I’m not a historian so I don’t want to claim that the record is incontrovertible, but isn’t there tons of evidence that Thomas Jefferson did father children with Sally Hemings? When did it become a winger cause celebre that he didn’t? Don’t they know that Jefferson hated The Bible? The Moonie Times via Wonkette:
In a book due out Thursday, eminent scholars say it’s unlikely that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children, disputing a decade’s worth of conventional wisdom that the author of the Declaration of Independence sired offspring with one of his slaves.
The debate has ensnared historians for years, and many thought the issue was settled when DNA testing in the late 1990s confirmed that a Jefferson male fathered Hemings‘ youngest son, Eston. But, with one lone dissenter, the panel of 13 scholars doubted the claim and said the evidence points instead to Jefferson’s brother Randolph as the father.
The scholars also disputed accounts that said Hemings’ children received special treatment from Jefferson, which some saw as evidence of a special bond between the third president and Hemings.
I find winger revisionism upsetting and depressing in general, but this bothers me even more than usual, so much so that I don’t have the energy to do the research to refute this new claim.
Jager
The Oprah Show had the black and white “Jeffersons” on and they all had Tom’s nose!
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
The real Brown Sugar
JPL
Did Strom Thurmond have a brother also? Enquiring minds want to know.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
The real Brown Sugar.
Judas Escargot
Apparently DNA testing is not only a liberal plot, but triggers the FYWP moderation filter.
cathyx
And the earth is only 6,000 years old too.
Don K
Yeah well, didn’t you know that, like all of the other Founding Fathers, TJ was a fundamentalist Christian, and therefore infallible, therefore he could not have possibly fathered a child out of wedlock.
/snark
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Don K: He was putting the fun back in fundamentalism!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember Fatty Bill Bennett on Larry King when the DNA research was released, he regretfully opined that this was a stain on Jefferson’s reputation that we would have to accept. That whole owning and trafficking in human beings, that he could live with. But sex? Dirty, dirty sex? That was a black mark on TJ’s soul.
Zam
Pretty soon their “scientists” will tell us that their evidence proves he didn’t even own slaves. Furthermore that slavery was indeed abolished well before the revolution.
Linda Featheringill
Oh, hell. So they are now going to claim that slaveowners didn’t have sex with their slaves? That is quite naive. I’m not saying that everyone did, of course, but a lot of them did.
I think that most of these holier-than-thou rightwingers would not have approved of Thomas Jefferson. Or a bunch of other “founding fathers.”
They weren’t a group of saints. They were a bunch of randy white boys who managed to get a bit of education and a bit of property and tried to set up a country that filled their needs.
Somebody in the last several days said that the document they created [the Constitution] was better than they were.
Martin
Turns out Thomas Jefferson only had sex with an inflatable Sally Hemings. And it wasn’t even his inflatable Sally Hemmings.
arguingwithsignposts
This reminds me of the Jesus Seminar, which had votes on what sayings they thought were attributable to the itinerant preacher. Lots of heat, not a lot of light.
Omnes Omnibus
Hasn’t whatever the association of Jefferson descendants is called already accepted the Hemings descendants into their midst?
Winston Smith
The preponderance of evidence is that it was Jefferson’s brother. The DNA evidence supports only that it was Thomas or Randolph.
Randolph was close friends with the slaves on Jefferson’s plantation and would party with them when he visited. There are documented visits 9 months before each of Hemmings’ children was born.
The evidence pointing toward Jefferson is an autobiography by one of Hemmings’ sons that claims Jefferson as the father. This man was illiterate and did not write the book himself. Rumors about Thomas and Sally were circulated by political foes of Jefferson.
The DNA and the historical record point to Rudolph. Jefferson as the father is a better story, but it’s not by any means certain.
Linda Featheringill
Dougie:
It took me a while. Brown Sugar.
And your mama was also a special breed.
cathyx
You mean Paul Revere didn’t ride through town to warn the British that we were armed and to not take away our guns?
Warren Terra
Little point commenting now that Jim, Foolish Literalist appears to have won the thread, but I still want to point out that, per Bachmann, as a Founding Father Jefferson was tireless in his campaign to end slavery and other forms of injustice.
