Slave quarters of Sally Hemings, the maid who gave birth to six of Thomas Jefferson’s children found

The Daily Mail ^ | 7/3/17 | CECILE BORKHATARIA

[Bodleian_Girl]

Archaeologists have discovered an area in Thomas Jefferson's plantation home that was once the living quarters of Sally Hemings - a slave with whom he is believed to have had six children. Her room, which was built in 1809 and was 14 feet, 8 inches wide and 13 feet long, was next to Thomas Jefferson's room. However, the bedroom went unnoticed for decades and the area was even made into a men's bathroom in 1941.

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[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Fake news. There is absolutely no proof, not even a suggestion of proof, that Hemings had 6 children by Thomas Jefferson.

Lies, and damn lies.

[petitfour]

Hemings did not have any children after that room was constructed.

[Bodleian_Girl]

One thing we have not considered on this thread is that perhaps Jefferson was seduced.

Perhaps she was his Delilah to his Samson.

Even David, a man after God’s own heart fell mightily in that area of life.

[Bodleian_Girl]

I think the prior theory was that she had a sort of loft area in his living quarters.

Perhaps the room was construct after the arrival of his daughter and her children so as to appease sensibilities.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Sorry, wrong name. His younger brother was RANDOLPH. He is mentioned in the TJ Foundation’s overview of the TJ-Hemings relationship debates at their official site (you can find it by Googling it, as well as Turner’s works and those of others.

I don’t remember what the 2009 Update of the Thomas Jefferson Society report added to their 2001 one.

[higgmeister]

Well, unlike so many here, I totally believe Sally Hemings had Thomas Jefferson's children. No other Jefferson male was present at the times of conception. When Sally Hemings arrived in Paris with Polly Jefferson she was 14 years old and was payed a wage for her work.

Sally Hemings was Jefferson's wife's sister and was said to look almost white. After his wife died, it isn't very hard to understand a relationship could be strengthened. Sally’s mother and grandmother were involved in similar relationships that produced children. Sally lived effectively free in France which probably contributed to an intimate relationship.

I also believe the same thing happened in my family lineage. There was a very prominent Black man a few decades ago that shared my not very common surname. I was shocked to see in photographs that he looked like my Dad's Black brother. So much so, I feel we had to share some DNA.

Furthermore, my Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother was a neighbor of Thomas Jefferson and was mentioned a few times in his journals. If the Jeffersons did it for at least three generations is it far-fetched that the Higgs next door did it too?

[petitfour]

Read Abigail Adams’ description of Sally Hemings upon her arrival in Europe with Mary Jefferson. I don’t think that child was seducing anybody. Maybe when she was five years older.

[Slyfox]

The historian Stephen Ambrose believed that it was Thomas Jefferson’s brother who had bedded Sally, not Thomas.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Just to “brag” about ancestors (on my wife/father’s side), they came from Charlemagne’s brother Pepin the Short (they have a French family crest/name, a family bible that starts in the 1620’s, a statute with 16 members of the Pennsylvania Regiment from Sykesville and DuBois (towns the family founded) at Gettysburg, and were related to Gov. Bliss of Pennsylvania.

My late father-in-law’s sister was a Mormon and a genealogist who traced the family tree on their side. My wife’s mother came from a Confederacy family in So. Carolina who might have been from German aristocracy, perhaps the Hapsburgs. We don’t know but it’s worth talking about at the dinner table, for about 5 seconds.

The husband of one of my sisters-in-law has a family record going back to two signers of the Declaration of Independence (one being Rodney Caesar or Caesar Rodney), they still own a town in Maine which their ancestors created, and have ancestral homes in France.

Just for giggles and grins, his father, a late Army General, was a US Army Military Governor in post-war Germany (OMGUS command).

More history. My late father-in-law made 4 amphibious assault landing in the Pacific ending up at Iwo Jima with the 75th (Army) JASCO, Joint Assault Signal Company, where he got his third Purple Heart.

The rest of his military career is still classified TOP SECRET or ABOVE.

I go back to Moses and my son is named Joshua. My father’s name in Hebrew was Moses and my grandfather was “Samuel”. We just don’t get much more biblical than that.

Oh, and some distant relative in Baltimore was involved with helping the Exodus get to Israel.

I went to Hebrew School with film director Barry Levinson. That won’t get me a stale bagel or a day-old Knishe, but I like to tell it anyway.

I do have “Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon” to his film “Diner”, but that’s for another day.

[Bodleian_Girl]

Agree.

[Bodleian_Girl]

Martin Van Buren had two black daughters.

Self-correction. It was his Vice President, Johnson.

[Bodleian_Girl]

My favorite film of all time, ok, maybe second favorite, is “Baltimore.”

When my sister and I saw it, we couldn’t believe the turkey scene. We had one almost identical in our own family or origin.

I hope ai didn’t sound braggish on my family history, just wanted to let the person I was talking to know that I knew a little something about of which I spoke.

Your history is very interesting!

[GJones2]

> One thing we have not considered on this thread is that perhaps Jefferson was seduced...Even David, a man after God’s own heart fell mightily in that area of life.

