A Slave in the White House; Paul Jennings and the Madisons

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Third printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxiii, [1], 304 pages. DJ has slight wear,small scuff at back and minor soiling. Signed by author sticker on DJ. Foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed. Author's Note. Illustrations. Map. Includes Appendix A: A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison by Paul Jennings. Appendix B: Jennings Family Genealogy. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Signed by the author on the title page. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Over a 22-year career in museum education and historical research, she was director of interpretation at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and director of education at James Madison's Montpelier. Most recently a fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Taylor is now an independent scholar and lecturer. She is the author of A Slave in the White House. Paul Jennings (1799-1874) was an American personal servant, as a young enslaved man, to President James Madison during and after his White House years. Jennings is noted for publishing in 1863 the first White House memoir. His book was described as "a singular document in the history of slavery and the early American republic." Living in Washington, DC from 1837 on, Jennings made many useful connections and was aided by the northern Republican Senator Daniel Webster in gaining freedom. In the 1850s, Jennings traveled to Virginia, where he tracked down his children, who had grown up on a neighboring plantation with his late wife Fanny, who was also enslaved. His relatives on his mother's side were sold by the widow Dolley Madison with Montpelier in 1844. Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolley Madison in Virginia, later becoming part of the Madison household staff at the White House. Once finally emancipated by Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he would give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War. He died a free man in northwest Washington at 75. Based on correspondence, legal documents, and journal entries rarely seen before, this amazing portrait of the times reveals the mores and attitudes toward slavery of the nineteenth century, and sheds new light on famous characters such as James Madison, who believed the white and black populations could not coexist as equals; French General Lafayette who was appalled by this idea; Dolley Madison, who ruthlessly sold Paul after her husband's death; and many other since forgotten slaves, abolitionists, and civil right activists. Derived from a Kirkus Review: The former director of education at James Madison's Montpelier debuts with the biography of Paul Jennings, a slave who grew up with the Madisons, was with the former president when he died, gained his freedom and sired many descendants. Because Jennings for much of his life was considered merely property, Taylor had to be satisfied with a skeleton of fact, which she fleshes out with imaginative and thorough research, careful supposition and heavy contextual description. Jennings himself contributed a slim document, included here as an appendix, A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison, which originally appeared in 1863. Throughout, Taylor reminds us of the moral failures of the Founding Fathers, especially their unwillingness to accept the notion that black people should enjoy the benefits of freedom so eloquently expressed in the nation's founding documents. Although Jennings testified to the kindness of Madison, he was still willing to buy and sell human beings. Dolley Madison does not come off so well. We hear about her petulance, excessive spending and wastrel son from her first marriage. One admirable white man does emerge: Daniel Webster, who loaned Jennings the money to purchase his freedom, allowing him to work off the debt. But this is Jennings' story, and the author admirably keeps the focus on him-though there are occasional detours to explore context. Born in 1799, Jennings somehow learned to read and write and gradually assumed enormous importance in the Madisons' lives-both in Virginia and at the White House, where he was instrumental in saving a portrait of George Washington from the 1814 British assault. An important story of human struggle, determination and triumph.