Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a

Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America

The remarkable untold story of Thomas Jeffersonâ€™s three daughtersâ€”two white and free, one black and enslavedâ€”and the divergent paths they forged in a newly independent America
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Thomas Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Harriet by his slave Sally Hemings. In Jeffersonâ€™s Daughters, Catherine Kerrison, a scholar of early American and womenâ€™s history, recounts the remarkable journey of these three womenâ€”and how their struggle to define themselves reflects both the possibilities and the limitations that resulted from the American Revolution.
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Although the three women shared a father, the similarities end there. Martha and Maria received a fine convent school education while they lived with their father during his diplomatic posting in Parisâ€”a hothouse of intellectual ferment whose celebrated salonniÃ¨res are vividly brought to life in Kerrisonâ€™s narrative. Once they returned home, however, the sisters found their options limited by the laws and customs of early America.Â
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Harriet Hemings followed a different path. She escaped slaveryâ€”apparently with the assistance of Jefferson himself. Leaving Monticello behind, she boarded a coach and set off for a decidedly uncertain future.
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For this groundbreaking triple biography, Kerrison has uncovered never-before-published documents written by the Jefferson sisters when they were in their teens, as well as letters written by members of the Jefferson and Hemings families. She has interviewed Hemings family descendants (and, with their cooperation, initiated DNA testing) and searched for descendants of Harriet Hemings.Â
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The eventful lives of Thomas Jeffersonâ€™s daughters provide a unique vantage point from which to examine the complicated patrimony of the American Revolution itself.Â The richly interwoven story of these three strong women and their fight to shape their own destinies sheds new light on the ongoing movement toward human rights in Americaâ€”and on the personal and political legacy of one of our most controversial Founding Fathers.

â€œBeautifully written . . . To a nuanced study of Jeffersonâ€™s two white daughters, Martha and Maria, [Kerrison] innovatively adds a discussion of his only enslaved daughter, Harriet Hemings.â€â€”The New York Times Book Review
Country USA
Brand Ballantine Books
Manufacturer Ballantine Books
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2018-01-30
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781101886243

Country	USA
Brand	Ballantine Books
Manufacturer	Ballantine Books
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2018-01-30
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781101886243

Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America

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