Giving Thomas Jefferson the Business: The Jefferson-Hemings Hoax

A Different Drummer/Middle American News ^ | December, 2003 | Nicholas Stix

[mrustow]

Oh, that's nice. And of course, we post-Americans have left anachronisms like "historical truth" in the dustbin of, er, um, ... pre-post-Americanism.

[mrustow]

I just read your correspondence with the man who has been "a published author for 33 years," blah blah blah, been on Oprah, blah blah blah ...

Well, one thing's for sure. Truscott is narcissistic enough to drown ten men. And there's really no substitute for family connections, since none of his blah blah blah would otherwise have come about. "Fatuous" is the word!

I notice that he emphasized the story about the elderly Sally Hemings tending to Jefferson's grave three times a week, being from the Hemings family oral tradition. I think we can thus safely discount the story, as a prop fashioned to hold up the myth that she was Jefferson's lover. Keep in mind, that Truscott is at best indifferent to the truth. He's just interested in whatever will support the story he's peddling, so that he can continue playing the Great White Father.

[breakem]

Tell me what I got wrong. It could be any of 25 Jefferson men. She worked for TJ, went to Paris with him and so on. So he either is the father or he pimped her out to his family.

[sultan88]

ping

[mrustow]

The whole story revolves around the Jefferson in Paris myth: he seduced the young girl in Paris, got her pregnant, and she bore his child shortly after their return. Except that she was not pregnant with any child of his upon her return from Paris, and apparently wasn't pregnant at all at the time.

If the pillars that held up the "big house" have collapsed, there is no reason to try and resurrect the structure.

Your dichotomy is false. Slave girls got pregnant all the time, without their masters necessarily having slept with them, or having "pimped [them] out."

[breakem]

We'll he owned her and he or one of his relatives is the father. So his relatives came in and did the deed with her in his home and TJ didn't know. Was this because he was out of town and his relatives had free run of the house...........slaves.

The scenario where he doesn't know doesn't seem very gentrified to me, thus my two choices.

[greenwolf]

Devastating expose of one of the biggest race hoaxes in recent years.

It's not a hoax; the DNA tests were conclusive. Moreover, I can't picture how something like that amounts to any sort of a "smear" against Jefferson. The only people in the picture deserving of "smearing" are a number of neo-antebellum southern "historians" who apparently are still in denial over it.

[mrustow]

Devastating expose of one of the biggest race hoaxes in recent years.

It's not a hoax; the DNA tests were conclusive.

Of course it's a hoax. The DNA tests were only conclusive in disconfmirming that any Jefferson male was the father of slave Thomas C. Woodson, who is the main pillar of the story. And so, anyone who claims that DNA tests proved Thomas Jefferson was the father of any of Sally Hemings' children, is perpetuating the hoax. The author of the original story, later admitted that it was inaccurate.

It's also a hoax, because documentary evidence was deliberately altered, in order to support the paternity claim. And it's a hoax, because supporters of the paternity claim have harassed and race-baited anyone failing to roll over. And it's a hoax, because supporters of the paternity claim have used different rules of evidence for adjudging claims supporting their story, than they have for adjudging claims that contradict their story.

Moreover, I can't picture how something like that amounts to any sort of a "smear" against Jefferson.

I can't either, but it clearly functions as one for the hoaxers.

The only people in the picture deserving of "smearing" are a number of neo-antebellum southern "historians" who apparently are still in denial over it.

I don't know which historians you are referring to, or why you use scare-quotes, when it is the hoaxers who are pseudo-historians.

BTW, did you bother reading the article through?

[mrustow]

My impression is that he wasn't the most hands-on master (no pun intended!).

[breakem]

LOL! Well we know he wasn't at home a lot. Just thought the relatives might discuss this presumptous use of his property.

[mrustow]

I think there was an awful lot in those days, that was pointedly NOT discussed, among family members.

