Do you think the treatment of slaves would be different if he married Sally Hemmings overseas ?
I don’t think it would have changed the treatment of any slaves, particularly in the later years, when cotton became practical. Sally was a mulatto, the daughter of Mrs. Martha Jefferson’s father and one of his slaves, there may even have been a resemblance, something not likely to have gone un-noticed, and some mulattoes were treated better than the remainder of the slaves, depending on if their white fathers were still alive. I believe the wives of their white fathers might have a less charitable view of such reminders of their husband’s infidelity.
