Giving Thomas Jefferson the Business: The Jefferson-Hemings Hoax

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

[mrustow]

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

[Servant of the 9]

Does it really matter?
I don't see this as particularly slanderous, nor did the acusations seem to have hurt him during his lifetime.
I don't think the revelations that were acknowledged true today about Strom Thurmans 'love child' are going to damage his reputation.
Whether we are speaking of Thurman or Jefferson, it is a non-issue.

Thomas Jefferson was a radical in every sense of the word.
It was not until the 20th Century that norms had changed enough that even the Democrat Party wanted to claim him as one of their own.

No one is gonna prove any of this either way.

[cyborg]

The basic retelling is manipulated by a lot of people. Sally Hemmings was half white, the half sister of his wife. She probably looked A LOT like his dead wife. Why do people have such a problem with this? Thomas Jefferson was a human being not a god.

[Puppage]

The DNA testing that was performed proved that "A" Jefferson was the father.Not necessarily Thomas Jefferson. That confirmation is lost to history.

[Verginius Rufus]

Madison Hemings seems to have claimed that his mother told him that Jefferson was his father. At any rate on the 1870 census the census taker wrote next to Madison Hemings' name that "this man is the son of Thomas Jefferson"--which can only mean that Madison told him that. Whether he was telling the truth about what his mother had told him, or whether Sally was telling the truth if she did say that, are other questions. Fawn Brodie turned up an 1873 newspaper article which reported Madison Hemings' claims (but he admitted that Jefferson never treated him as if he considered him his son).

I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but I could understand Madison Hemings preferring to tell people "I am the son of Thomas Jefferson" instead of "I am the son of Thomas Jefferson's brother."

[AmishDude]

It's sloppy research, for one thing. Dishonest, for another. Historical revisionism is never valuable.

[cyborg]

So we will never conclusively know. Both sides have an agenda in saying he IS or ISN'T the father. The black people want Sally Hemmings to be this caricature of Oprah from Color Purple when she was in fact a very educated, mulatto nanny. The other side wants to Thomas Jefferson to be elevated to sainthood. I tend to believe he did father children for Sally from what I have read in the past.

[dion]

I agree with you. I don't know why anyone thinks that this story, true or not, in any way discredits the legacy of Thomas Jefferson. Personally, I think he was the most important founding father and find many of his quotes to be very prophetic about a lot of the problems we have today. How him possibly sleeping with Sally Hemmings in any way voids his contributions to this country is beyond me. (Ironically these same people would argue that the Monica Lewinsky scandal didn't matter because it was only about sex.) :)

[Flux Capacitor]

Ah yes, Annette Gordon-Reed....

Remember C-SPAN's excellent AMERICAN PRESIDENTS series? They did right by most of the Founding Fathers, going into fascinating detail about their lives and presidencies.... but when it came time to do the show on Jefferson, they brought in Annette Gordon-Reed and spent THE ENTIRE TWO HOURS debating whether the 3rd President had a kid with one of his slaves. A tragic waste of a show.

-Dan

[AdamSelene235]

TJ originally hired Callender to print lies about Adams but since TJ was a chronic debtor he was unable to pay Callender for his "services". TJ also lied to his old friend Adams about his sponsorship of the slanders Callender wrote. When Jefferson refused to pay Callender, he retaliated by printing the TJ/slave story. DNA testing indicates a Jefferson male did in fact boink his slaves but it does not narrow it down to TJ himself. Given TJ's duplicitious deceptive nature, I wouldn't put it past him.

Jefferson brought this on himself.

[cyborg]

I agree that historical revisionism is never valuable. However, how would Thomas Jefferson fathering children change what he did? At least he didn't do it while he was married. Oh well.

[cyborg]

Didn't Benjamin Franklin have a child in illegitimacy too?

[AmishDude]

I won't concede the revisionists their premise. It only justifies what they have done.

[CatoRenasci]

I've always been a Jefferson fan (although sometimes a critical one). Years before any of this was popular, I read Dumas Malone's massive six volume Thomas Jefferson, which dealt with the Hemmings matter rather straighforwardly in an appendix, and concluded that some Jefferson male, probably Randolph, had fathered the Hemmings children. Either Randolph or a nephew (also a possibility) was a nortorious rake-hell and generally rumored to cut a wide swath among the slave women.

The further interesting fact, and a possible reason why Jefferson freed Hemmings and her progeny in his will, is that she may well have been an illegitimate daughter of Jefferson's wife, Martha's father (making her a half-sister to Martha).

Then came the report in 1997 -- knowing the story well, I wondered why the authors discounted the possibility of Randolph being the culprit, as the DNA did not in any way point directly to Jefferson, just to a Jefferson familiy male. The DNA would have been complicated, also, if it is true that Hemmings and Jefferson's wife Martha shared the same father.

So, I was much relieved to read the 2000 blue ribbon scholars report, which I commend to anyone intrested. I remain convinced Thomas Jefferson was not responsible for Sally Hemmings children.

[cyborg]

Yes I see your point. I heard Rush talking about Jesse Jackson today. Jesse is apparently making comparisions to Jefferson and Thurmond. Big difference. There's paternity and apparently most of Thurmond's family is acknowledging the lady's existence and being part of the family.

I wouldn't want to give an edge to the revisionists either.

[elephantlips]

In most respects you are right, it doesn't matter in this day of unmorality. However, at the time this scandel was "reborn" for the umpteenth time, the amoral Bill Clinton and his band of defenders were trying to show that "all presidents" were philanderers and he was just another one of them. "So what's the big deal," was their approach.

[elbucko]

...liberal historians Joseph Ellis and Eric Lander, sought to exploit the hoax, to rescue the authors’ sexually compromised hero, Bill Clinton.

IMO, the motive for the entire expose` was to lower Jefferson down to Bill Clinton's level in an attempt to protect Clinton. Considering Clinton and the group he rode in on, it's to be expected of them. As for Jefferson, I don't care if he fathered no slaves or twenty, it neither robs me of my respect for him, or breaks my faith in Jefferson's character.

[VRWCmember]

I tend to believe he did father children for Sally from what I have read in the past.

And how much of what you "have read in the past" is based on either sloppy transcription or outright academic fraud like the information described in the article?

I think there is a third side: one that neither seeks to elevate TJ to sainthood, nor to morph Hemmings into the image of some fictional character, but rather hopes to have the historical record left intact without politically correct revisionism.

[cyborg]

I agree. BTW, why is my posting comment opening up in a new window?

[Puppage]

from what I have read in the past

Yeah, I tend to agree with you.