Jefferson and Hemmings revisited
Many people think it’s virtually certain that Thomas Jefferson had an affair with slave Sally Hemmings and fathered at least one child by her. After all, wasn’t it proven by DNA testing?
No, no, a thousand times no, says this new book on the subject. The DNA testing involved merely implicated some male in the Jefferson clan:
But there are approximately 25 known potential male candidates…Jefferson’s younger brother Randolph, a widower and regular visitor to Monticello who was ignored in the initial research of Annette Gordon-Reed, was in better health than Jefferson and said to “play the fiddle and dance half the night” with the slaves, while the president was not known to do so. A tradition among descendents of Eston Hemings held that an “Uncle Randolph” was Eston’s father””that being a name by which Randolph Jefferson was known at Monticello. A surviving letter from Thomas invites Randolph to come to the house shortly before Hemings became pregnant with Eston. Randolph was reported to have fathered children with other slaves: Might he be a more probable father than Thomas?
There’s much, much more. And actually, the fact that a different male Jefferson might have been a better candidate as Eston’s father was well known right along. A combination of ignorance of science on the part of readers, and politically correct hype (Founding Fathers as hypocritical exploiters) on the part of theory-populizers, conspired to make the Thomas Jefferson fatherhood narrative seem more certain than it should have seemed to the general public.
Good analysis Neo but you are dealing from an unbiased position looking at the facts. Those that have a dog in this fight (PC, descendants, etc.) have no desire for the objective truth. To them, Jefferson was just an “old white guy that abused his slaves”. The documents that flowed from his mind had no substance in the reality of the world. Sad to say, but look how they lionized Edward Kennedy and the like. Perhaps what I read the other day in the comments section says it best.
“The problem is not what people don’t know, its what they don’t know they don’t know. A close cousin to this Catch 22 truism: the same lens that folks use to see things in a biased, distorted way is used by them to assess whether they are biased. Consequently, even the most biased liberals in the media have absolutely no idea what all the fuss is about, and categorically reject any notion corrective measures are warranted. ”
Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up. Thanks for taking the time to look at the facts 🙂
I just read the book. It is a good, and quick, read. Having gone to college in Virginia, no one takes shots at Jefferson (or Washington) without me being ready to defend them, and this book is an excellent one to read for those purposes. It does a remarkable job on refuting his supposed deism as well, and his intent behind his “wall of separation” between chruch and state. It lays out the arguments in a simple logic that has been sorely missing for the past decades.
Neo:
You’ve overlooked the “soap opera” dramatic aspect of this possibility in favor of dealing with the political one. While the race baiters probably like the idea of Thomas and Sally for the reasons you’ve outlined , I bet quite a few people – mostly of the xx chromosome variety – find the “naughty romance” part equally as exciting.
I mean, c’mon:
http://www.theromancereader.com/mckendrick-perfidia.html
The only way this romance could have been more “politically incorrect” was if the romantic heroine was a jewess.
Never underestimate the power of drama in human endeavor particularly not in politics, news, or history.
Sorry if this offends anyone, I honestly didn’t know there was more than one of this type but this other book here probably takes the cake for indecent romance (unless they have serial killers or child rapists as protagonists somewhere):
“Isabel knows she has been betrayed when an SS officer detains her at her fourteenth and final checkpoint before getting to her next contact who she knows she can trust. Instead of the mindless torture she has been expecting, the officer uses luscious floggers, intense control, and an unknown truth serum to get her right where he wants her, as his personal war prize slave. When the time comes for her to fight or flee, will Isabel even want to leave the officer who has introduced her to a world of decadent pleasure unlike anything she has felt before?”
http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/capturedbythessbygailstarbright.html
Omg, I’m both laughing and horrified at the same time. It wouldn’t surprise me if a few of the readers write romantic notes to people on death row, but I digress.
Anyway, relationships(sexual or otherwise) that involve partners with tremendous power differentials (Master or Mistress and slave etc) or that are very abnormal in some way tend to make great stories.
I’ve been to Monticello the tourist destination, and all of their tour guides and pamphlets take the Jefferson/Hemmings “romance” as solid fact, which I found to be slightly frustrating. There was no mention of any other theories.
Well, I don’t know. But as a male I’d wonder about a man who who didn’t at least make a try for a nearby attractive woman who, by position and the customs of the time, was available for sex. Jefferson didn’t live in prudish times. Heck, even Marx took advantage of his housekeeper and he was married.
The irony is that the Jeffersonian-Democrats are the antecedents to the modern democratic party and liberalism.
“chuck Says:
October 23rd, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Well, I don’t know. But as a male I’d wonder about a man who who didn’t at least make a try for a nearby attractive woman who, by position and the customs of the time, was available for sex. Jefferson didn’t live in prudish times. Heck, even Marx took advantage of his housekeeper and he was married”
Maybe, unlike that moral miscreant Marx, he had at least some sense of self-discipline or honor.
Chuck: Exactly. Plus the fact that Hemmings was Martha Jefferson’s half-sister and TJ must have been a very lonely man 13 years after Martha’s death. Men having children with concubines is not exactly breaking news. See Genesis 25:1-6.
Professional historians have long been aware of the problems with the proposed Jefferson/Hemings liaison and many are willing to express skepticism in private, but few have been courageous enough to speak out publicly against it. As the review you reference notes, the political and professional pressures to join in the consensus are enormous.
