“America’s First Daughter” - Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie

 AFD is told from the POV of Patsy, the eldest of Thomas and Martha Jefferson’s children. Dray and Kamoie warn readers to note that Patsy’s perspective would be as flawed as she was. For what Patsy likely believed to be acts of family loyalty or even patriotism can be seen now in a much more troubling light. Chapters lead off with excerpts from letters, (i.e. Jefferson to Monroe, Jefferson to Patsy, Jefferson to the infamous Mrs. Cosway). 

From Patsy’s childhood, from the moment her mother dies, Patsy bravely steps in to fill the void. And as time goes on, despite marrying and having a family of her own, Patsy is ever torn between her obligations to husband and children, and her duties to her illustrious father. 

As with “My Dear Hamilton,” Dray and Kamoie provide a meticulously researched narrative that tells us about a little discussed female player in the early American story. The great frustration in Patsy’s privileged life, is that her wishes are perpetually disregarded for her father’s and later her husband’s. However, as with Eliza Hamilton, the authors emphasize that much of our knowledge of Thomas Jefferson’s private correspondence has passed to us but through Patsy’s sharp eyes. We know what she wanted us to know. This point bears remembering!

The enslaved Betty Hemings, and her daughters Nance, Critta, and Sally, the products of r*pe by Martha’s father, rendered these women Martha’s half-sisters, and aunts to Patsy by blood.

Trust Dray/Kamoi research and sure enough, despite high-minded utterances such as these, they portray the full hypocrisy, the inscrutability, that was Jefferson. In this moment, early in the Revolution, Jefferson wasn’t even contemplating humanist views; he simply could not afford the discontent of his enslaved population while Cornwallis was offering them freedom.

Young Patsy is shown as genuinely believing the enslaved people of the Jefferson household loved her parents; it’s jarring to read, but it’s a likely belief given what we know of wealthy, white Southerners and their myopic views at the time. Patsy had likely never considered any different conclusions - at least as a child.

Later in life, ever eager to tout humanist ideals, Jefferson understood that the economics of enslavement benefited him greatly, and as such, was in no hurry to bring about its end with regard to his own, personal enslavement-based economy. Jefferson is shown through the eyes of Patsy and others who rever him, to be a man of high ideals for which society is as yet unprepared; therefore, Jefferson his resigned to leave the accomplishment of ending slavery to the work of another generation. Of course, with hindsight, we are aware that this was but an act of cowardice on his part. Our founders were fallible humans after all.

The slaveholding Jefferson was America’s ambassador to France. While in cosmopolitan Paris, Patsy’s naive views begin to shift. French classmates at her covent school mock Patsy as the daughter of America’s “slaveholding spokesman for freedom”.

Jefferson’s repeated entanglements with the issue of slavery as portrayed in AFD, echoes the findings in  “American Sphinx”.  Jefferson, Washington, and others recognized the evil but adopted the convenient approach that it was a future generation’s problem to solve. As Patsy grows up post-Paris she realizes just how correct William Short was in his dark assessment of Virginia. The entire economy was based on enslaved labor and a colossal rupture would be the only way to dislodge it.

As a point of interest, in her old age, Patsy “remembered a time no gentleman of Virginia would ever advocate for slavery, even if none of them took steps to change it. But that was all changed now within a generation…For Virginians now argued that slavery was a moral good, encouraged by the Bible. I thought it had more to do with the fact they were discovering that slaves were more than an asset in and of themselves; they could be bred.” How times changed within a single generation.

This is the fictionalized conversation between Patsy and Sally when Patsy learns of Sally’s intention to return to Virginia with Jefferson rather than taking her freedom in Paris. Dray and Kamoie write a heartwrenching scene where Sally confides what little choice she realistically has in the matter, and how for the sake of survival, she is choosing what she thinks will be the safest avenue for herself and her unborn child. Readers observe Patsy’s evolution from the naive, Virginia planter’s daughter, to someone who begins to see nuance. Her years in Paris appear to have opened her eyes well and truly. We saw a similar evolution of Eliza Schuyler with regards to slavery.

Patsy is portrayed as reviled by her father’s preying upon Sally Hemings - a girl of her own age, her aunt by blood, and most damnable, an enslaved person with no bodily autonomy. Patsy’s letters to her father citing the wickedness of slavery (and other moral failings such as adultery), go unanswered by Jefferson - he was unwilling to commit himself even privately to his daughter.

The authors cite the acceptance of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and most historians (relying on evidence such as DNA) that Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings. The authors conclude that given all the evidence of Patsy and Jefferson’s close relationship, it would have been impossible for Patsy to be unaware of the parentage of Sally’s children. This is the story the authors have chosen to tell. They also make a solid case for why the record scrupulously omits any mention of Sally Hemings - they argue that in addition to protecting Jefferson’s reputation from being besmirched by salacious gossip about his affair with his slave, that there was a secondary intent to protect the identity of Sally’s emancipated children who (as they were only 1/8 Black) could hope to pass as white in society.

The degree of research that Dray and Kamoi poured into this novel is marvelous! I’ll sum up a few odds and ends that I observed below:

—Patsy’s gamble when choosing a husband - even one approved of by her father himself - was likely a perilous choice faced by many women of her time. His decency was paramount of course, but even still, fate could drastically alter their fortunes.

—Jefferson was both in awe of and dreaded Alexander Hamilton. Privately, he did acknowledge his brilliance.

—Though I felt Abigail Adams was portrayed differently from what I gathered based on her biography, her relationship with Polly, Patsy, and Jefferson comes from her own letters to Jefferson which is in keeping with her biography.

—Yet another example of Jefferson’s hypocrisy is shown as he lectures Patsy on morality, but sets his lofty ideals aside to carry on a very public affair with the very married Mrs. Cosway.

—The Jefferson biography “American Sphinx” confirms the portrayal of his relationship with Patsy - that he pushed her to excel in studies and fine arts and literally equated his affection for her to her accomplishments.