view our politicians as some how different and above our grasp and creed, when we unflinchingly scrutinize others abroad? Why are we so hero obsessed and full of who we think we are?

That's truly the problem: the argument that he didn't do it is centered around mores and propriety. There's nothing to honestly prove that he didn't charm and or seduce Sally Hemings after rewarding her job well done. 'It was wrong, so why would he?' is empty as a defense, but he was a lawyer, so he'd appreciate it.

Eventually, after Sally showed up, he dumped the kids in boarding school and added time with here to his "superior-person's" to do list. If nothing else, I'm thoroughly convinced that they had sex in France; deny a relationship if you want but: do you know a guy in his 40's who adds a giggly 15 year old to his staff, and then pretty much gives everyone else the heave-ho, just to be kind and fatherly, when she should have gone with his daughters to the school at least as support? Then he pays her $$$ to clean and assist him, and buys her stuff. Lol. I don't. And each of her later children, resemble him, but nobody had an answer for that until after people began asking questions; the answer was consistent, but...the DNA showed otherwise, it was not Sam Carr, his nephew, and it could have been some one else. Yet, he never moved her to another plantation, or sold her, for his own sake, which with no genetic tests, cameras, or facebook then would have solved the problem. But yet, he chose not to respond to not appear guilty? What? She was never pregnant when he wasn't there, but still, nobody could prove that at the time, so...how? It's Jefferson logic which my feeble mind cannot grasp. Oh well.

Any way, it's a great book. If you decide not to accept the strong likelihood and presentation of various facts, okay. But if you are so offended by the fact that Jefferson was a man, and probably satisfied himself in ways that are questionable--just like we today, then read something else.

I know those who deny this adhere to the findings of a scholarship committee--which if those are true the white house will endorse them over time, and all will be sorted out. Until then, read "Where's Waldo?" the TRUE story of how Waldo Hanford (great-great-great grand uncle of the series' author Martin Hanford) did in fact father the children of Sally Hemings, but in a jealous rage, Thomas Jefferson threatened him with death and grievous injury, chased him from the plantation at Monticello, and poor Waldo hid in crowds all over the country and was never seen again. Martin Hanford's classic picture books tell only part of this tragedy.

LOL.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Amazon カスタマー
5.0 out of 5 stars 米国の差別のルーツ
Reviewed in Japan on August 11, 2018
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奴隷制から白人主義など必須の読み物です。日本人は知らなすぎます。白人のずるさ、現在の複雑に入り組んだ差別的法律、行政などの起源が良くわかります。
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Henriette T. Donner
5.0 out of 5 stars History and Significance
Reviewed in Canada on September 10, 2015
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Annette Gordon-Reed's research and its presentation is unlike any other work of history or biography I have ever read. She enters situations and raises questions about them that have not occured to biographers and historians of Slavery. They are always asked out of an African-American interest and insight into the subject of a nameable and traceable family and the personal histories of its members, or parts thereof. She enlists historic and political dimensions and details for explanation of the fact of the Hemings existence abd particular hopes and trials in their geneologicy. Rather than leave the story of Elisabeth Hemings in the realm of oral transmission, Gordon-Reed persisted in her desire to find more about the Hemings. What can be known about them is "in pieces" and needs to be buttressed also by a model of a "secondary time frame" that African-American entered by virtue of the slave trade. The complexities and ambiguities of such a history would have discouraged another investigator. Much of Gordon-Riggs undertaking depends on understanding that such traditional assumptions about history would be counterproductive, as what is to be held up in order to be seen seems prosaic and minute only because it is not "recognized" within the white American framework. This gigantic endeavor has resulted in a unique form of organizing and exploring evidence , as well as the creation of a complex edifice of evidence that constitutes something unprecedented in American historiograpy. It is the historian who decides significance.
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Griselda
5.0 out of 5 stars You couldn't make it up!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 2, 2013
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This is a rivetting account of Jefferson's "shadow" family - in more ways that one! The culture of the Old South was one of immense hypocrisy and one which created terrific moral problems not easily solved. This is a must for Jefferson fans.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
Reviewed in Australia on January 7, 2016
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interesting although I would have preferred the primary sources set out in more detail the footnotes were not sufficient to satisfy me.
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Lisa
5.0 out of 5 stars A good find
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2018
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A beautifully bound book with special-cut paper of high quality. I was really impressed.
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