Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings- The American Scandal
Thomas Jefferson is viewed as one of the greatest Founding
Fathers for the United States. However, he also has a very scandalous secret that
was kept from the public until September of 1802, when political journalist, James
T. Callender, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson had for many years
"kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves." "Her name is
Sally," Callender continued, adding that Jefferson had "several
children" by her. Although there had been rumors of a sexual relationship
between Jefferson and an enslaved woman before 1802, Callender's article spread
the story widely. It was taken up by Jefferson's Federalist opponents and was
published in many newspapers during the remainder of Jefferson's presidency.
The Jefferson-Hemings story was persistent through the 19th
century, however, was only discussed in private. Two of her children, Madison
and Eston, stated that Jefferson was their father, spreading the accusation orally
through generations of their descendants as an important family truth. Through
the 20th century, some historians accepted the possibility of a
Jefferson-Hemings connection and a few gave it credence, but most Jefferson
scholars found the case for such a relationship unpersuasive.
In 1998, Dr. Eugene Foster and a team of geneticists challenged the
view that the Jefferson-Hemings relationship could be neither refuted nor
substantiated. The results of the DNA test, which tested Y-chromosomal DNA
samples from male-line descendants of Field Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson's
uncle), John Carr (grandfather of Jefferson's Carr nephews), Eston Hemings, and
Thomas Woodson--indicated a genetic link between the Jefferson and Hemings
descendants. The results of the study showed that an individual carrying the male
Jefferson Y chromosome fathered Eston Hemings. The study authors stated “the
simplest and most probable" conclusion was that Thomas Jefferson had
fathered Eston Hemings.
In January 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation research
committee reported that all known evidence (DNA tests, original documents, written
and oral data, and statistical data) indicated a high probability that Thomas
Jefferson was not only the father of Eston Hemings, but also Harriet, Beverly, an
unnamed daughter who died in infancy, Harriet, and Madison. All six of Sally Heming’s
children.
Sally Hemings Portrait |
Link to Installment #1- http://www.cophilosophy.blogspot.com/2015/11/thomas-jefferson-8.html
Sources- https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-brief-account
I'm reading Jon Meacham's book on TJ now. He's a fascinating, paradoxical figure who had to have felt the hypocrisy of his public position.
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