"A Thin Thread" (Monticello continued)

Mulberry Row... the buildings were on the right, the left is the "kitchen garden

A Thin Thread

With hands, black, and voices moaning

Monticello rose brick by brick

under Virginia's blazing sun.

With voices moaning and calloused hands

lowland's water carried bucket by bucket

for a gentleman's country estate

under Virginia's blazing sun.

With calloused hands and aching backs

earth's red clay dug and cleaned

for an idealized realm

under Virginia's blazing sun.

With aching backs and hearts longing to be free

two thousand bricks per day, molded, dried, burned, refined

for a Roman Neoclassic

under Virginia's blazing sun.

With hearts longing to be free and hope a thin thread

bodies labored, hammered, timbered, quarried

for Jefferson's architectural masterpiece

under Virginia's blazing sun.

With hope a thin thread for six hundred slaves,

ten found freedom.

by Margaret Bednar, Art Happens 365, April 10, 2012

This chimney and rocky foundation is all that remains of the "joiners shop" one of the first
structures on Mulberry Row.  Here free and enslaved workmen produced some of the finest
woodwork in Virginia.  The enslaved children of Sally and Thomas Jefferson, Eston and
Madison Hemings, were trained as artisans here by their enslaved uncle, John Hemmings.  

* * * * *

Linked with Imaginary Garden with Real Toads "Open Link Monday"

HERE is the 1873 memoirs of Madison Hemings, the son of Thomas Jeffeson and Sally Hemings, who was only 1/8th black.

I DO admire Thomas Jefferson, but I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that he was so "enlightened" and an educated deep thinker... and yet, he still lived his life as a slave owner.

Perhaps what I and others need to keep in mind, to paraphrase Annette Gordon Reed:  "...celebrate Jefferson's accomplishments, his importance, and tolerate his flaws...  flaws don't mean the person is worthless... "

Everything that Jefferson did... his accomplishments are NOT lessoned because he loved a black woman.  The Hemings oral family history is that he loved Sally Hemings.  His actions towards her, her children and extended family point towards this truth.

I am reading Professor Annette Gorden Reed's book "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and I am finding it quite educational... a bit bogged down in detail in the "origins" section, but I feel it is necessary and very insightful as it "humanizes" history.  She is very interesting (I could listen to her for days)!  If you have time, watch this video.  (she DOES speak for over an hour... but if you have any interest in this subject, I think you should grab a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and enjoy it!  :)

She is working on Part II of the Hemings story, picking it up where the first book ends (1931).  She is also working on a biography of Thomas Jefferson.  I can't wait for both of these.