[mrustow]

Speaking of self-important, check out the link to "correspondence" in #159!

[breakem]

not so much as a "by your leave?" not very gentlemanly. LOL!

[mrustow]

I guess they can find some strained method to question the DNA evidence or come up with a very convoluted and tortured explanation for it. But is you put Occam's Razor to the question it isn't all that complex.

I don't see how Occam's Razor is going to help you to join the Hemings Party. The Hemings Party has adduced no evidence that Thomas was the father; hence, there is no reason to accept the radical, new theory that Thomas was the father. (And you can't call it an old theory, because Callender was merely a libelist.)

It would not destroy Jefferson's legacy, were it true, but the Hemings Party certainly does aim to "libel" Jefferson (legally, you can't libel a dead man). Why they think that would discredit him is a matter of their particular political psychopathology.

[CatoRenasci]

Nice summary.

And thanks for the other tip. LOL!

[tcuoohjohn]

The key to the issue is the preponderance of evidence standard. While it does not meet the " beyond a reasonable doubt" standard that isn't the historical standard used. Jefferson is not on trial ( though by the agonized writhings of the far right and far left on this issue you would swear that they have Jefferson in the dock.)

Given the historical record and contemporary DNA evidence one thing we know for absolute certainty. Someone in the Jefferson clan was the genetic contributor to one or more of Sally Hemmings children. Given that fact, you are faced with deciding who was the most likely to be that contributor. Given the frequency of access, the kinship relationship of Jefferson's widow to Sally Hemmings and comparing it to frequency of access of other possible candidates it is, on balance,most likely that Thomas Jefferson was that genetic contributor. This does not exclude other possibilites but is based on a "most likely standard". The distinction is the diffrence between words probability and possibility.

As an editorial comment I don't think Jefferson is any greater or lesser as a result of this probability. Those on the tub thumping left would have you believe that Jefferson was something lesser as result ( hypocrite, racist, rapist yadda..yadda.), while those on the sanctimous right are outraged at the suggestion that Jefferson probably fathered one or more of Hemming's children. ( He was a secular God who would never deign to stoop so low as to have sex with a mulatto women yadda yadda).

Jefferson was a man. He was a man of his time and operated under the social strictures and patterns of behavior of his time. He was a widower who owned a woman who was his dead wife's half sister.She gave birth to a son who ancestors bear the distinct genetic markers of the Jefferson family. Now given those facts who do you believe is the mostly likely genetic contributor?

If they stripped out the name Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings and its historical implications and substituted Josephus L Smith and Suzie Q. Brown the analysis of probablity becomes much more easy. It is less fraught with the biases and expectations of the observers.

[mrustow]

The key to the issue is the preponderance of evidence standard. While it does not meet the " beyond a reasonable doubt" standard that isn't the historical standard used. Jefferson is not on trial ( though by the agonized writhings of the far right and far left on this issue you would swear that they have Jefferson in the dock.)

Now, I don't have a dog in this hunt, as far as being a Jefferson-worshiper or hater, though I do tend to believe that (with rare exceptions) any one of the Founding Fathers had more character in his little finger, than all of his contemporary, pc detractors have in their entire bodies and souls. Then again, we're talking sex here.

You and I have some seriously incompatible standards, so we may have to simply agree to disagree. You speak of "probability" and of "the preponderance of evidence standard." Now, while I'm insufficiently corrupt to be an academic historian, I have conducted some historical research here and there (unsoiled by academic interference), and done some work on philosophy (of the social sciences, physical sciences, etc.), which I hope you won't hold against me.

History doesn't work based on probability or preponderance of evidence (civil court standard). It doesn't even work based on "beyond a reasonable doubt" (criminal court standard). You wouldn't happen to be a civil attorney, would you?

