An exchange between Elizabeth Hemings and John Wayles on his death bed

Dear Ms. Elizabeth Hemings,

I had respect for your father and for your preferable mix of whiteness.  It was this higher quality, as well as my attraction to you, that brought me as a respectful and kind lover.

I hope that in my passing you can appreciate the opportunity you had to be exempt from fieldwork—a life more befitting of your mix. Moreover, the opportunity for your children to improve their mix and status yet still. You and yours will be rightfully split among my estate, and so you should respectfully serve your new master as you did me.

Sincerely,

Mr. John Wayles

(A letter never delivered)

Dear Mr. John Wayles,

Respectfully, I do not consider my mix to be preferable. My identity, even which I am not allowed to direct, suffers as a result of your so-called preference. It is nice of you to invite us into your world, but, frankly, we prefer to keep to ours. Despite the favorable treatment we may have been afforded, we take great faith in our commune and shared identity with all of us in bondage.

This opportunity you speak of is exactly my painful Limbo. To be treated favorably in reality means to be stripped of our identity and our ability to commune with our own people. Instead we are taunted with a mocking gesture of better personhood and its accompanying liberties without ever the opportunity to be truly recognized as free and whole persons. This is Limbo. I do not deny that at times your treatment seemed preferable to the backbreaking labor I may have otherwise been subjected. But of course not preferable as would be the full-fledged personhood you deny us with any bit of black blood in our mix.

How could you leave your own progeny to be left in bondage? Perhaps it is with the same disregard you treated my womanhood that you ponder on these children whom you consider only by legality to be tied to you. How is it that I can feel so much care and responsibility for my children that you so disregard? Perhaps it is in my blood as a woman, the same propensity as a white woman. Not only will they be left in bondage—either reverted to the absence of special treatment you so kindly grant or subjected longer to its twisted and prolonged torture and confusion. Moreover our tragedy is that we cannot move as a family, that we will inevitably be split among men of your kind. This is my dismay.  This is my reminder that even though physically inside your home that I was always out in the fields living the same life as the rest of your property. Destined to be torn from our families, clinging to our small pieces of identity. I would wish not to improve my mix as you say but rather that I never have found myself in this powerless and confused position.

Elizabeth Hemmings