Thanks mairdie.
Posted on 01/10/2018 6:26:48 PM PST by mairdie
Your statement is the extent of the known facts.
Thank you.
Very interesting. Thanks.
“Read up on the recent research into the Hemings-Jefferson children. Jefferson kept good records of his travels and of the children of his slaves.”
I have. Multiple books.
He didn’t. Reading biographies, one finds statements like, ‘Jefferson left X NLT this date, and we know he was at Monticello on this date. Based on travel time, he likely arrived around this time.’ Even Thomas Jefferson can’t be tracked on a daily basis.
There are daughters whose months-long visits elsewhere are only known from a sentence in a letter.
And DNA has proven the the main charge against Jefferson, one many believed for 200 years, the one his opponents circulated during his life, was false. The boy was not Jefferson’s.
> Very interesting. Thanks.
Your welcome. In case you missed it, here is the beginning of the myth (from the link above):
Evolution of the Myth
Throughout American history, the Jefferson-Hemings paternity allegation has been used for partisan purposes. That certainly was the case of the allegation’s early history, during Jefferson’s own lifetime. It originated in an 1802 Richmond, Virginia newspaper story by the hatchet journalist James Thomson Callender, a disappointed job-seeker who felt he had been betrayed by the new President and whose bitterness toward Jefferson was quite evident throughout the piece. The allegation was nothing more than unsubstantiated rumor, for there is no evidence that Callender had any first-hand knowledge of Monticello. The allegation then was spread by Jefferson’s political enemies in the bitterly partisan Federalist press, particularly in the fall of 1802.
...
Callender, a ‘journalist’, was used by the Jefferson faction against John Adams in the late 1790’s. Once, Adams was elected and was able to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts, he fined Callender and put him in jail for Sedition.
Of the journalists who were fined and jailed, Callender spent the most time in jail, only released on the last day of Adams presidency - mainly because Adams knew Jefferson would release all journalists who were jailed as a result of the Act. Jefferson pardoned Callender the next day.
However, Callender, who thought Jefferson “owed” him, threatened Jefferson if he didn’t give him a job as postmaster general of Richmond, Virginia. Jefferson refused as he had already promised the job to someone else and this is when Callender ‘hatched’ the Hemings story.
Although not entirely correct, Wikipedia gives the basic story here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Callender
especially, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Callender#Attacks_on_Thomas_Jefferson
What are you talking about? DNA testing shows that Sally Hemming's children are descended from the male Jefferson line.
“What are you talking about?”
Well...”In fact, the original Nature article had reported that Thomas Woodson–the child that oral traditions claim was born of Sally when she was fifteen or so–the child born shortly after her return from France–was not sired by Jefferson. This finding was significant, for it repudiated the strongest of the oral traditions against Jefferson that many long had accepted as fact. A few–but only a very few–even bothered to report this non-paternity aspect of the DNA findings.”
Shortly after the DNA test results were released in November 1998, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation formed a research committee consisting of nine members of the foundation staff, including four with Ph.D.s. In January 2000, the committee reported that the weight of all known evidence--from the DNA study, original documents, written and oral historical accounts, and statistical data--indicated a high probability that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings, and that he was likely the father of all six of Sally Hemings's children listed in Monticello records--Harriet (born 1795; died in infancy); Beverly (born 1798); an unnamed daughter (born 1799; died in infancy); Harriet (born 1801); Madison (born 1805); and Eston (born 1808).
Since then, a committee commissioned by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, after reviewing essentially the same material, reached different conclusions, namely that Sally Hemings was only a minor figure in Thomas Jefferson's life and that it is very unlikely he fathered any of her children. This committee also suggested in its report, issued in April 2001 and revised in 2011, that Jefferson's younger brother Randolph (1755-1815) was more likely the father of at least some of Sally Hemings's children.
“The question of whether Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by his slave Sally Hemings is an issue about which honorable people can and do disagree. After a careful review of all of the evidence, the commission agrees unanimously that the allegation is by no means proven; and we find it regrettable that public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people. With the exception of one member, whose views are set forth both below and in his more detailed appended dissent, our individual conclusions range from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly false.” - The Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission
It is correct that the DNA testing shows that the Woodsons are not descended from Jefferson. That is a far cry from your assertion that “DNA has proven the main charge against Jefferson, one many believed for 200 years, the one his opponents circulated during his life, was false.” In fact, the DNA tests prove that the Hemmings family is descended from the male Jefferson line. James Callender’s charges against Jefferson were true, as even Jefferson’s family and friends knew at the time.
The circumstantial evidence makes it very likely that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally’s children. However, whether it was Thomas Jefferson or another of his family is not key. It is an undeniable fact that Jefferson tolerated sexual abuse of his slaves and kept slaves who were close members of his own family.