Less flippantly, I think this is like the wingers’ attitude towards religion (witness the constant stream of Preacher Sex Scandals), Saint Reagan (actual deeds of the 40th President, such as raising taxes, arming the Ayatollah, and fleeing Lebanon are inconvenient and ignored), or Conservatism generally: actual facts don’t matter, the past was what it should have been. Remember: the Conservative version of history can never fail, it can only be failed.
cathyx
@Martin: Hah! And he took it with him when he got caught.
Sreeizzle2012
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/09/01/you-shouldve-heard-him-just-around-midnight/
hey all, come rec this diary.
Give it love before the PL poo poos it.
To anyone skeptical, read this.
Warren Terra
@Winston Smith:
Shame about that Google thing, isn’t it? It’s all kinds of inconvenient for you bullshit merchants:
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Linda Featheringill: Photo above, Claudia Laneer.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@cathyx: He was ringin’ those bells in warning to the British, and maybe shootin’ some guns also too.
JPL
Poor wingnuts, it has to be hard to rewrite all this history.
gocart mozart
This book came out in the 90’s and proved without a doubt that old Tom had a thing for his dead wife’s (half slave black) niece.
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-Sally-Hemings-Controversy/dp/0813918332
beltane
One of my other online hangouts is the discussion boards at 23andme, where various people of color occasionally report receiving responses from genetic relatives such as “We don’t have any brown people in our family”, so this really is not a surprise. One of the reasons conservatives are nostalgic about slavery is that they like the idea of raping with impunity. They also enjoy the fantasy that only blanks are fired during the course of these rapes. In other words, they are nasty, gross people.
patrick II
@Warren Terra:
My thought when I read Winston’s comment was — wow, that’s impressive, they even have Thomas Jefferson trolls. Thanks for taking the time to get some facts into the thread.
Winston Smith
@Warren Terra: Wikipedia? Seriously? Did you even bother to check the reference?
lottirose
This is NOT a wingnut issue. There has never been definitive proof that Jefferson was the father of Hemmings’ children. It was just something assumed after a popular book by Fawn Brody received wide readership.
This is one that might be left to Scottish law as “not proven” and probably unprovable, but I do find the current trend to think the worst possible of the founding fathers interesting – for the record The Jefferson Bible was written to take the mythology out of the Gospel. But Jefferson did not “hate” the Bible. He was above all else a rational irrational man – read heart/head – and this was his way to justify the message of Christ sans the virgin birth and other trappings that were obviously not rational.
beltane
@Warren Terra: I personally think they are all a bunch of rapists and perverts who get off on their own hypocrisy. They are perfectly aware of what they’re doing; it’s the rest of us who fail to comprehend the depths of their depravity.
Omnes Omnibus
@lottirose: Thinking that Jefferson like many, many slave owners may well have had sex with a female slave is not thinking the worst of him. Instead, it is having a realistic view.
gocart mozart
DNA evidence was used to prove the relation. Wingnuts responded with “#!#!#@!@#!” and “so’s yur muther!”
MattR
The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society formed in 2000 because there was a group who felt The Thomas Jefferson Foundation was too politically correct and not doing proper scholarly research vis a vis the DNA evidence. This book looks like it is just the report that their “commission” created in 2001 to counter the one from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation that concluded that TJ probably fathered children with Sally Hemmings. Not sure why they decided to release it now.
Warren Terra
@Winston Smith:
By all means, dig yourself in deeper.
ETA By the way, since I linked to a study disproving your specific claim, first indirectly via Wikipedia and now directly, could you please link to something reputable supporting your claim of documented visits 9 months prior to the birth of each of Hemings’s 6 children?
Thanks in advance.
MikeBoyScout
@11 Martin: @Martin:
FTW!
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: At least the Romans were quite explicit as to the sexual benefits of slave owning. The Anglo-Saxon need to cloak this basic truth with a veneer of gentility and Christian piety is one of the most disgusting aspects of American-style slavery.
Anne Laurie
The old “Tom was a celibate saint, I can assure you, despite the filthy foul-mouth LIES of his perverted lie-bral enemies” trope is also being revived because (a) it feeds into the current “Science Messes Up All The Good Morality Tales, So To Hell With It” winger-whinge, and (b)there is a mixed-race individual occupying “their” White House.
