IU Historian Amrita Chakrabarti Myers Reveals Uncomfortable Truths in New Book, “The Vice President’s Black Wife.”
In her new book, The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn, Amrita Myers, the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor in the Department of History within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, recovers the compelling yet troubling story of Julia Chinn—an enslaved Black woman and wife to Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice President of the United States from 1837-41 under Martin Van Buren.
“For almost a quarter century Julia Chinn was in a sexual relationship with the man who owned her, a career politician, Congressman, Senator, and then Vice President, “said Professor Myers. “This is a story that has never been written about in a full-length capacity, nor has there been archivally researched material put together on Chinn or her daughters, Imogene and Adaline.”
Chinn’s story in some respects may call to mind the relationship between Founding Father Thomas Jefferson and the Black woman he enslaved, Sally Hemings, but in many respects it’s unique. “There were similarities [between Hemings and Jefferson and Chinn and Johnson],” explained Myers, “but also important differences. The similarities were that Johnson and Chinn had a very unequal power dynamic in their relationship. He was her owner, she was enslaved; Johnson never freed Chinn.”
A striking difference, noted Myers, is that “Unlike Jefferson, who never acknowledged his relationship with Hemings, Johnson was open about his relationship with Chinn. He never married anyone else, he didn’t have a white wife up front in the house and an enslaved mistress in the quarters, which is what men like Henry Clay and others did instead. This was his only partner, his only wife, and he actually referred to her as his wife.”
Johnson and Chinn had two daughters together, they lived together as a family on his 2,000-acre Kentucky plantation, Blue Spring Farm, and he ensured that both girls were educated. “Johnson transferred large amounts of real estate and cash, also enslaved laborers and other kinds of property, to the girls when they came of age, and he helped to arrange good marriages for them,” Myers said. “The daughters were always treated as if they were free, and lived as free women for their entire lives.”
Moreover, everyone in their local community knew that Julia and her daughters were part of Johnson’s family.
“Johnson lived in Washington, D.C., for half of every year because he was a full-time politician, and when he was away Chinn ran everything at home in Kentucky,” said Myers. “She oversaw the plantation and the work of about 100 enslaved laborers. She purchased goods for their home, oversaw elegant balls, dinner parties, and soirees, and entertained elected officials and dignitaries. So, with Hemings and Jefferson, people may have gossiped about them, but they did not openly live together—Hemings did not entertain at Monticello.”
Myers wrote the book, in part, because most people do not know who Julia Chinn was. She was surprised to learn that even members of Chinn’s own family, her descendants, did not know of their relation to her or Richard Johnson.
“I was honored that Julia’s descendants were willing to speak with me and go on the record,” said Myers. “Material from these interviews is in the introduction and the conclusion of the book; it’s important that their voices start and finish this story because it is, at heart, the story of an American family.”
This is a book about an enslaved Black woman, noted Myers, “But it’s also about power and privilege. It’s about history, race, and memory—what we choose to remember, and what we choose to forget, as a nation, and as individuals and families on the ground.”
Myers stressed that Johnson’s and Chinn’s story is not a romance. “Richard was first, last, and always an enslaver,” said Myers. “He was descended from enslavers and plantation owners, he inherited his property, he inherited enslaved laborers from his father and mother. Johnson also never freed Chinn, even though he did make sure that his daughters grew up as free women. He might have made exceptions for Chinn and their daughters in some ways, but he continued to own and sell other human beings.”
Myers also emphasized that history is not only about what happened, but also about why things happened, and how things in the past influenced have influenced the present, and the connections between the two.
“As a teacher, one of the things that my students and I think a lot about is how people around the country perceive or misunderstand what history is—some think of it as static and unchanging, or they think it’s just names, dates, and events you simply memorize,” said Myers. “This idea of reading, memorizing, and regurgitating, to test and forget, is not what the study of history is. What we focus on is helping students learn about analysis and developing an understanding that there are competing understandings, or visions, of history.”
For example, explained Myers, “There’s no such thing as an unbiased primary source, because all sources were created by human beings, and we are all biased in some way, shape or form. Look at a personal diary. People tend to remember and shade things in certain ways. And that is certainly also done in public documents, including court records, census materials, newspaper articles, and so on.”
Historians, she said, teach students to cast their views as broadly as possible, gather sources from a wide variety of subjects, and also a variety of source materials. “It’s critical to balance out biases and get different voices and perspectives from across the spectrum in order to try to get as close to this thing that we like to call the ‘truth’ as is possible. And because sources are always being uncovered over time, or they’re being analyzed in new and different ways, we employ different methodological tools and lenses to see as complete a historical picture as possible.”
Myers acknowledges her book may make many people uncomfortable. “White folks aren’t going to like what they find here, but neither are a lot of Black folks,” said Myers. “But that’s the whole point about being human. We are complex beings who say and do things that are problematic and uncomfortable on a daily basis.”
So how should we look at Johnson and Chinn?
“I say in the book that white supremacy warps and wounds everyone,” noted Myers. “Julia Chinn was not Harriet Tubman. She chose to survive, so that her daughters and grandchildren would grow up to have a better life, to have a proper education, legal marriages, legal freedom. An enslaved woman with few choices, she does a lot of things that we today might find reprehensible in order to make a pathway forward for her children and grandchildren, including becoming the mistress and overseer of Blue Spring Farm.”
Myers concluded, “Do we understand that it was white supremacy that turned Richard into who he was? Can we also see how white supremacy turned Julia into who she became, because her options were scarce? She had to do the best she could with the tools she had, and this meant she made made choices and decisions that we ourselves would like to say we would never make.”
