THOMAS JEFFERSON AND WILLIAM CLARK DISCUSS SLAVERY LATE ONE NIGHT

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND WILLIAM CLARK 

DISCUSS SLAVERY LATE ONE NIGHT

This is entirely imaginary and based on scraps and hints of history, except that we do know that Jefferson and Clark were trusting friends.  We do know that Clark’s slave York was a boyhood inheritance from his father, that he was a full member of the L and C expedition, and that he was eventually freed.  It is not legally proven that Sally Hemings was Martha Jefferson’s half-sister and had children by him.  Sally and the children were eventually freed.

This invented conversation is meant to be a speculative inquiry into human relationships which are often defined by the “names given the concepts” which do not necessarily reflect actual phenomena like emotional bonding, obligations of role, and love.  For factual information about these two fascinating and prominent men, consult the many sources.  

Clearly there is enough material for a much expanded manuscript, maybe a play.  Maybe Sacajawea and Sally Hemings  or York and Pomp ought to be added.  Go for it.

Martha Jefferson

There are no portraits of Sally Hemings.

It is late and the two friends sit on the porch at Monticello, enjoying the breeze that is driving away mosquitoes, the faint sound of singing from the slave quarters, and a bottle of wine from Jefferson’s own “cellar” which constantly led him into debt because of his fondness for fine wines.

“What do you hear from York?” asked the president, knowing that Clark had recently sent him to Kentucky to be near his wife, an experiment since they had spent little time together over the years.  “Are there children?”

“York’s not literate and I guess neither is his wife, so they may not have located someone to write for them.  Or they have nothing to say.  But I get regular letters from Pomp, Sacajawea’s boy.  My own fourteen children have a rather irregular pattern of correspondence, but from Pomp — maybe a habit from boarding school where it was enforced — I get regular messages even when he is on the frontier.  I did even when he was in Europe.”

“Some accept their fathers and some do not,” mused Jefferson.  “Nothing is better in life than a loving family but it is not assured by blood relationship.”

[Jefferson had six children by his legal wife but four of them died young, leaving two daughters.  In-laws and feuds among relatives were problematic and damaging.  Maybe things went better with the children of his slave, Sally, who was his white wife’s half-sister.]  

The lanterns were fluttering in the bit of wind.   “I could not love Pomp more if he were my blood child.  He seems born out of the expedition itself, a time when we were tried to the limits but also full of amazement and satisfactions.  I was not Sacajawea’s husband and my blood children were from two wives, but those marriage bonds were not so strong nor vivid as those that came from saving and being saved by Sacajawea, not much more than a child herself by white standards and totally uneducated in any white way.  Her naked infant, kicking his feet there on a scrap of blanket, went straight to my heart.  He was my “dancing boy” from the beginning.”  Clark knocked the dottle from his pipe and refilled it, trying to hold down emotion.

Jefferson held up the wine bottle they were sharing in order to see how much was left.  “My wife, as you know, on her death bed, made me promise not to remarry in order to show my love for her, but what could I do when her sister was so much like her in so many ways — not just appearance.  Sally had no formal education but was so alert to what Martha learned that her mind held much the same ideas.  Sometimes more grounded in what was real.”

Clark laughed.  “York was also more attuned to what was really there, a good cook who could gather some of our food as we went along.  But he was prone to excess, exhaustion, and easily seduced by women along the way.  He was an object of curiosity because of his color, but when children were afraid of him, he couldn’t resist pretending that he was a cannibal, never registering that the main monster of those people was the Wendigo, famine personified who did indeed kill children.  He went too far.”

Jefferson sighed.  “Martha’s request that I not remarry was a little selfish of her since she herself had been married and widowed as a young woman before I met her.  But I’m one who fulfills my obligations and I did love Martha, honored her and kept her as carefully as any other part of my plantation estate.  Sally was also my obligation.  The people who live close to the land seem sturdier than those who are elegantly housebound.  Your York and my Sally had a vitality and primitive resilience.  I didn’t see them as lacking.  Three of my freed children could pass, you know.”

“Indeed.  And Pomp for all his appetite for the wilderness was educated to read and write in Greek and Latin, and after his friendly sojourn in Europe could speak those Romance languages.  He exceeded both his blood father and his heritage father.  But likely his intelligence and temperament came from his mother."

Clark went on, “We know so little about what of a person’s capacity is inheritance and what is a different kind of legacy.  York was given to me by my father, meant to be my companion and guardian but never my superior.  This he accepted most of his life until after the expedition people began to urge him to be my equal, to be free.  I protected him — made sure of him having food and shelter.  But then he wanted more even though the conditions of the time and his race would never let him have as much as I could give him.  Never the dependability, the security, the defense against predatory whites.  He didn’t do so well with his freedom.”

There was a pause while Jefferson reflected.  “In France my family was accepted as wife and children.  Perhaps they were “mine” as possessions, as a man owns his marital alliance and the progeny that result, but their class was never questioned; they were not stigmatized as they were in America.”

Clark nodded.  “Pomp likewise found that the best freedom in civilized society was in Europe, but that no company was so tolerant as the great Western tribes, once he understood their ways.”

Jefferson sighed.  “Slaves always understand our white ways.  Or at least are careful to let us think so.”

Clark’s voice rose as he asked, “But what ARE our ways?  Which is the JUST way that gives us each our freedom?”

The singing had stopped.  The sounds of insects filled the air.  The sky was becoming pale.  "We'd best retire," said Jefferson.  The dark little boy who had been dozing in the corner was relieved.  Now he could get some real sleep.