I wish I had the google-fu to find the article — I thought in Harpers, but their index doesn’t list it — suggesting that Jefferson salved his conscience about screwing Sally Hemmings by arguing, with biblical references, that an admixture of “blood” from the “superior race” would gradually improve the lowly status of the poor, benighted slave races… Mr. Jefferson was no defender of either the Bible or the master-race idiocy (he claimed Southern slavery was all about clean, rational economics, which is one reason libertarians canonize him first among founders) so arguing from such premises, even in a private letter, would indicate just how weak he knew his position to be.
gocart mozart
@lottirose:
You are full of shit. The facts are clear. Have the balls to provide some evidence in your argument.
arguingwithsignposts
Thomas Jefferson trolls. lulz.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Man am I glad football started tonight!
numbskull
Weelll, you guys might want to broaden your horizons. The actual molecular genetics indicates it was most likely Tom or Randy, with equal certitude.
Randy actually did hang out with the slaves socially. He apparently respected their then-culture and was interested in African culture. Does that mean that Randy was randy? Not necessarily.
Tom disdained slave culture and had at best a curiosity about African culture. He did not hang with them in the cabins. Does that mean Tom wasn’t randy? Not necessarily.
Clay Jenkinson, an affable Jefferson scholar (“The Thomas Jefferson Hour”) with somewhat liberal leanings, thinks on balance it was Tom who fathered the Hemmings, but agrees that the issue is unresolved and probably cannot BE resolved to a certainty.
Redshift
Didn’t the textbook wingnuts in Texas try to “de-emphasize” Jefferson because he believed a lot of things that were inconvenient for their ideology?
arguingwithsignposts
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): You mean Georgia vs. the Atlanta School for the Infirm? Yeah. NFL starts next week, and the real college season starts about three weeks from now.
Brian R.
Read the original piece.
First of all, this study was commissioned by an organization that sees itself as the “defender” of Jefferson’s image and wanted to find proof that the Hemmings story was wrong.
And who are the “scholars” on this commission? Let’s take a look.
Lance Banning — an actual historian, but one who died in 2006
James Caesar — a regular contributor to the Weekly Standard
Robert H. Ferrell — an actually good historian, but one who specializes in Truman and the Cold War
Charles Kesler — senior fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute
Harvey Mansfield — fellow at the conservative Hoover Foundation
Alf Mapp, Jr. — an historian who insisted the founding fathers were deeply religious and didn’t believe in separation of church and state
David Mayer — a conservative who runs a blog with posts like “High Gas Prices: B.O. (Blame Obama)”
Forrest McDonald — a self-described “paleo-conservative” who didn’t think slavery was a flaw in the constitution
Thomas Traut — a biochemist who knows about Jefferson because his wife researched him for a play she wrote. No, really.
Robert Turner — a regular contributor to Fox News and the Moonie Times
Walter Williams — economist in the very conservative department at George Mason and a syndicated libertarian columnist
Jean Yarbrough — another regular at the conservative Claremont Institute
Wow. It’s really hard to believe that such a diverse group of scholars came up with the conclusion they did.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@arguingwithsignposts: Wisconsin-UNLV, Miss State and Memphis are both on right now.
19th ranked Georgia plays 5th ranked Boise State Saturday and I made a pretty penny on them duckets.
rikyrah
not only did Jefferson have a relationship with Hemmings, but Hemmings was a DEAD RINGER for Jefferson’s late wife.
she looked like his wife, except for that she had somewhat of a permanent tan.
dance around it if you wish, but, IMO, Jefferson replaced his dead wife with her sister.
adolphus
I agree it is probably unprovable on way or another, but shouldn’t we at least teach the controversy?
fasteddie9318
But, you guys, didn’t you read the article Doug J cited? This new view is, like, totally based on the work of eminent scholars. Are any of you eminent scholars? Then you should totally take their word for it, plus the rantings of those two trolls here (at least one of whom seems to agree with Bill Bennett that the really ugly part of having sex with a slave is the “sex” part). Slavery, meh, it happens.
arguingwithsignposts
@adolphus: It would be irresponsible to speculate. It would be irresponsible not to.
rikyrah
and for those who argue about Hemmings, I want you to answer me this..
how the hell did she COME BACK FROM PARIS PREGNANT?
just askin’.
arguingwithsignposts
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Wisc./UNLV shouldn’t be any competition. Miss. State and Memphis. There’s a reason “meh” is in those names.