“It is correct that the DNA testing shows that the Woodsons are not descended from Jefferson. That is a far cry from your assertion that “DNA has proven the main charge against Jefferson, one many believed for 200 years, the one his opponents circulated during his life, was false.”
No. The primary accusation, the one almost all accepted as most likely to be true, was that Woodson was Thomas Jefferson’s.
“James Callender’s charges against Jefferson were true, as even Jefferson’s family and friends knew at the time.”
Not according to Jefferson’s friends and family.
” However, whether it was Thomas Jefferson or another of his family is not key.”
It certainly is to his detractors!
We you there during her conceptions? Think not!
Go read Robert Turner’s writings on the subject and then come back and comment. I’ll try to find the specific article which also referred to the Un. of Va. conference on the subject of Jefferson and Hemings.
Will post it openly and to you.
Google “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings Controversy” and you’ll find tons of links to Prof. Robert Turner and the Un. of Va. scholars report on the subject.
The link is www.monticello.org/site...thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-brief account.
The report is available from Amazon.con . It is entitled “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: Report of the Scholars Commission”(2011).
It talks about DNA tests, etc. So do other articles listed on “Google”.
Not according to Jefferson’s friends and family.
On the contrary, everyone knew that there were house slaves at Monticello with a striking resemblance to Jefferson. Abigail and John Adams knew quite well what was going on with Sally. Jefferson's grandson and executor Thomas Randolph invented the story that the Carr nephews were the fathers of Sally's children. He only spread this false story after the principals were dead. Randolph, of course, couldn't know about DNA testing that would prove the Carr story false.
Madison Heming's memoir, told in 1873, partly his own memory and partly from his mother, is almost certainly the correct story.
That is obviously incorrect, because of the special treatment and eventual freedom that she and her children received.
and that it is very unlikely he fathered any of her children.
We are supposed to believe that Thomas Jefferson was too moral/ethical to father children with a slave girl, but that he tolerated for many years his brother or nephews doing exactly that?
I see that Callender did mention a Tom, as son of Sally. However, Jefferson’s own slave records do not show this, nor does the Hemings family history. There seems to be no documentary evidence linking Thomas Woodson to Monticello.
Note Hillsdale Professor Paul Rahe’s comments. Rahe is the most distinguished member of the “Scholars Commission”.
https://ricochet.com/archives/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-a-dissent/
“What we do know, however, is damning enough. Despite the distaste that he expressed for the propensity of slaveholders to abuse their power, Jefferson either engaged in such abuse himself or tolerated it on the part of one or more members of his extended family. In his private, as in his public, life, there was, for all his brilliance and sagacity, something dishonest, something self-serving and self-indulgent about the man.”
See also Professor Rahe’s critical Minority Report at the end of this Scholars Commission report.
https://www.tjheritage.org/scholars-commission-pdf
“Despite the distaste that he expressed for the propensity of slaveholders to abuse their power, Jefferson either engaged in such abuse himself or tolerated it on the part of one or more members of his extended family.”
Oh golly! Thomas Jefferson opposed sexual activity with slaves, but didn’t take active steps to stop it. Heck, he talked about freedom and kept slaves. Yeah, I grant the contradiction - but those of us who were not raised in a society that accepted slavery might want to be careful about proclaiming our virtue.
Heck, at least Thomas Jefferson knew what sex he was. He didn’t think it made perfect sense to be a homosexual. Oh wait - MODERN man accepts what Jefferson would called depraved, then calls Jefferson depraved for accepting what we do not.
“something dishonest, something self-serving and self-indulgent about the man” - but he wasn’t dishonest enough to pretend a man was a woman who could compete in women only events. He wasn’t self-serving enough to get blow jobs as President while talking about women’s rights. Even if he DID something sexual with a slave, he probably never used her as a humidor!
But we MODERN PEOPLE are virtuous, and Thomas Jefferson is SCUM?
Thanks mairdie.
Enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved, enslaved...
The takeaway is that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and the US is therefore evil and must be destroyed.
The purchase of African slaves from Arabs and other Africans was the worst crime in the history of the world.
No one but African Negroes was ever enslaved. It was uniquely evil. The living ancestors of these slaveowners are equally guilty for this, the worst crime in the history of the world.
All white people must immediately give everything they own to an American Negro and become slaves of same.
The slave does not dream of freedom; the slave dreams of becoming a master.
American Negros are still the slaves of these past injustices, in their hearts, and they dream not of justice but of becoming masters.
Slavery existed in the US from 1789 until 1865, or seventy-six (76) years. The American Negro’s self-imposed slavery of the mind has existed from 1789 to the present, some 229 years and counting.
GTF over it.
Good grief, I said “ancestors” when I meant “descendants.”
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