Free The President's Daughter by Barbara Chase-Riboud Page A

ex-butler to the President at the White House, Washington, from 1800 to 1802, did escort his natural daughter Harriet Hemings from Monticello to Philadelphia, where she disappeared into the white population. Adrian Petit de Reims, in the carriage to Philadelphia, May 19th, 1822.
    HUGHES PETIT

5
    We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is on one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Philadelphia! I laughed as I stepped from the phaeton onto Market Street Square and was drawn into the hurly-burly of people of more colors than I had ever seen in my life. These were to be the people that I, Harriet Hemings, the dancer and the ballet master, would have to conquer. Around me swirled a host of horse-drawn vehicles, farmers’ wagons, vegetable carts, live animals, and mounted police. When I looked around at the busy, hard-faced crowd, I realized that no one had noticed my arrival.
    I looked up at Burwell and Fossett, still seated in the driver’s seat of the phaeton. They had been to Philadelphia countless times, and I imagined that countless times they had had the chance to slip away and disappear into the throngs of people that surged back and forth across the red brick square. Why hadn’t they done it? Why hadn’t my mother escaped when she had disembarked in London, a far greater city than Philadelphia? Then I realized that Burwell and Fossett were as much prisoners in Philadelphia as if they had had chains on their hands and a padlock on their boots. Their whole family was held hostage at Monticello. Burwell had left his wife, my aunt Betty, and his children; Fossett was married to Edy, and their children Simpson, Martin, Beth, and Robert belonged to my father. Fossett could no more leave them than leave his eyes or his legs. Our eyes met in silent comprehension as Fossett’s arms swept me into an embrace that lasted only a second, but was long enough for me to breathe in his dusty smell and feel the power of his accelerated heart.
    â€œYou free now, gal. Never lower that head. Look everyone in the eye. There’s no need to be afraid. There’s no slave catchers looking for you ‘cause I would know if they were. Besides, you’re sent here by your father, as a white girl. If you ever see me on the street, you don’t have to speak. People in Philadelphia will think it strange for a white girl to speak to a Negro unless he works for her.”
    â€œI saw you come into a world of slavery, Harriet,” added Burwell, “and now I’ve taken you out of that world. Rejoice and be reborn; that’s what God had in mind for you.”
    I understood that it was not fear nor search for freedom that had driven me out of the Negro race. I knew it was shame, unbearable shame. Shame at being part of a race of people that could with impunity be treated worse than animals.
    â€œIs that what he really had in mind for me, a lie?” I whispered.
    â€œA white lie,” Burwell answered with a grin and a thunderous explosion of laughter that made people stop and turn their heads. That was the moment I saw an unforgettable lady of color come toward me as if she knew me. I stood petrified. Of course she recognized me! How could she not? I was as black as she was, wasn’t I? She had on a wide straw hat trimmed with pink King George roses and green ribbons and lace. She was dressed all in deep bottle green striped with black, and her wide skirts were pulled back into a gigantic bustle, which fell in a train and gave her the look of the gentry. She held a matching umbrella over her head, and she navigated the busy square like a superb and stately ship that slipped past me in serene magnificence, so close I could have touched her but I didn’t dare. The crowd around her faded and the noise ceased and the lady of color and I were alone in the square. She smiled in recognition and then shook her head in regret, her