![]() "All the Randolphs had to do was to look past her and, in their willful blindness, deprive her even of her name to ensure she understood her place. Jeffersons Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America. (The New York Times Book Review) Thomas Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Harriet by his slave Sally Hemings. ![]() "It did not matter who her father was," Kerrison writes of Harriet's treatment by Martha Jefferson Randolph's daughters, who also happened to be her biological nieces. To a nuanced study of Jefferson’s two white daughters, Martha and Maria, Kerrison innovatively adds a discussion of his only enslaved daughter, Harriet Hemings. ![]() But what Kerrison discerns is intriguing, from Harriet apparently being named by Jefferson for one of his favorite relatives, to her younger brother’s account that when she was finally freed from plantation life, Harriet decided it would be in her best interest to go to “Washington to assume the role of a white woman.’’ (Harriet was one of seven children Hemings had by Jefferson, although some died very young.)Ī highlight of Kerrison's work is that while noting the gender constraints that hemmed in white women, she does not sugarcoat their privileged status, nor deny their racism. As an enslaved black woman, it was often felt her experience and perspective were not worth noting. ![]()
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