Dear Dad

Dear Father,

            Though you have passed, I am writing to you today to finally talk about Sally.  Father, I am shocked that your will did not contain Sally's freedom.  I hope you will be glad to know that I have given Sally her freedom.  My old friend is free to live with her sons, in peace. I thought, taking into consideration that your relationship was the most intimate in nature, that you would have felt that she deserved to be freed.  I know that Virginian custom required that your slaves earn their freedom (109).  But you cannot use this as an excuse.  As President, I am sure that you could convince many, if not all, that Sally had earned her freedom.  Because you left her to me, and because I feel as if she has served our family in the most dedicated manner, I have allowed her to go free.  Though her offspring could have ruined your reputation, the sacrifices she has made must be taken into account.  Though I have tried to deny her connections to you, that does not mean I did not know of them. 

            Your relationship with Sally has brought me more confusion than you can ever imagine.  I know it is not proper for me to speak so candidly to you, but it must happen.  Do you not remember the day when I wrote to you, "I wish with all my soul that the poor negroes were all freed.  It grieves my heart when I think that these our fellow creatures should be treated so teribly as they are by many of our country men" (182).  I wrote this as you kept many, many slaves back in Virginia.  I wrote this as the very paper I was writing on was paid for by their labor.  Yet, you attempted to keep these details hidden.  You did not want your Parisian friends to know of your connection to slavery.  You did not know how to reconcile your reliance on the institution with its negative aspects.

            I know this is why you said emancipation best be left to future generations (112).  But you were the one who espoused the claim that "all men are created equal."  At the time, I thought you sincerely meant this.  Especially considering your friendships with the great abolitionists Lafayette and marquis de Condorcet, I thought you truly believed that all people were equal (300-301).   How could you claim to be a follower of their ideals while you hid the fact that you kept slaves in your very house?  Even if you were abiding by American customs, you were breaking French laws!  How could you claim yourself to be an enlightened diplomat at the same time that you were a slave-owning law-breaker?  I know now how truly difficult your decisions were.  I understand that I could not have lived my life without the labor of the enslaved. 

            Your ambivalence has grown within me.  I know that you felt that because you paid for Sally and James's expenses, for Sally's treatment and James's training, that they owed you their service  (294-295).  But why could this not have been as freed people?  Why did you have to keep them enslaved?  I realize that Virginian culture expected you keep slaves.  I understand that your appearance was important and that you had to weigh your desires against what was politically smart.  I understand that you felt that your actions were tremendously generous to not only Sally, but to her whole family.  If I had grown up my entire life in Virginia, your actions would have been more generous than most others.  But you must remember, Father, that you were the one who brought us to France.  We lived in the most extravagant of circumstances, yet it was not built off of chattel slavery.  You were the one who exposed us to the Enlightenment principle of the natural rights of man.  Yet why did you not feel as if non-whites were men?  Is it because their skin is darker?  This is the only reason I can find.  All my life, wherever I have been, I have heard the assertion that blacks are inferior.  With no one to contradict this, not even you - so intelligent a man with such lofty ideals - how could I have formed a different opinion?  

            I do hope you will answer my questions when I join you in the afterlife.

                                                                                                                        Your daughter,

                                                                                                                                    Patsy

From Bianca: **This does not reflect my opinions!  It is to show how the racist ideas were perpetuated and the ambivalence created by slavery!  Every word, like "earned" and "I gave her her freedom" are intentionally chosen to show this!!  It is to show how thoughts about slavery and racist assumptions are passed down by words and actions.**