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The remarkable untold story of Thomas Jefferson?s three daughters?two white and free, one black and enslaved?and the divergent paths they forged in a newly independent America
Ballantine Books
February 2018
On Sale: January 30, 2018
448 pages
ISBN: 1101886242
EAN: 9781101886243
Kindle: B06Y4RB8PG
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
Thomas Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by
his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Harriet by his
slave Sally Hemings. In Jefferson’s Daughters, Catherine
Kerrison, a scholar of early American and women’s
history, recounts the remarkable journey of these three
women—and how their struggle to define themselves
reflects both the possibilities and the limitations that
resulted from the American Revolution. 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 Paris—a hothouse
of intellectual ferment whose celebrated salonnières are
vividly brought to life in Kerrison’s narrative. Once
they returned home, however, the sisters found their
options limited by the laws and customs of early America. Harriet Hemings followed a different path. She escaped
slavery—apparently with the assistance of Jefferson
himself. Leaving Monticello behind, she boarded a coach
and set off for a decidedly uncertain future. 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. The eventful lives of Thomas Jefferson’s daughters
provide a unique vantage point from which to examine the
complicated patrimony of the American Revolution itself.
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
America—and on the personal and political legacy of one
of our most controversial Founding Fathers.
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