CHAPTER 44

JANUARY 1827

The dismantling of Monticello by the slave auction of 1827, the abomination of the sale of my kin, the ticketing and labeling and pricing of every stick of furniture, every sheet, every curtain, every dish, every book, painting, sculpture, each clock, vase, bed, table, horse, mule, hog, and slave that had been Thomas Jefferson's; that had been he, himself; all his parts and pieces, his choices, his favorites, his ears, his hands, his eyes, was the sorrow and pity of my life. His life had been parceled and lotted and priced by the auctioneers who thronged through the house. His life's bits and pieces probed and handled, weighed, inspected, and priced. Everything, animal and human, including my own flesh.

I despised the steaming crowd that had gathered round the west portico of Monticello that January day, come to bid like vultures on the carcass that had been a man and his house. If only he had not loved everything so much! If everything had not been love and memory as well as collection!

People arrived by the wagonloads. A county-fair atmosphere reigned as the prospective buyers strolled in and out of the barns that held the slaves, and the house that held the objects, their flyers in hand, inspecting: objects tenderly accumulated in Paris; a house of brick and wood assembled by my kin; the brilliant English gardens, now brown and colorless; and the orchards, now leafless and barren; and beyond, the rolling fertile fields, woods, cascades, and rivers. Already the deep black lands of Pantops and Tuffton, Lego, Poplar Forest, Bear Creek, Tomahawk, and Shadwell were gone, now the humans attached to them were going. One thousand four hundred and fifty lots had been auctioned off that day, forty-two hogs, fifty sheep, seventy cattle, fifteen horses, eight mules, and fifty-five humans from Monticello—more than half of the slaves were my sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews. And one hundred and twenty from Bedford.

The crowds had begun to assemble early that day. They had come from as far away as Kentucky for a chance to buy prime black flesh, livestock, or an object that had been, as I had been, a possession of Thomas Jefferson. There had been that same lewdness in the air, that same miasma of death and contempt and titillation that always accompanies the trial, judgment, and condemnation of a man's life. Around me festered the curiosity about the great, the aura that sets some men above others and brings out that predatory hatred of the common for the extraordinary.

My master had left debts of one hundred and seven thousand dollars. Martha and Jeff had struggled valiantly to save Monticello, selling off all the other lands and plantations; the lots in Richmond and Charlottesville, everything. But everything had not been enough. The gods had demanded and got all but the mansion of Monticello.

Strangers had roamed his precious gardens, treaded his polished floors, inspected his linen, looked into his barns and the mouths of his slaves, pinched velvet and flesh, sniffed tobacco and the smell of human sweat, hefted samples of cotton and the private parts of male field hands, rubbed their hands over the woolly rumps of Marina sheep and the heads of pickaninnies, discussed the qualities of Monticello blooded bays and Monticello pure-bred bodies.

Hatted and veiled, my identity hidden behind my color and the name of "Frances Wright" of Tennessee, I had roamed the crowds that day as a freedwoman, despite the danger, willing myself to engrave every moment in my memory, hoping to save one or two of the children, and vowing never to forget the sale of Thomas Jefferson.

"If you don't be good, I'll tell Master, and he'll sell you to Georgia, he'll sell you so fast..."

How often had those words struck terror in a slave child's heart? How long, how much longer, would they continue to? He had been good, but he would be sold anyway.

"What do I have, whatdo I have, whatdoihave for this lot number thirty-four, three prime male field hands, twenty-six to twenty-nine, broken here at Monticello, in perfect health, no scars, bruises, defects of any kind; never been whipped, docile, strong, perfect for breeding. What am I bid, whatamibid, three hundred, four, four fifty. Do I hear five? Five, five twenty-five, six, six, six. Do I hear seven? Yes seven, seven twenty-five, seven fifty; only seven fifty for this prime lot, three ... ladies and gentlemen, three prime Monticello slaves, three for the price of one. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, is this the best you can do? Eight, eight fifty. Do I hear nine? Nine, do I hear nine, nine, nine, nine—going once, nine going twice, nine going three times—sold, sold to the lady for nine hundred dollars. Prime, male house slave, thirty-two years old, Israel, father of seven in the next lot, locksmith and metalworker. Prime, housebroken pickaninnies, a lot of seven. Just a few years and they'll be prime field hands or house servants, healthy stock, no blemishes, light-skinned. Do I hear five hundred? Five hundred once, five hundred twice, five hundred three times. Sold! Sold! Sold! A female, twenty-nine years old, breeder, light-skinned, seamstress and cook, perfect for a housekeeper for a young gentleman; may I start at four hundred? Four hundred fifty? Elizabeth, Israel's wife. Do I hear four? Four, four fifty, five ... female slave, fifteen, guaranteed virgin, healthy, bright, best stock of Monticello, trained as a house servant. Priscilla, Israel's daughter.