Ga. vs. Boise State, now I’m wondering who was asleep at the scheduling switch with that one?
ETA: I’m wondering which conference will finally abandon the number in their names of those who’ve screwed the pooch on numbering now that teams have defected? Big
129, Big1012, or the Pac10whatever?Redshift
@numbskull:
Fascinating; I was not aware that there were logbooks for visitors to the slave quarters!
In all seriousness, you seem very certain about the details of the private lives of the Jefferson brothers, the sort of things which are generally not well documented. Do you have any actual sources to cite?
MattR
@Brian R.: Nice summary. Did you mean to exclude Paul Rahe (a BigGovernment.com contributor) from your list because he was the one dissent, though that word should be in quotation marks?
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Was contemplating placing a wager on UNLV winning more than 2.5 games this year. Decided it was not worth the effort.
Tithonia
I thought I read somewhere that Sally Hemings was the half sister of Jefferson’s wife Martha? Am I remembering that right?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@arguingwithsignposts: We had the Ville until the offer was made. They beat the Hokies (one of my other teams) in the kickoff game last year and it seems worth it for them to do it again. The dawgs follow it up with South Carolina next week so we’ll know pretty soon whether Richt will be here much longer. For those of you who think this is OT, college football IS a plantation system. . .so there!
beltane
@rikyrah: Wasn’t Sally Hemmings the half-sister of Thomas Jefferson’s wife? That would explain the resemblance.
Redshift
@Brian R.: Ah, so this is proven by “eminent scholars” in the same way that climate change is doubted by “hundreds of scientists” — almost exclusively ones that actually have no expertise in the actual field, and a significant number whose claim to the title “scholar” is from a wingnut welfare “think” tank.
Now I understand why we had Jefferson trolls pop up in no time.
rikyrah
and, the entire strain of DENIAL of the full extent of slavery.
look at Western Africa (where the overwhelming majority of slaves came from during the transatlantic slave trade)
look at the rainbow of shades that comprises the Black community.
HOW do you get from the West Africans, to our present rainbow, without a whole lot of miscegenation?
the Black community in America has been multi-racial from practically the first time Massa went down to the slavequarters
numbskull
@rikyrah: Well, as long as we’re just dancing around what you admit is your opinion, I guess we’re ok.
On balance, Jefferson scholars of repute think he fathered Sally Hemmings’ children. And, there’s little doubt that Sally Hemmings was Jefferson’s wife’s half-sister. But, the fatherhood of Sally Hemmings children is not settled by the genetic studies alone.
But, it’s darned near completely settled by those data plus everything else we know about the guy…
arguingwithsignposts
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Ga. seems to have one of the stronger college preseasons, then. BTW, what do you think of the Red & Black’s new magazine/weekly newspaper?
arguingwithsignposts
@Redshift: TJ was a noted fan of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”
(what, too soon?)
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@arguingwithsignposts: Huh, the editor (permanent, I’m not sure of his title) lives around the corner but I’m not familiar with it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tithonia: Yup
arguingwithsignposts
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): small world, I may know the person you’re mentioning. :)
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@arguingwithsignposts: I just hit the online version, looks interesting. How do you know about it?
Martin
Oh, and ’eminent scholars’, not like those lying piece of shit climate scientists.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@arguingwithsignposts: Ed M?
andy
Is anybody else amused that one of the blogads for this thread is for christian singles?
arguingwithsignposts
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Yep.
Rob
Not that I care much, but Randolph lived just twenty miles away, he appears to have been on good terms with his brother, and he’s only recorded as visiting four times? It is by no means impossible that Randolph visited much more frequently than is shown in the extant records.
numbskull
@Redshift: Geeze, Redshift, it’s not like any of this is received wisdom. Historians research. They collect facts as best they can and and surmise from there. Then they write it up. Go read the numerous Jefferson biographies. There’s lots written on the guy. More recent biographers and scholars come down on the side of Thomas being the father of Sally Hemmings’ children. I agree with that, but make your own decisions.
