The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Celebrities jefferson and hemings Select a topic - - - - - - - - Home Searches AFU FAQ - - - - - - - - AFU Animals Books Celebrities Classic Collegiate Death Disney Drugs Food GIF Language Legal Medical Misc Movies Politics Products Religion Science Sex Songs TV - - - - - - - - Other sites

From: warinner@xnet.com (Robert Warinner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: The Pursuit of Happiness
Date: 10 Mar 1999

There I was, fantasizing about Monica Lewinsky, when I noticed this article at TAFKAC:

http://tafkac.org/celebrities/hemmings.html

The article attempts to debunk the myth that

"Thomas Jefferson had an affair with a slave girl named Sally Hemmings, siring several children. Visitors to Monticello were stunned at the sight of slaves that were the spittin' image of ol' Tom himself!"

The article cites the history "Thomas Jefferson" by Willard Sterne Randall for its debunking. Randall makes so many serious errors that the only possible conclusion is that he is unaware of the some of the most pertinent evidence of a possible Jefferson-Hemings relationship.

Here is Randall's attempted debunking:

Historians dismissed the Callender charges until Fawn Brodie dusted off a highly inaccurate and uncorroborated memoir by a man who described himself as Madison Jefferson, son of Jefferson and Sally Hemings. The account, published by an abolitionist journalist only in the _Pike County (Ohio) Republican_ in 1873, where the aged former slave was homesteading, resembles many uncorroborated slave narratives and cannot be credited. It is full of hearsay about events that the would-be former house slave could not have seen or known first-hand, if only because of his age, and must be put down as mere gossip about a great man published in the absence of journalistic standards, much less historical ones. Also offered as evidence by Brodie and other writers since her book was published are descriptions of a host of mulattoes at Monticello who resembled Jefferson, and a declaration that one even played the fiddle!

President Jefferson refused to dignify Callender's charges publicly, but privately he wrote to subordinates to confront the charges in general, admitting he had once made a fumbling pass at Mrs. Walker when he was very young but saying this was the only incident they should credit in the slightest. Thus he denied the charges of having a slave family with Sally Hemings. And when Henry Randall journeyed to Monticello half a century later to interview Jefferson's family, Jefferson's granddaughter, Ellen Randolph, suggested that the father of Sally Hemings's children who so resembled Jefferson was Jefferson's nephew, Samuel [Carr], "the most good-natured Turk that ever was master of a black seraglio kept at other men's expense."

"Madison Jefferson" - There is no person called "Madison Jefferson." S.F. Wetmore published accounts in the _Pike County Republican_ from two former slaves of Jefferson, James Madison Hemings (one of the three sons of Sally Hemings) and Israel Jefferson.

"the Callender charges" - There is no reason to conflate James Callender and Madison Hemings. There is no evidence that Hemings based his statements on Callender's allegations. There are several important differences between Hemings's statements and Callender's charges.

"highly inaccurate and uncorroborated memoir" - Hemings account was not uncorroborated, it was corroborated by Israel Jefferson's account. One may have doubts about the veracity of the statements but to call them uncorroborated is disingenuous on the part of Randall.

"published by an abolitionist journalist" - Madison Hemings publicly claimed to be the son of Thomas Jefferson for years before S.F. Wetmore published his account in 1873. There is no evidence that Wetmore fabricated Hemings's claims in a effort to score political points. Is "abolitionist" a meaningful political label in 1873?

"would-be former house slave" - Hemings was not a house slave but a trained carpenter. Israel Jefferson was a house slave. "Would-be" is puzzling, is Randall implying Israel Jefferson or Madison Hemings were not slaves owned by Jefferson? If so, he is the only historian to do so.

"a host of mulattoes at Monticello who resembled Jefferson" - Fawn Brodie claimed only that the children of Sally Hemings resembled Jefferson, not a "host." This statement is at odds with Randall's cite of Ellen Randolph who admits that Hemings's children did resemble Jefferson.

"one even played the fiddle" - All the Hemings sons played the fiddle. According to Isaac Jefferson, another former Jefferson slave, Madison Hemings was a "fine fiddle player." Isaac Jefferson made his memoirs in 1842 and Randall cites portions of it elsewhere in his biography, including Isaac Jefferson's description of Sally Hemings. All the Hemings sons were violin players. Eston Hemings became a professional violin player.

