Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy

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Summary: Did we really need DNA evidence?
Review: Afro American history in Virginia is my hobby. I've read just about every Sally Hemmings book published. Annette Gordon-Reed's book is superb. She's a lawyer and the book is as calm and controlled as a legal brief. There's no hysteria, no wild claims; she just looks at the facts and draws some perfectly logical conclusions.

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Summary: Did we really need DNA evidence?
Review: Annette Gordon-Reed's book should be required reading in graduate history programs across the country. Not because of its topic, but because it is one of the finest, most careful and critical reading of documentary evidence I've ever encountered. By providing an outstanding example of how professional historians should operate, it also exposes one of the tragic weaknesses of the discipline of History--it has for too long been among the least intellectually rigorous of all the disciplines. The recent publication by the "scholar's commission," sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society is a classic example of the problem. In finding Jefferson "innocent" of the charges, the commission ignores the most powerful arguments put forward in Gordon-Reed's book, and builds its authority mainly on the commission member's own pedigree (mostly aging white scholars from prestigious institutions). While the commission points out the real limitations of the DNA evidence, by ignoring Gordon-Reed's work, it fails to understand what an intelligent, open-minded reader of Gordon-Reed's work will quickly grasp: credible evidence pointing to Thomas Jefferson as the likely father of Sally Heming's children has been around for more than a century, but was until recently blithely dismissed by generations of historians who were prisoners of their own racist, and guild-protecting assumptions. Gordon-Reed raises the bar for serious historical inquiry in this book, and I beleive its importance will outlast the controversy it explores.

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Summary: Good, But Not Quite There
Review: Annette Gordon-Reed's offering on the two hundred year old controversy linking Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings did manage to keep my attention. I thought the book to be well written and persuasive in many regards. I believe that Ms. Gordon-Reed was faithful to her point of view during the entirety of the book. The author brought to light some new concepts, and ideas that should be part of any intelligent discussion of this topic.

However, as a student of Thomas Jefferson, I was disappointed by Ms. Gordon-Reed on two important points. The DNA results of Eston Hemings' descendant indicated that Eston was tied genetically to the Jefferson family line, but not specifically to Thomas Jefferson. My first area of disappointment was with the fact that the author did not bring to light the fact that Jefferson's brother Randolph could have in fact been the father. Randolph, who lived only twenty miles from Monticello, would have been close enough for frequent visits, especially when Jefferson returned from an extended absence. It is a fairly well known fact that Randolph Jefferson spent time among the Monticello slave population. It appears that he enjoyed playing his fiddle while in their company. That could explain why several of the Hemings children were musically inclined.

My second area of disappointment resided in the fact that the author noted on numerous occasions that Jefferson was present at Monticello during the times when Sally Hemings conceived. My question is, was Sally Hemings at Monticello each time she conceived? It was not uncommon in those times for plantation workers to be loaned to other plantation owners. This possiblity
was not discussed at all.

Randolph Jefferson may not have been the father of Eston Hemings. Sally Hemings may in fact have been at Monticello for each conception. However, by not addressing either of these issues the book falls somewhat short of a full investigation of the facts. I would very much like to see in any future editions of this book an addressing of these issues.

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Summary: Historical prospective, not detective work!
Review: From the preface on, Annette Gordon Reed assures her readers that her intent is not to prove that Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings' four children. Instead, her thesis is to expose the racism that has clouded the argument for over 200 years; at that, she succeeds.

Malone, Dumas, Wills, Adair - all have tried to paint "Dusky Sally" as a prostitute, and Jefferson as something akin to a saint. Using letters and their "intellectual imaginations" they surmise that someone as morally impeccable as Jefferson could not have been involved with a slave, although he evidently wasn't morally impeccable enough not to sell many of them on the auction block upon his death.

I've always admired Jefferson for his contributions to American governance and culture - that he might have fathered children by Sally Hemings in a 38 year long affair only enhances his distinction for me. He was a man with needs - ok, a genius, but a man all the same. He promised his wife that he wouldn't remarry. And Sally, being the half sister of his wife, Martha, could have been the kind of arms he sought refuge in.

Becoming lovers with a slave was not uncommon. Although it was rarely discussed in polite circles, "masters" often found that taking slaves as concubines limited their responsiblities, while at the same time helped fulfill their needs. One has to remember that many slaves looked very similar to their white "masters." Sally Hemings, for example, was 3/4 white, "with long, straight hair down her back." This doesn't negate her slave status, or make her more "acceptable"; rather, pointing out the "whiteness" of these slaves shows just how incredibly foreign the idea of slavery is to the natural state.

Gordon Reed makes an excellent case in her book. She criticizes conventional (white, male) historians' views in that they did not look at all the evidence - like Madison Hemings' (Sally's youngest son) oral history - or found ways to dispute claims made by first-had accounts. For example, historians claim that Madison (by then living as a free man) supposedly pretends to be Jefferson's son to increase his social standing. Pray tell, just how could that be? He was still a black man, an old man, and had already the respect of the African American freedman community. I guess gaining respect of the white community just means so much more?!