Hell, beyond all this, in his own words the guy openly disdained what some of his contemporaries named and considered the culture of the slaves. Are you arguing otherwise? Go educate yourself, starting with reading Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson considered slaves to be deficient humans. He was fundamentally and deeply racist and bigoted. Are you arguing otherwise? Are you arguing that we don’t have a pretty accurate picture of Thomas’ daily routines? He didn’t hang out with his slaves in their cabins. Are you arguing that Randolph didn’t? Because a lot of historians think he did. But that’s a red herring. Randolph may have spent lots of time playing music with the slaves, but that’s not where Sally would have been. She was with Tom. In my opinion.
But, as to the DNA, the last time I read up on this, admittedly four or five years ago, the data was nearly conclusive that it was Thomas or Randolph. Are there new data?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@arguingwithsignposts: You can delete this.
honus
@lottirose: It is a wingnut issue in that it is so important to them that Jefferson did not have a relationship with a black slave. As a graduate of his university and a 40 year resident of his home town, my impression is that, after the death of his wife, Jefferson had a relationship with Ms. Hemings that it was impossible to conduct openly during that era. The reality is that while it is tragic, there is no more shame in that for those involved than in the countless homosexual relationships that have been semi-clandestinely conducted in small towns for the past hundred years.
El Cid
@JPL: No, it was actually Strom Thurmond himself who fathered Sally Heming’s child. He just asked Jefferson to help cover it up for him, given how at the time Strom was a bit older for a politician, and worried that in his senior years 200 years hence the scandal would follow him.
fhtagn
Some people in Jefferson’s lifetime certainly thought he had something going on with Sally Hemings:
“Go search with curious eye for horrid frogs
Mid the wild wastes of Louisianian bogs ;
Or where Ohio rolls his turbid stream,
Dig for huge bones, thy glory and thy theme.
Go scan, Philosophist, thy Sally’s charms,
And sink supinely in her sable arms ,
But quit to abler hands the helm of State”
(William Cullen Bryant)
TaMara (BHF)
@Warren Terra: Hee-hee. You rock and you made a troll cry.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@fhtagn: Did he play for the Rams?
Bokonon
Many years ago, American Heritage magazine dove into the question of whether Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings’ children.
The article featured pictures of one child, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Case closed. I mean … holy cow. What a resemblance.
They also checked the census records. And the Hemings kids openly held themselves out as Jefferson’s children.
I have never understood the claim that there is anything here to “defend” in Jefferson’s record. Look … this was a four decade long relationship, with many kids, that was socially unacceptable by the standards of the time. I think that Jefferson and Hemings navigated their society and times as best they could. The people who are REALLY uncomfortable with this are either unable to accept flaws, hypocrisy and complication in their heroes … or they have another agenda.
ppcli
@Brian R.: Gawd. I should have guessed that that intellectual lightweight and ideological hack Harvey Mansfield would have been involved. Suffice it to say that his track record on scholarly matters is identical to that of his student William Kristol on foreign policy and vice presidential choices: always believe the opposite of what he says and you’ll always be right.
nancydarling
I seem to recall reading that Sally Hemings (who was Jefferson’s wife’s half-sister) traveled to France as a companion and servant to Jefferson’ daughter. Sally was 15 or 16 at the time. She was pregnant when they returned from France. She also had special status as a slave and he freed all of her children (I think). So much smoke here, there has to be a fire. I also recall Sally’s brother (James, I think) also travelled to France to learn the latest in cooking from French chefs.
Apparently Jefferson was a foodie, like our blog proprietor.
Warren Terra
@Rob:
This is certainly possible. I will note that “Winston Smith” – who I believe truly has come to love Big Brother – made a specific claim about documented visits at the time of each conception, a claim that is demonstrably false. I was responding to Smith’s claim, not asserting that the four recorded visits detailed the whole of Randolph’s time at Monticello.
The DNA clearly indicates that Jefferson or one of his close kin fathered one of Sally Hemings’s children. There seems to be general agreement that one man was father to all of her children. Her (viable, reported) pregnancies span a period of some 13 years. Accordingly, your point about the proximity of Randolph Jefferson to Monticello perhaps argues against Randolph’s candidacy: all of her children were conceived when Thomas Jefferson was in residence at Monticello, and none during his long absences. If Randolph had a relationship with her that endured for at least 13 years, and he lived such a conveniently short distance away, it would seem odd that this relationship was only pursued when Thomas Jefferson was in residence.