"Do I hear three hundred? Three hundred. The best stock at Monticello. Docile, perfect for a lady's maid. Only five hundred dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, Christmas was a week ago! I cannot let this prime female go for less than three fifty. Do I hear three fifty? Yes, three seventy-five. Do I hear four? Four. Four. Do I hear four? Sold to the gentleman for four seventy-five. Dolly.

"Prime first-class female. Cook. Thirty-six years old; served at the President's House in Washington City. Pastry and all-around cook. Do I hear one hundred dollars? Two? Do I hear three? Three for this treasure trained in French cuisine. Of impeccable stock, guaranteed fertile, mother of three. Three fifty, do I hear four? Four fifty, do I hear five? Five fifty once, five fifty twice, five fifty three times. Sold to the lady for five hundred and fifty dollars. Fanny. One big black healthy mammy trained as washerwoman, midwife, and pastry cook. Weighs in at two fifty [laughter]. House servant for twenty years. Sixty-two years old, ladies and gentlemen, I won't lie to you, but she still has some good years in her. Loves children, mother of eight herself. All them children in lot fifty-six hers! Loyal, honest, clean house mammy. Do I hear thirty dollars? Thirty-five, do I hear forty? Fifty? Do I hear... fifty it is. Going, going gone. Sold. Sold. Doll.

"Now here's a perfect lady's maid, tall, beautiful, bright, breeder, a child sold along with the female, two months'... one lot, ladies and gentlemen, one lot. Ursula.

"Twenty years old, ladies and gentlemen, look at that body. Born to breed. Look at those breasts. Ladies and gentlemen, do I hear four fifty? Do I hear it? Do I hear five? Five for the lot, ladies and gentlemen. Buy her and get the sire of the next lot. Do I hear five fifty? Five fifty, once, five fifty twice, five fifty three times. Going, going, gone."

Critta's Milly, sold to Mississippi. James Hubbard sold to Kentucky. Washington Hemings, my nephew, sold to West Virginia. Critta had fetched one hundred dollars despite her age. Nance, six hundred and fifty dollars with two adolescent grandchildren thrown in. Betsy, her daughter, sold pregnant at one thousand to North Carolina. Betsy's husband brought five hundred, sold to Georgia. Isaac brought seven hundred and Wormley six hundred. Davey Bowles, the highest price of all, one thousand dollars, sold to New Orleans.

At the end came the "extra articles" prized because of their beauty, their color, their training, their pedigree. The white Hemingses came under that category... all my sister's children, Lilburn, Henry Randell, Martha, Maria, Dolly. Peter Hemings, as a first-class chef, brought five hundred. His twin boys brought seventeen hundred for the pair.

John had given his seven hundred to a white man to buy his son, and Joe Fosset bought his wife for nine hundred fifty, and his mother, Mary, for twenty-five dollars. My room, with all my possessions, had been sealed. Only later would John be able to retrieve them. I had only the clothes on my back. But I had the locket. If only I had tried to sell it. The little money I had with me, I had hoped to buy one or two of the children, perhaps Critta's ten-year-old Nancy, or Rachel's six-year-old twin girls. I wanted to save one or two small children, my sister's children being grown and too expensive. I hadn't realized that they would not be sold one by one, but in lots. In lots of three or four children for two to four hundred dollars. Too late, I realized I had not enough money to buy a lot. Too late, I realized that the locket was my condemnation to everlasting hell.

I had stood like a survivor of a shipwreck who had managed to be pulled ashore and lay half-drowned on the rocks. The worst was the end, when the leftover children and women were sold in lots away from their husbands, or mothers, or children. The screams of the children, the cries of the mothers, the groans of the fathers and husbands rang in my ears.

Then I saw him before me on the block, unclothed, his lean, naked, white body covered with its soft red down as I had seen him when I was a young girl; the wide square shoulders; the long, heavy-wristed, heavy-thighed, heavy-angled body with its powerful neck supporting the delicate head; the leonine burst of thick auburn hair. A white, male, shorn of his gifts, his power, his possessions, his history, his family, his children, his lands, pale and vulnerable.

Over the hallucination, I heard the auctioneer droning—"Prime male, unusually strong, intelligent, trained as a carpenter, a gardener, a horse trainer, a secretary, a musician ... useless in the fields, but a good breeder. Going once, going twice, going three times. Sold! Sold for seven hundred dollars...."