I recently read that on his deathbed, Dumas Malone is supposed to have said that he thought that Jefferson might have had a go with Hemings once or twice, but not as an ongoing thing.
Then came the report in 1997 -- knowing the story well, I wondered why the authors discounted the possibility of Randolph being the culprit, as the DNA did not in any way point directly to Jefferson, just to a Jefferson familiy male. The DNA would have been complicated, also, if it is true that Hemmings and Jefferson's wife Martha shared the same father.
So, I was much relieved to read the 2000 blue ribbon scholars report, which I commend to anyone intrested. I remain convinced Thomas Jefferson was not responsible for Sally Hemmings children.
I honestly don't know, and doubt we ever will, who the father of hemings' children was. But one thing I do know. If you are going to overturn generations of accepted scholarship, then you must have stronger evidence on behalf of your theory, than that of the proponents of the conventional view. The Hemings Party has provided no stronger, new evidence on behalf of their theory.
I don't think the members of the Hemings Party give a damn about the truth. I think their attitude is no different than that of black New Yorkers who periodically get letters published in the local dailies saying, "All I know is that George Washington owned slaves, so I will never respect anything he did." All is fair, in dealing with dead white male slave owners.
Related to the above-mentioned racial contempt is a form of affirmative action/reparations, whereby the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers are transferred to (read: stolen by) blacks. A spate of articles and books have appeared of late that make Jefferson's slaves the focus of life at Monticello. I expect to soon read that all of Jefferson's inventions, ideas, etc. actually were "stolen" from his slaves.
LOL! Much like Lenin and Stalin and other Russians were responsible for all of the inventions of, and advances in, modern science during the reign of the Bolseviks in Russia.
I agree with you that we cannot know with absolute certainty who fathered Hemings children (although I tend to think the preponderance of the evidence suggests it was not Thomas Jefferson) and absolutely agree that the Hemings Party is indifferent to truth. If they were not so, they would be satisfied with it being "a" Jefferson male who fathered Easton, which is all their new evidence shows. It could have been Randloph or his sons, or it could have been TJ. Based on eyewitness accounts of Randolph's behavior with slaves (and the fact all Hemings' children other than Thomas Woodson (a ?? child) were conceived in between Randolph's two marraiges) and his general reputation, Randolph seems the most likely candidate. To deny this is simply bad scholarship.
The paternity of the other Hemings children remains an open question, and the best evidence still points to the Carrs. Perhaps more research could follow up on Jefferson's daughter's comment that Jefferson was not present when Easton was concevied and determine with certainty whether Sally was somewhere other than Monticello during the time Jefferson was at Monticello in the summer of 1807.
While slavery was an abomination and a blot on white America, it was also white America that did away with slavery. I personally feel no guilt for the large slaveholdings of my forebears, especially for those of the forebear who freed his slaves in 1860 because, as a minister, he believd it unChristian to hold slaves. My Virginian forebears who were contemporaries of Jefferson were more modest folk, yeoman farmers with few, if any, slaves in Bedford County, who all answered the call of their natives state to fight for independence, some as officers, most as private soldiers. I have nothing but contempt for those who would tear down the achievements of the Founders on the basis of modern notions about racial justice.