The available facts fit the father being Thomas Jefferson better than they fit any other hypothesis – considerably better, in fact. They can’t prove his paternity – but the revealing thing is the certitude some people have that Thomas Jefferson can’t possibly be the man responsible. Because, as Jim, Foolish Literalist pointed out, they apparently are outraged that this slaveholder and advocate of genocide (and, to be sure, profound if hypocritical philosopher of liberty) had nookie.
Donut
@Winston Smith:
Source(s) for your assertions, please?
Steve
@Rob: Sure, sounds possible to me, but there was a guy upthread claiming documented proof that the brother visited nine months before each childbirth. Ever since he got asked for a cite he seems to have vanished.
When you see one side of a debate peddling so many blatant lies, I confess it’s hard for most folks to keep an open mind.
Southern Beale
This will all be solved once we find the long-form birth certificate of Sally Hemmings’ children.
:-)
Joel
@Winston Smith: Citations?
Here’s one that says otherwise.
Darkrose
I very vaguely remember a black historian in some Ken Burns thing or other pointing out that it doesn’t matter whether or not Thomas Jefferson had sex with Sally Hemings. What matters is that he could have and the only reason it would have been a problem is if it became public knowledge. None of his slaveowning peers would have seen anything wrong with having sex with a black woman who can’t give free consent; it’s highly unlikely that it would have been considered rape, because it only counts when it’s the other way around. All of the “was he the baby daddy” argument does is obscure the real stain on his character: that Jefferson thought it acceptable to own other people.
Southern Beale
@Darkrose:
But remember, the Michele Bachmann version of American history holds that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery!
Darkrose
@numbskull:
And of course, no one would ever consider raping a woman he considered less than human. Nope, never happened.
AA+ Bonds
You don’t become eminent by being wrong, John. These guys? Eminent as FUCK.
Darkrose
@Southern Beale: I thought that on Planet Bachmann, slavery wasn’t that bad because there was a strong black family unit?
suzanne
I get the attitude that is completely and totally okay with owning slaves, but horrified and shocked and appalled by having sexual relations with them.
Oh, wait, yes I do. Sex = R-O-N-G wrong.
Warren Terra
@Darkrose:
Technically that wasn’t put forward by Bachmann, it was in the preamble to a stupid and offensive “pro-marriage” pledge she signed. As a signatory she bears responsibility, but it wasn’t her or her staff that wrote it.
The rest of the pledge was pretty special, too, especially the part where (iirc) signatories could only support politicians who signed it.
ETA the Balloon Juice thread on the pledge in question is here. I commented on the racism part of the pladge then, but also pointed this out, which continues to amaze me:
Mark
When did it become a winger cause celebre that he didn’t?
This is easy….Obama is half black/half white so if this happened years ago with Founding Father T.J.? They will do anything to deligitmize a Democratic POTUS
Calouste
@Warren Terra:
20 miles wasn’t exactly a “convenient short distance” in the late 18th century. Probably a two hour ride on horseback under favorable circumstances.
Warren Terra
@Calouste:
Sure. But that’s hardly an insurmountable obstacle. Especially as he might have had to make the trip for other reasons (possibly even to check on the estate for his absent brother!). And we’re talking about a relationship that lasted at least 13 years – a four-hour round trip (or perhaps just a lesser detour) would hardly be unthinkable.
joeshabadoo
@honus:
There is shame in having sex with one’s slave.
Unlike a hidden homosexual relationship sex with a slave always has the spectre of rape hanging over it. When someone is another person’s property you can’t assume that when they don’t say no to their master that they really mean yes.
Mark Field
I’ve only commented here once before, but this topic happens to be of interest to me, so I’m going to add my .02.
I’ve read all the relevant Jefferson/Hemings books and papers, which I’ll try to summarize briefly. However, I’m doing it off the top of my head so I can’t guarantee that I have it perfectly correct.
The charges that Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings originated (at least in public) with James Callendar. Callendar was a disreputable journalist with a talent for invective. He originally supported Jefferson, then came to believe that Jefferson hadn’t treated him properly so turned against him.
