S. Corneliussen,

There are times to refer to Sally Hemings as "Thomas Jefferson's slave", 
when you are referring to her personal service to TJ. But, if one is 
referring to her live at Monticello, it would be more explicit to refer to 
her as an "enslaved woman at Monticello. Some years back, I was quite active 
with the disabled folks and part of discussion on PCness in that regard. 
Many people with disabilities asserted that referring to someone as "a 
person with blindness" was preferrable to saying "a blind person", since the 
word "person" was given BEFORE mentioning the disability. For a while, this 
convention was used among people in the circle, but eventually the need for 
succinctness and brevity led to a return to the adjective followed by the 
noun rather than the noun followed by a more-wordy prepositional phrase. 
This may be another fad similar to that one.

That said, I will probably begin to use the term "enslaved person" where it 
will add enlightenment, and "slave" in duplicating conversation of the time 
when it was considered typical. I write for children.

Anne

Anne Pemberton
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http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org 

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