I don't think I'll read the book, because I'm not that interested in the story, but I decided to poke around a little to learn more about it. Here you can read the reports of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. The majority report says TJ is the father, the minority report says it is not proven. Here are a few observations of mine:
- There seems to be a strong yearning by many for this to be true. I don't know if it's a racial thing, a "tar the Founding Fathers" thing, or what.
- The fact that Jefferson was home during the window of conception for each kid is strong evidence for paternity.
- The DNA evidence really isn't, though, because only one Hemings descendant was able to be tested, and it doesn't rule out Jefferson relatives (like his brother Randolph) as being the father. All it proves is that one Hemings kid (Eston) was fathered by a Jefferson.
- The TJF majority seems to lend too much credence to the fact that one Hemings kid, Madison, stated in 1873 that Jefferson was his dad, and that Hemings family lore says Jefferson was their father. People like to believe that they have famous relatives. People would much rather be Thomas Jefferson's kid than Randolph Jefferson's, so that would easily explain the family lore, which becomes less credible with each generation. Plus, Madison would obviously have been too young to have any firsthand remembrance of these times, and he didn't have a fatherly relationship or anything with Jefferson that would corroborate his gut feeling.
- All things considered, I am skeptical of Thomas Jefferson's paternity in this case.
As the author of the book, let me add this essay for your consideraiton: one statement should be made concerning our greatest founding father: Thomas Jefferson was either the most prolific, hypocritical liar in American history or the victim of the most profane, 200-year-old defamation of character allegation in legal annals.
ReplyDeleteThere is no gauzy middle ground in this historical tableau.
For the last ten years, Jefferson’s reputation has been unfairly eviscerated by a misrepresentation of the DNA study turning reputed science into political science. The “Sally” story is pure fiction, possibly revisionist politics, but certainly not historical fact or science. It reflects a recycled inaccuracy that has metastasized from book to book, over two hundred years.
In contrast to the blizzard of recent agenda-driven books spinning the controversy as a mini-series version of history and slavery, I found that layer upon layer of evidence points to a mosaic distinctly away from Jefferson with one inevitable conclusion: the historians have the wrong Jefferson--the DNA, as well as other historical evidence, matches perfectly to his younger brother, Randolph and his teen-age sons, as the true candidates for a sexual relationship with Sally:
• the virulent rumor was first started by the unscrupulous, scandal-mongering journalist James Callender, who burned for political revenge against Jefferson. Callender was described as “an alcoholic thug with a foul mind, obsessed with race and sex,” who intended to defame Jefferson’s public career.
• the one eyewitness to this sexual allegation was Edmund Bacon, Jefferson’s overseer at Monticello, who saw another man (not Jefferson) leaving Sally’s room ‘many a morning.’
• Jefferson’s deteriorating health casts severe doubt on any sexual relationship. He was 64 at the time of the alleged affair and suffered debilitating migraine headaches which incapacitated him for weeks, as well as severe intestinal infections and rheumatoid arthritis, complaining to John Adams: “My health is entirely broken down within the last eight months.”
• Randolph Jefferson had a reputation for socializing with Jefferson's slaves and was expected at Monticello approximately nine months before the birth of Eston Hemings, the DNA match.
• The DNA match was to a male son. Randolph had six male sons. Thomas Jefferson had all female children, except for a nonviable infant, with his beloved wife, Martha.
• Until 1976, the oral history of Eston’s family held that they descended from a Jefferson "uncle." Randolph was known at Monticello as "Uncle Randolph."
• Unlike his brother, by taste and training Thomas Jefferson was raised as the perfect Virginia gentleman, a man of refinement and intellect. The personality of the man who figures in the Hemings soap opera would be preposterously out of character for him.
William G. Hyland Jr.,
Author, In Defense of Thomas Jefferson
A few things:
ReplyDeleteIt's insulting to allege that the only reason a person would choose to believe that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings' children is because of some irrational, dirty liberal hatred of the Founding Fathers. Take for instance Joseph J. Ellis's book, American Sphinx. In the first edition, written before the DNA study was done, he considered the available facts and determined that Jefferson, in all likelihood, was not the father. But in an added section in the second edition, after the study, he reversed his position, tentatively deciding that Jefferson probably was the father. However, as in all serious consideration of the study, he noted that Jefferson's nephew was also a candidate. Ellis is by no means a thoughtless, unreasonable Jefferson detractor.
Now, it is true that Ellis is not a Jefferson celebrator either. He was examining, as his title encapsulates, the contradictions between Jefferson's words and actions. It is possible that Jefferson has been defamed by the continuing interest in his relationship with Sally Hemings, but it is also true that there was much hypocrisy in his nature. He claimed to be against slavery but owned slaves; he claimed to abhor political parties but ran one in secret; he claimed to oppose executive power but made the Louisiana Purchase on only his own authority.
In short, of course it isn't definite that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings' children--but it is possible. And I doubt that the opinion that Jefferson is "guilty" stems from Founding Father backlash/American self-hatred. While I cannot speak for the scholars who have come down on the side of Jeffersonian paternity, my guess is that the idea has caught on among the public because it's just interesting. It's interesting to think that Jefferson produced black children; it's boring to think that some random relative of his did.
Thanks for your comments, Mr. Hyland. I'll have to give your book a read. I can't say too much on the motives of particular historians without reading more, but I think being interested in a story is not quite the same as preferring a particular outcome.
ReplyDeleteBut my point is, without the Jefferson involvement, there is no story there. It's just some rich dude who happened to be related to Thomas Jefferson that had sex with a slave, like oh so many other non-interesting rich dudes did.
ReplyDelete