The Hemings children and grandchildren consistently said that Thomas was their father/g’father. Jefferson’s grand-daughter, however, accused Jefferson’s nephews.
Until the DNA evidence, this was one of those stories with no final answer, and it may not have one yet. What the DNA tests showed was that a “Jefferson male” was the father of one of Sally Hemings’ children (she had 7, IIRC), but not Jefferson’s nephews. It also showed that Jefferson was NOT the father of the one conceived in Paris.
This leaves Thomas and Randolph as the most likely candidates. The evidence is that Thomas was at Monticello for all of Sally’s conceptions. OTOH, there is also evidence that Randolph liked to hang out in the slave quarters, but the evidence isn’t adequate to support his presence or absence at the relevant times. But consider this — Randolph was, obviously, most likely to visit when Thomas was present.
Note too that all of this assumes that the father of one child was the same as the father of the rest. This is plausible but not proved.
All in all, most historians consider it more likely than not that Thomas was the father of all of Sally’s children, but it’s not like the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the list of historians, Lance Banning and Forest MacDonald are legit.
Big Baby DougJ
@Mark Field:
Thanks.
Warren Terra
@Big Baby DougJ:
Don’t thank him too soon. Note this line:
At least according to Wikipedia – and I will concede that I haven’t read several books, as Field claims to have – this is nonsense. There is an oral tradition that Hemings returned from France pregnant, but there are no contemporaneous records of this. A memoir of one of her descendants claimed that a baby was born on her return and died soon after (and needless to say was not available for DNA testing). A completely different family, the Woodsons, claimed she did indeed give birth, to a boy, that survived and later fathered their line. The Woodsons are not related to Jefferson – but it’s unclear they’re related to Hemings, either.
timb
@Winston Smith: who was the only female slave he took to Paris
Warren Terra
@timb:
Well, no. Jefferson went to Paris in 1784. Hemings travelled to Paris as maid to his younger daughter Polly in 1787, aged 15-16, and returned to Virginia in 1790. Her first documented child (see above comment) was born in 1797.
fhtagn
Quite a useful piece on the issue of Jefferson’s complicated life story:
.JeffersonEnigma.
Mark Field
@Warren Terra:
Yes, that is correct. My summary left out all that detail to simplify matters. In short, if Sally did conceive a child in Paris, and if that child led to the Woodson family, DNA evidence rules out Thomas as the father.
Chuck Butcher
I doubt anything ever will be proved, but TJ went to great lengthes to keep Sally around himself – even in the face of criticism.
drkrick
@MattR:
Ah, heritage not hate again.
Rob
If I had to guess, I’d guess that it would not have been socially acceptable for Randolph to spend time at Monticello in his brother’s absence, unless he had a very good reason for doing so.
Mark Field
One crucial point about the DNA evidence. All of the tests were done on descendants of the various families. They did NOT dig up Thomas Jefferson for this; in fact, the current descendants refuse to allow that. This is odd if they don’t believe he fathered the Hemings children — DNA directly from him is the one way to prove that. Of course, if he was the father, then DNA would prove that too.
fhtagn
@Rob:
Not necessarily. He might have come across to make sure all was well in the absence of his brother. He might have been visiting his sister-in-law. Or, of course, he might simply not have known that his brother was absent and stayed for the night.
underwoodchamp
It’s that crazy David Barton with his Wallbuilders. Their attempts to rewrite history to say that the founding fathers were opposed to slavery and loved Jesus are just pathetic. We know the truth.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@fhtagn:
Toss the sister-in-law theory out the window: Martha Skelton Jefferson died in 1782. Tom never remarried.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@arguingwithsignposts:
Way late to the thread, but I had to answer this. What the fuck are you insinuating here, exactly?
Xenos
The paternity of Hemmings’ children was not in question in the African-American community of the mid-19th century. The first published novel written by an African-American was ‘Clotel; or, the President’s Daughter‘, by Williams Wells Brown.
Worth reading, although I admit to only making it halfway through. Interesting treatment of race and class, and how working conditions were used to elevate some slaves and to further debase others. The ‘nearly white’ Clotel is resented by her mistress and forced to work in the sun without a hat, in order to make her more black.