Read this book if you like a thorough discussion on historiography. Of course, bear in mind that Gordon Reed may have her own agenda (for one, she doesn't mention the Jefferson relatives living in the vicinity that might have been Hemings' lover). As usual, read evert book with a grain of salt, but read this book nonetheless - it'll open your eyes to the racism present in current historical discourse.

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Summary: The only unbiased work I've found on this subject...
Review: Gordon-Reed shows how many prominent historians have discounted evidence of a TJ-Sally liaison simply because it comes from, or is attributed to, African-American sources, while they eagerly rely on equally slim, or even slimmer, evidence from Euro-American sources. She also highlights the expressed reluctance of some "brand-name" Jefferson scholars to ascribe reprehensible conduct to Mr. Jefferson, regardless of evidence that it may have occurred. I read the first (1997) edition of this book, which appeared before the DNA study was released. The new information from the DNA results supports Ms. Gordon-Reed's cautionary proposition that we should not ignore or discard any evidence simply because of its source. I was glad to hear that the DNA results confirmed the long-standing oral tradition that Eston Hemings and his descendants are related to Thomas Jefferson. This new century needs people possessed of the Hemings' steadfast truthfulness.

Rating:
Summary: Well Written but irrelevant
Review: Gordon-Reed's work, while impressive from a research perspective, point sout the basic flaw undergirding most of this politically correct fable about the paterninty of the Hemmings's descendents: no evidence EXISTS to prove that they were Jefferson's. Writing about the controversy between pro- and anti-Jefferson positions -- without acknowledging that one side can not prove its case, while the other is forced into the tortured pose of having to prove a negative, is to miss the crux of the entire debate.

Two hundred years after the story first gained circulation, the DNA evidence demonstrated nothing more than had ALWAYS been asserted -- that the Hemmings's children were fathered SOME DESCENDENT in the Jefferson line.

Books like Gordon-Reed's only highlight the affliction currently paralyzing much of the historical community: the willingness to ignore facts in favor of a narrative of the way in which we WISHED events had happened.

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Summary: My review!
Review: I just think this whole situation is so sad. I have definite feelings on the Jefferson-Hemings controversy ever since it was hinted at in a history book I had read on the President's homes. If Jefferson had children with Sally Hemings, what's the big deal? Then you have the whole argument about "liberal" bias in the media. The movie on CBS may have not had the truth, but it brough up important facts about slavery in Jefferson's time, which should not be ignored. One of the members of the organization defending Jefferson called the movie "sad." Yes, it is really sad when we ignore black history in favor of our white history. I'm glad Ms. Reed published this book, it allows us to see a different side of the story. And although we may never know the real truth, I think it's important to remember that we once had a society build on slave labor, where human beings were abused and mistreated. I also believe people need to become more open-minded on situations like this. Thomas Jefferson is no doubt one of the most important figures in our American history. If he did father children with a slave, it shouldn't make us look down upon him. He'll always remain great, but will still have his character flaws, like any other human being.

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Summary: Excellent analysis of the facts
Review: I think the book is an excellent analysis of the relevant facts. Not only is it without the biases that Jefferson's biographers have often brought to the issue, but it highlights those biases, so readers can evaluate the facts for themselves, and make their own decision. The book is repetitive, longer than it needed to be, and the continuous questions (not unexpected from a legal academic) require the reader to think and reach his or her own conclusions, not just absorb the author's opinions, but that's the purpose. The author does not tell you what she thinks, or what you should think. Rather she tells you what the evidence is, what reasons the evidence might or might not be trustworthy (both ways), and how Jefferson's biographers have in many ways treated the evidence inconsistently in order to get the result they desired. All in all, an outstanding treatise on the subject, and as far as I can tell, remarkably balanced.

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Summary: Has Jefferson relatives reeling!
Review: The Jeffersons'/Randolphs'/Coolidges' response to stories about their patriarch's relationship with Miss Hemings long had been to say that the Carr brothers actually had fathered the Hemings children. Sally Hemings, the typical account said, had (to borrow an image Gordon-Reed shows a famous historian using) lied about her children's parentage in much the manner that a nag's owner might lie about its being the offspring of a famous thoroughbred. Comes now the DNA evidence to back Gordon-Reed's strong proof that the Carrs were innocent of any such adultery, and the Jefferson family seems to want to blame yet another of its male forebears, Thomas Jefferson's brother. Why do they have such an emotional investment in Thomas's not having had black children? This is one of many interesting questions Gordon-Reed's book prompts one to consider. (For the history of historians' defense of Jefferson against this charge, see the essay by Ayers and French in _Jeffersonian Legacies_, edited by Peter S. Onuf.) Virginius Dabney, who was related to Jefferson on both sides of his family, is the outstanding example of a Jefferson flack in this regard, but there have been others. Kudos to Gordon-Reed for not losing her cool in wading through the insulting, demeaning, degrading things that historians have said about Sally Hemings -- whose personality remains obscure. Even those who detest Gordon-Reed must admit that the appendices to this book, which present the main primary sources regarding this question, are worth the book's price. If you care about Jefferson, race, public "education"/propaganda, or America, buy this book.