They say that a cynic is an idealist with experience. :-) That applies to me in many respects. I don’t expect my heroes to be perfect (actually I don’t have heroes, just persons I respect for particular achievements or characteristics).

I’d respect Jefferson for his contributions to this country and to the cause of freedom even if I were convinced he fathered the Hemings children (though chaste in action, I’m not very chaste in thought). I believe all idols have feet of clay.

I’m just not convinced — beyond a reasonable doubt — that Jefferson was responsible. I think an accusation against him deserves at least as high a standard of proof of guilt as is granted to accused criminals. He may have been the father, yes; a considerable amount of evidence indicates that he was, yes; but I don’t think it amounts to proof.

[GJones2]

Also the commonly used expression “most historians conclude” doesn’t carry much weight with me, not in the current political climate (not about questions that have political implications). Joseph Ellis, chosen to write the piece in Nature, was one of the most respected historians in the field. Yet later he was found to have lied to his classes, day in and day out, about his alleged military experiences in Vietnam — when he’d never even been there!

“He [Ellis] claimed to have been a combat platoon leader in Vietnam, to have been active in civil rights campaigns in the south, and to have been an anti-war leader at Yale.[12] His actual military record consisted of obtaining a graduate student deferral of service until 1969 and then teaching history at West Point until 1972.” [Wikipedia]

I don’t trust him. I don’t trust any of them. I won’t believe this stuff until I see the proof with my own eyes.

[Bodleian_Girl]

I don’t see that we have to apply guilt or innocence in this situation. It seems more like a somewhat common behavior for the time.

Jefferson’s genetic traits were so strong however, and his concubine was so white, that it seems, even to his own grandchildren, that Sally’s children were his.

It’s worth noting that they all seemed to be very accomplished and successful folks, within that 2nd and 3rd generation.

[Bodleian_Girl]

I had to read that about three times to get it.

I was thinking, “does he look like his black uncle, or does he look enough like his dad that he could be his black uncle?”

Enjoyed your post!

[RegulatorCountry]

Certain men have very strong genetic traits that persevere for centuries. While I have no idea what Robert “King” Carter or his second wife Elizabeth Landon looked like going on 400 years ago, I do know that my late grandmother’s attorney was a dead ringer for Jimmy Carter, but with red hair. He was her 2nd cousin, and mine twice removed. So resemblance among male descendants of an old and prominent family does not necessarily mean that any of them share immediate paternity. It could go back quite a ways.

[Bodleian_Girl]

Did you see the pic on this thread of the femal Jefferson descendent?

[nathanbedford]

In my view Bodleian_Girl has presented compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemmings children. More, she has presented compelling evidence in an estimable fashion refraining from personal invective or responding to personal invective but rather making resort to the factual records and providing citations for every fact adduced.

The DNA is irrefutable and demonstrates that the children of Sally Hemmings (or at least one or two children) are descended from Thomas Jefferson or, conceivably, his brother Randolph.

It is absurd to believe that the DNA was generated fraudulently to confirm a false narrative. It is important to note that the narrative was created long before the DNA report. Indeed, the narrative was widely published as early as at the turn of the 19th century. It is therefore not possible to argue that the narrative was created to exploit an ambiguity in the DNA.

The DNA fails to contradict the narrative in any respect and in fact confirms the narrative that Thomas Jefferson was the father Sally Hemmings' children.

The historical record, that is contemporary accounts some of them in Thomas Jefferson's own hand, confirm that only Thomas Jefferson could have been the father because he and he alone was in proximity to Sally Hemmings at the times of her conception.

The contemporary records rule out Thomas Jefferson's brother because he was not in proximity to Sally at the times of conception. The DNA rules out the Carr nephews. By the process of elimination, Thomas Jefferson is almost certainly the father in question.

In addition to the narrative, in addition to the DNA, in addition to the contemporary accounts which rule out competing male donors, there are numerous contemporary accounts attesting to physical resemblance of the children to Thomas Jefferson and a general belief by those who are in a position to know that these children of Sally Hemmings were in fact fathered by Thomas Jefferson.

We have the actions of Thomas Jefferson in manumitting two of these children, when he maintained Sally adjacent to his boudoir, when he permitted other of her children simply to walk away from slavery when he failed to free any other slave not related to Sally Hemmings. We have the widespread custom of plantation owners to lie with their female slaves. We have the fact that Sally Hemmings was the half sister of Jefferson's beloved wife. We have many testimonies of the physical beauty of Sally Hemmings. We have her by some accounts acting as the mistress of Monticello in many respects.

Against all of this we have the bland and ridiculous assertions of many on this thread that all of this evidence "would not stand up in any court." Of course most of this evidence would be admissible and it would be persuasive. Against this accumulation of very persuasive evidence there is virtually nothing to the contrary. One can conclude from what we know that the evidence shows by more than a preponderance but indeed by a clear and convincing degree that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemmings' children.

[PIF]

One of the salient points about Rumford’s design is that most of the heat is reflected back into the room, rather than sent up the chimney as do ‘conventional’ fireplaces.