Its also interesting to note what archeologists have found on Jefferson’s property as to how people lived, and went about their days.
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/monticello-archaeology
[there is a skip over to http://www.daacs.org/ which is a database of slavery facts and study from archeological examination. i have not spent time there and can not comment as to what is there]
the most i remember is about mulberry row
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/mulberry-row-reassessment
with fascinating stuff from examining such mundane (for them) things as assigning quarters and moving people around
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/housing-revolution
you may not agree with their interpretations, i cant say, but if you want to know about Jefferson through knowing his household (as a profit making endeavor not just how he tidies his laundry), this is a great place to learn from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMxtbAP2cyU&feature=player_embedded#!
Enjoy.
And yes, I’m being sarcastic. This is the “empowered” modern woman Obama voter.
I’ve been to Monticello also and agree that they do take the Jefferson/Hemmings relationship as a given.
I agree that there is no conclusive evidence that Jefferson sired all those kids with Hemmings, but I remember reading – somewhere – that the master of the house fathering kids with the house servants was common – even when cohabiting with a wife (I can’t see my wife being that understanding). When the ladies came to call it was really bad manners – in the presence of the lady of the house – that would be the living wife – to take notice of the strong resemblance between the servants and the master of the house. When she wasn’t there it was a fair topic.
Since Jefferson’s wife (and mother of their children) was deceased, and in view of his seeking out and obtaining from her father a half sister (at least – could have been closer) slave who happened to look a lot like his deceased wife, and it seems that Sally apparently often traveled with him, I tend to lean toward there being a real relationship.
But then I don’t lose sleep over it either.
The notion that DNA proved that Jefferson fathered children by his slave was promoted by Joseph Ellis around the time of — and in an effort to defuse — the Monica Lewinski story. Nothing is known today about the science or the history that was not known then. Ellis simply slanted his case, and the MSM played right along.
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The enforcement of “consensus” about this case reminds me of the similar enforced silence about Alex Hayley and “Roots,” and the contradicting/refuting information that our glorious MSM just refuses to acknowledge, publicize, print, broadcast, highlight, or to bring to our attention.
“Roots” was a national phenomenon, basically established the “narrative” about slavery for the whole country, Hayley was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for it, it made Hayley an extremely wealthy man, and the Iconic Roots miniseries is still being played today.
No dissenting voices allowed to be heard or acknowledged, pointing out a number of very disturbing and damning facts found out about the “truth” of Roots since it first came out.
To whit:
According to several exposes, starting with a major 1993 cover article in the Village Voice by Philip Nobile, Roots was basically plagiarized–plot, main character and large sections of prose–according to court documents some 81 pages in all, from white author Hal Courlander’s 1967 book “The African.” Courlander sued Hayley in 1978, the judge in the case said that he didn’t want to go hard on Hayley and he apparently encouraged Courlander to settle rather than to have a full blown, long drawn out trial, so Courlander got a formula apology from Hayley and a small financial settlement–chump change compared to the millions Hayley reaped from that plagiarizing.
There is also a BBC produced 1997 expose/documentary on Hayley and Roots that, for some strange reason, neither PBS or any other U.S. TV station will show in this country.
Said an expert witness, a Professor of Literature from Columbia University, at the trial:
“The evidence of copying from The African in both the novel and the television dramatization of Roots is clear and irrefutable. The copying is significant and extensive … Roots … plainly uses The African as a model: as something to be copied at some times, and at other times to be modified, but always it seems, to be consulted … Roots takes from The African phrases, situations, ideas, aspects of style and plot. Roots finds in The African essential elements for its depiction of such things as a slave’s thoughts of escape, the psychology of an old slave, the habits of mind of the hero, and the whole sense of life on an infamous slave ship. Such things are the life of a novel; and when they appear in Roots, they are the life of someone else’s novel.” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Haley)
To quote the Wiki bio cited above, “Throughout the trial, Alex Haley maintained that he had not read The African before writing Roots. Shortly after the trial, however, a minority studies teacher at Skidmore College, Joseph Bruchac III, came forward and swore in an affidavit that he had discussed The African with Haley in 1970 or 1971 and had, in fact, given his own personal copy of The African to Haley. This event took place a good number of years prior to the publication of Roots.”
In addition, when Nobile looked through Hayley’s papers he found that Hayley’s genealogical research was faked, a total fabrication, Hayley never spent a lot of time in Africa researching Roots, and Nobile and other researchers also discovered that African officials, desperate to cash in, threatened villagers into falling in with Hayley’s claims about finding his ancestors via the oral history of village “griots,” and that Kunta Kinte and the ancestral tree, ties, and ancestors he supposedly discovered were mostly fabricated.
Also from the Wiki article cited above comes the information that respected genealogists Elizabeth Shown Mills and Gary B. Mills–experts in African-American genealogy–have also looked at Hayley’s genealogical work, and declared Hayley’s claims to be false.
Nonetheless, Roots still stands as a “true” picture of slavery here in the U.S., I suppose on the grounds that it is “fake, but accurate.”
It’s a fact that Sallie Hemings had children with a male member of the Jefferson family. Sure it could have been Thomas’s brother. But the safest bet that it was the male Jefferson whose house she spent her adult life living in and that was Thomas.
Thomas Jefferson made a pass at the wife of a close friend. And admitted it. He wasn’t a saint.
Bruce: I don’t think you read the article. The “safe bet” is not Thomas, if you look at the facts.