"he denied the charges of having a slave family with Sally Hemings" - This is a dubious interpretation of the available historical record. In 1805 Jefferson wrote a letter discussing the various Federalist attacks upon his character to Levi Lincoln, his attorney general, and sent a copy to his secretary of the navy, Robert Smith, with a cover letter. The cover letter survived, the original letter did not. It is not known if Jefferson discussed the Hemings allegations in the original letter. It is a leap of logic to assume that Jefferson's denial in the surviving cover letter also applied to the Hemings allegations without knowing the contents of the original letter.

In other passages Randall misstates Hemings's age, making her two years younger than she actually was.

Let's lay out the facts AFU style:

Tb. Elizabeth Hemings, Sally's mother, was the daughter of an African slave and an English sea captain John Hemings.

Tb. Sally Hemings was daughter of John Wayles, Jefferson's father-in-law, and Elizabeth Hemings.

T. Sally Hemings bore three daughters and three sons, two daughters died in childhood.

T. Sally Hemings children were fathered by a white man.

T. Sally Heming's children closely resembled Thomas Jefferson.

T. All the Hemings children choose to live as white and married into white families.

T. Sally Hemings's children were considered white under contemporary Virginia law.

T. Sally Hemings's children were treated preferentially.

T. All of Sally Hemings's children were freed on or about their 21st birthdays.

T. Sally Hemings and her family were the only family freed by Thomas Jefferson.

T. Harriet Hemings was the only female slave freed by Thomas Jefferson.

T. Thomas Jefferson could have fathered all of Sally Hemings's children.

Fb. Samuel Carr was the father Sally Heming's children.

F. Peter Carr was the father of Sally Heming's children.

Tb. Thomas Jefferson as the father of Sally Heming's children.

The most substantive proof that Thomas Jefferson, not Samuel Carr, was the father of Sally Hemings's children that Fawn Brodie presented is the observation that over a thirteen years Sally Hemings conceived six children when Jefferson resided at Monticello and did not conceive when he was absent:

  Children                      Jefferson at Monticello
  --------                      ----------------------------------

  Harriet Hemings               January 1794 - February 1797
  born October 5, 1795

  (died 1797)

  Beverley Hemings              July 11, 1797 - December 4, 1797
  born April 1, 1798

  Unnamed daughter              March 8, 1799 - December 21, 1799
  born December 1799 

  (died 1800)

  Harriet Hemings               May 1800 - November 24, 1800
  born May 1801

  Madison Hemings               April 4 - 17, 1804
  born January 19, 1805

  Eston Hemings                 August 1807 - October 3, 1807
  born May 21, 1808

No historian, including Randall, has sought to explain why Samuel Carr only fathered children while Thomas Jefferson was in residence at Monticello. The partisans of the Samuel Carr theory of paternity have ignored this interesting pattern of coincidence.

There is much to criticize in Fawn Brodie's _Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History_. She often seizes on dubious evidence and makes many errors of fact. A much more able investigation of the issue is Annette Gordon-Reed's _Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy_ (ISBN0-8139-1698-4). Gordon-Reed examines both the evidence of a Jefferson-Hemings relationship and its handling of by historians. Here is an excerpt from of a review by Sean Wilentz of _Thomas Jefferson And Sally Hemings_ in the 3/30/97 issue of the _New Republic_:

Gordon-Reed is a scrupulous investigator who refuses to commit herself either way. It is her view that, given the surviving evidence, and short of performing some sort of DNA testing using Jefferson's remains (which may not be practical), certainty is impossible. Still, her detailed review of the writings be Jefferson's supposed defenders - chiefly Malone, Virginius Dabney, John C. Miller and Douglass Adair - exposes recurring patterns of special pleading, faulty logic and misreporting of evidence. Gordon-Reed allows that Fawn Brodie also made her share of blunders, including a clumsy use of gimmicky pyschohistory. After Gordon-Reed finishes with the others' accounts, however, Brodie doesn't look so bad. And after finishing Gordon-Reed's book, it is difficult to avoid thinking in terms of the probability, and not merely the possibility, of a Jefferson-Hemings liaison.

Andrew "doomed to repetition" Warinner