JUDY WOODRUFF: A new chapter has recently
been added to the story of one of America's
most historic leaders.
Jeffrey Brown visits Thomas Jefferson's home
and explains how a visit through the past
now brings with it an updated understanding.
It's the latest in our Race Matters series.
JEFFREY BROWN: Sally Hemings, no portrait
exists, so we don't know what she looked like.
But now this silhouette and a new exhibition
here at Monticello bring a largely hidden
story into the open and make a definitive
public statement about her decades-long relationship
with Thomas Jefferson, the man who owned her
and this plantation.
Niya Bates is Monticello's public historian
of slavery and African-American life.
NIYA BATES, Monticello Public Historian of
Slavery and African-American Life: We, as
Americans, don't address some of the more
complex issues of slavery, of sex, of power,
of ownership.
And that is what is really interesting about
Sally Hemings and her story
We want people to see now that Sally Hemings
is a real person and that she had a real legacy.
JEFFREY BROWN: Monticello, built between 1768
and 1808 in Charlottesville, Virginia, was
home to Jefferson, third president of the
United States, writer of the Declaration of
Independence, enlightenment thinker, and slave
owner of more than 600 people.
Visitors have long come here to see and admire
his mansion and its many wonders.
The first tour to focus on the enslaved people
here only began in 1993.
But over the last several decades, Monticello
has slowly expanded the story beyond Jefferson,
through research and archaeological work,
to include the vast majority of those who
lived and worked here.
At a site about a half-mile from the main
house, students in a summer program dug trenches,
sifted dirt, and found ceramics, nails, and
other artifacts of slave life.
Fraser Neiman is Monticello's Director of
archaeology.
FRASER NEIMAN, Monticello Director of Archaeology:
It's kind of the undeniable physical remains
of the people who were the vast majority of
residents here.
They didn't leave behind the tens of thousands
of letters that Jefferson did, but they did
leave behind thousands of pieces of trash
and artifacts that we can begin to learn a
little bit more about.
JEFFREY BROWN: The restoration of Mulberry
Row beginning in 2011 opened a window onto
the workplaces and houses of enslaved artisans
and domestic workers.
LESLIE GREENE BOWMAN, President, Thomas Jefferson
Foundation: I think Monticello is a microcosm
of the American story, right?
How willing have the American people been
to acknowledge slavery as their history and
not someone else's history?
JEFFREY BROWN: Leslie Greene Bowman is president
of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which
owns and operates Monticello.
In 2000, Monticello published a report on
DNA and other evidence of Jefferson's paternity
of Hemings' six children, four of whom survived
to adulthood.
That and work by leading scholars helped bring
public acceptance.
Some doubters remain, but experts and Monticello
itself now consider this a settled matter.
LESLIE GREENE BOWMAN: Monticello says that
he's the father of her children.
JEFFREY BROWN: No question?
LESLIE GREENE BOWMAN: No question.
JEFFREY BROWN: This summer the foundation
opened six new exhibits, including the plantation's
first kitchen.
The archaeology uncovered a stew stove of
the kind Jefferson found and admired in Paris,
where he served as U.S. ambassador to France
in the 1780s.
Sally's brother, James Hemings, was trained
in French cooking in Paris and used the stove
here at Monticello.
But the main new addition in what until now
was a public restroom for visitors is a display
on the life of Sally Hemings in one of the
two rooms researchers now believe she lived
in.
Part of her story is told in the words of
her son Madison who gave an oral history of
life at Monticello in 1873.
Sally Hemings was just 13 or 14 years old
when she went to Paris as a maidservant, and
the relationship with Jefferson, then 43,
began.
When Jefferson returned home, she could have
stayed in Paris as a free woman, but negotiated
terms for returning to Monticello, that her
future children would be freed at age 21.
NIYA BATES: What we have been trying to do
here is to give our visitors everything that
we know.
We have given the basic biography, her birthday,
her death day, the days that she was in Paris,
what she was doing, the type of work, where
she lived.
But we have also been able to have some of
those more complex conversations, again, about
the nature of the relationship.
Was it consensual?
Was it love?
We don't actually know the answer to the question.
JEFFREY BROWN: Outside the room, a plaque
asks, without answering, "Was it rape?"
NIYA BATES: Oh, it absolutely had to be asked.
There's no way that we could talk about Sally
Hemings and Thomas Jefferson and not talk
about the power dynamic between the two of
them.
He did own her.
And it wouldn't be acceptable for us to tell
this story and not address that power imbalance.
JEFFREY BROWN: An oral history project called
Getting Word has been another key part of
the new effort here, bringing in descendants
of the Hemings and other enslaved families.
Seventy-year-old Diana Redman is a direct
descendent of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.
Andrew Davenport, 28, is the great-great-great-great
grandson of Sally's brother Peter.
DIANA REDMAN, Descendent of Thomas Jefferson
and Sally Hemings: When I look around Monticello,
I see the labors of the enslaved community
and what they were able to do.
Jefferson might have had the vision, but the
enslaved community operated, acted upon that
vision and built this edifice.
We had been part of everything that is Monticello.
Knowing that I had enslaved relatives who
were here who were involved in the carpentry,
who were involved in the cooking and the gardening
and the nailery, this is where my ancestors
lived and labored.
So, that gave a -- it made it feel different
for me.
JEFFREY BROWN: Can you describe the difference?
What did you feel?
DIANA REDMAN: I won't say it was a sense of
ownership.
It was a sense of being.
JEFFREY BROWN: A sense of being?
DIANA REDMAN: Yes, being where my ancestors
had been before me gave me that sense of,
OK, we're part of this country, we're part
of this growth, we're part of a bigger picture,
and I can lay hands on things that they did.
ANDREW DAVENPORT, Descendent of Sally Hemings'
Brother: It's my identity.
Surely, I'm white as well, but this is part
of our story.
And I would be denying a significant part
of my history and our history if I didn't
own up to the fact that, yes, I may pass as
a white man or whatever you see in me -- that's
up to you -- but I have to identify as having
African-American history, and this is my story.
JEFFREY BROWN: How do you see both the injustices
to and the contributions of your ancestors
who were here?
ANDREW DAVENPORT: That's the hope, that we
can begin to share these stories with the
wider world, so that we understand, regardless
of the institution of slavery, individuals
thrived, personally, within their sphere.
And they made life and love here, too.
So this is as complex as it gets.
JEFFREY BROWN: What about when you actually
walk in that room?
DIANA REDMAN: Well, I see the image, and I
would love to know what she looked like.
But that's not meant to be.
And I think that's a sadness, but that's a
sadness for many descendants of enslaved families.
JEFFREY BROWN: Monticello officials are also
hoping the new exhibits will help attract
Americans of all races to view their common
history.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown
at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, online, we have an extended
conversation with the Monticello descendants
we featured in our story there.
That's on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