Jefferson, for all his failings, is an endlessly interesting person, and very human. He opposed slavery in his early political career, before the revolution. The need for social solidarity against the British made him abandon this ideal, and the consolidation of the cotton-producing and exporting economy in the South made a widely held ideal of human dignity a dangerous sedition just a couple decades later.
We can’t pierce the veil of history to see if Jefferson had any real love or affection for Hemmings or their children. Sadly enough, Jefferson and Hemmings may never have known, either.
niknik
@Winston Smith:
By far the most awesomest load of hooey I have read on these here intertrons this week. Were they drinkin’ 40’s at this party and listening to that hippity-hop music?
Cheryl from Maryland
Thomas Jefferson owned his wife’s half sister, Sally Hemings, Ms. Hemings was a slave and maid for her nieces and her half sister. Members of the Jefferson family had children by Ms. Hemings, starting when she was 16 years old. Jefferson owned as enslaved people his nephews.
Whether or not Jefferson fathered any of the children doesn’t change the fucked up horror of that story.
woodrowfan
Funny how most of the “historians” on the list are not actual historians. Basically they collected a few conservative historians, then padded the list with right-wing pundits and even economists, who then found the results they were supposed to find.
What I find interesting is how the righties claim that the “TJ fathered Sally’s children” claim is promoted by the left to “smear” Jefferson. From what I’ve seen, it’s the righties that are most upset by the idea.
arguingwithsignposts
@Evolved Deep Southerner: if you are still reading this, Ga. v. Boise State is a pretty BFD for an early season game for both of those teams, when one loss can basically knock you out of contention for a BCS bowl bid.
It’s good for Boise State if they win, a huge gamble for Ga. if they were to lose.
Does that make sense?
woodrowfan
@Xenos:
This. I’d like to think that it was mutual consent (whatever THAT means in a slave-owner relationship) but we’ll never know.
Paul in KY
In keeping with the song lyric motif & speaking of Pres. Jefferson & Ms. Hemming: ‘The timing, the structure, did you hear he fucked her’.
It wouldn’t surprise me that they both raped her (and I like Pres. Jefferson, his brother I don’t know).
Paul in KY
@Chuck Butcher: Glad to see you posting, Chuck. Hope you are doing well.
Emma
To all of those who keep saying “he didn’t hang out in their cabins,” do you hear how stupid you sound? Honestly? Thomas Jefferson was the MASTER; he could summon any slave he wanted to his own rooms and NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT, or even pay much attention to it.
Lordamercy. Such fear. It was a long term relationship in a society that would never have acknowledged it, and probably as consensual as Tom wanted. It was all about his power. We can’t know, but can hope, he actually cared about her.
Chrisd
Jefferson was the slavocrats’ favorite and he remains THE founding father for “states’ rights” and limited government. His Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom and that “wall of separation” remain a problem for rabid religious conservatives. Still, if his fans can hold out–with a straight face–for DNA testing on his exhumed corpse before they’ll concede his paternity and revolting hypocrisy, turning Jefferson into a devout Christian should be a piece of cake.
Chrisd
@Chrisd: No, I take this back–there is no conceivable preponderance of evidence sufficient to convince them. It is an article of faith, like the Shroud of Turin.
Samara Morgan
its kindof sad really….Thom Jefferson was an elitist polymath that loathed organized xianity and fraternized with darkies and read the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita.
Hes harder to co-opt than Darwin.
:)
Nutella
Historian Annette Gordon-Reed reported some interesting data that showed that every return of Jefferson to Monticello from his travels was correlated with the birth of a child to Hemings nine months later. One return did not until Gordon-Reed found a document mentioning a still-birth to Hemings at the right time.
None of the available evidence can prove paternity conclusively, of course.
The thing that I find most interesting, besides the idiots bleating that their dear Jefferson could not possibly have done this, is how common this kind of race-mixing was. Hemings herself was the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife and her mother’s parents were also a master and a slave. Of the eight great-grandparents of the Hemings children, seven were white.
A northern visitor to Monticello in Jefferson’s time was shocked to be served dinner by a slave who looked exactly like Jefferson including red hair and pale skin with freckles.
The racial history of the US is a lot more complicated than some people want to believe.
RobNYNY1957
Nutella has a point. When it’s framedin terms of Jefferson having an affair with his sister-in-law, a lot of the transgressive otherness is sucked out of it.