David Hume came up with a standard for the examination of claims of miracles, that I believe applies perfectly to radical, new social scientific and educational claims. I believe it works for all three so well, because the three types of claims have the same structure. In each case, someone makes an experiential claim that contradicts all commonly known experience based on the senses and scientific laws. The miracle claimiant would have us suspend all experience and scientific laws, and give him the benefit of the doubt. But as Hume argues, someone making miraculous claims must be held not to a lower standard of proof, but to a much higher one, if we are to trash all prior experience and science, on his behalf.

The Hemings Party demands that we throw overboard everything we know about Thomas Jefferson, and accept their miraculous claims. But those claims fall apart under scrutiny. Hence, we have no reason to accept them. And we certainly have no reason to accept the rules of inquiry the Hemings Party would foist upon us.

[tcuoohjohn]

No...I'm not a civil attorney but perhaps their influence has become apparent over the years. I am a forensic accountant and work with civil attorneys in the preparation of suits arising out of fraud and malfeasance. Perhaps they have stained my thinking through the years.

In this issue I strive to stick to the issue of probablities versus cultural assumptions arising out of myth, politics, race or hero worship. Jefferson is one of my heroes based upon his intellect, vision, and decency. If there was ever a man with an inherent concept of noblesse oblige it was Jefferson. It is imcumbent upon me to divorce myself form my admiration of Jefferson. But as you say, Jefferson was also a man and subject to the same passions and digressions from some idealized path as other men of great and lesser character.

I do object to the phrase " The Hemming's Party" which tends to clearly telegraph the position long before the analysis. A kind of verbal variant of the Texas Sharpshooter effect. Much like those who assert that Jefferson is absolutely and incontrovertibly the father of Hemming's child, those who absolutely deny the probability, (or in some case even the possibility) that Jefferson is the father of Hemming's child use much the same process. Each draws his target around the requisite number of bullets to score the appropriate and specious bulls eye.

I've a colleague who has coined what he humorously calls " The Man Fron Planet Borgon Approach" In any issue that is larded with vested interest or close held belief he suggests you hand it off to a notional " Man From Borgon". The man from Borgon has no experience with the culture, history or values of the question at hand. You hand him the data as it is and let him count and then give a summation of the probabilities. He isn't black, white, liberal or conservative, He's a Borgonian. In fact he hasn't clue what the hell the issue is about merely that he has been asked to decide. He most assuredly "has no dog in this hunt". The Man from Planet Borgon doesn't even know what a dog is.

Now...It is my opinion that The Man from Planet Borgon would come to the reasonable conclusion that on the totality of the evidence it is more likely than not that Jefferson was the father of one or more of Hemming's children. While it is difficult to put some numerical expression to that likelyhood I would put it at about 70% I do not exclude the possibility that some other Jefferson relative was the father. I put that possibility as significantly less at 30%.

While that may seem subjective it is, to some degree, based upon some familiarity with the data. It has to do with number of total access days of each of the possibles. While Randolph is often bruited as the " real father" and it is possible, his total number of access days in the requisite period are extremely limited.

There you have it..

Jefferson is still my hero and all's right in the cosmos.

[centurion316]

I know Lucian Truscott (the IV). Lucian Truscott is NO friend of mine. And you, sir, are no Lucian Truscott.

[centurion316]

The key to the issue is the preponderance of evidence standard.

The problem with your argument is that it is too reasonable to stand any chance in the present political climate. As Herbert Barger so naively discovered when asked to help find the genetic markers for this study - those interested in this subject are not involved in a search for the truth. They have an agenda. That agenda is only served by Thomas Jefferson being adjudged as the father of one or more of Sally Heming's children. They do not care that others might be culpable, and that any scientifically credible conclusion would point out all of the probabilities. No, they are only interested in jumping to the conclusion that suits their agenda.

I have no objection to the reasonable approach that you champion - your arguments are rational, are supported by the facts as we know them, and help shed light on this complex issue. But, your argument is of no interest to those who have advanced this debate. They will only accept one conclusion, facts, statistics, and truth be damned.