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Date Posted: 09:37:03 02/25/09 Wed
Author: JessieR
Subject: Hi Kathleen—I agree with you. The sexual double standard was in full battle array at the time (no surprise there!), and illicit sex between white men and slave women received a wink and a nod, as you rightly suggest. But I think this is true only if covertly practiced. If made public, sex between a white man and slave woman was a scandalous affair because such behavior was an assault upon a white man’s honor, especially for upper-class men like Duncan (the titular head of River Run). Consider the case of Thomas Jefferson…
In reply to: KathleenM 's message, "Jessie, just a quick comment and then I'm off to bed--I agree there was a strict prohibition of sex between white women and black slaves but I think there was a tacit agreement to look the other way if the two in question were a white man and black woman. In many ways, Duncan's "affair" with Phaedre would have been ignored had it been known by other men. Only Jocasta would never have tolereated this affront to her reputation and position. After all, River Run was hers and she was no longer in the position of having to tolerate it as she had been with Hector." on 19:34:47 02/24/09 Tue

In 1802, James T. Callender, a journalist and somewhat nefarious colleague of Thomas Jefferson, created a scandal when he claimed in a newspaper that our third president was involved in a lengthy “liaison” with a slave and had fathered several children by her. Callender had a tawdry track record, and he published the story out of revenge when Jefferson denied him a political appointment as postmaster. (Callender was a Scot, and a wily, libel-loving, blackmailing one at that. Perhaps Carol is right about how fortunate it was for Phaedre that Ulysses was not a Scot!).

But we now know that Callender was probably right, and that the “SALLY” he refers to in his article was most likely Sally Hemings. Jefferson did not respond publicly, and he never admitted to the affair in any of his written record. Still, the damage was done. Suspicions continued to circulate throughout Jefferson’s presidency, which undermined his authority, and they persisted for decades after his death and have been an object of historical investigation to this day. Jefferson’s daughter and grandchildren regularly denied the relationship, claiming their father was incapable of such an immoral act. It was Jefferson’s honor they sought to protect because proof that he had a sexual relationship with a slave evoked all kinds of associations with debasement and degradation, since so much of white society at the time equated blackness with immorality.

So while Duncan’s relationship with Phaedre would have been both common and tolerated “behind close doors,” the public exposure of it meant that the community would have to “deal with it” in some way. The community could have branded Duncan as immoral and degraded in order to reinforce their own “white” virtue. (Imagine the haughty gossip: “we don’t do that!”). Such behavior would have undercut his ability to act in public on Jocasta’s behalf, the very thing she needed him to do because her gender and blindness prevented her from doing so herself.

Two hundred-plus years later, we see the folly of such behavior and all the grief and harm done by it, as well as the gargantuan hypocrisy of the period. Interracial and cross-cultural sexual liaisons and long-term relationships were going on all over the place, regardless of class, so the lived reality of people differed markedly from what the public discourse upheld as acceptable behavior. But in public, the color line was firmly drawn and had to be enforced. Some white men even went to court to defend their honor when accused of having sex with a slave. There’s plenty to be disturbed about there: the exploitation of slave women and the overweening pride and duplicity of the white men.

Hard to imagine a kind and gentle man like Duncan doing something like that, but I wonder if Jocasta could have forced him into it if she felt it was necessary.

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