Giving Thomas Jefferson the Business: The Jefferson-Hemings Hoax

A Different Drummer/Middle American News ^ | December, 2003 | Nicholas Stix

[mrustow]

Thanks for the links. I read your eloquent article, but have yet to get to your correspondence. But I know what a devil Truscott is. He sought to force black non-descendants upon the Thomas Jefferson family association, thereby burying the real descendants in fraudulent, perpetual minority status, and destroying the Association. He has contempt for the truth and for established rules, and yet glories in the privileges that have been handed down to him by his ancestors almost as much as he glories in abusing those privileges and dishonoring those ancestors. In short, he's the perfect house Southerner for the Times.

"Yet hate begets hate, as ill will, malice."

[CatoRenasci]

Well, I found the Malone well-written and very interesting, but I was trained as an academic historian. Malone did win the Pulitzer for one of the volumes (at least) back when it meant something.

From your handle I'd guess you were a Southron like Jefferson, so your comment on Jefferson's financial problems and proclivities were somewhat surprising. I suppose if you're from a Puritan background it would seem strange. I think the most charitable thing that can be said here is the Jefferson's attitudes towards money were not atypical of his class and time. The British aristocracy, and the Virginia gentry in imitation, was typically land (and slave) rich, but cash poor. To conduct their lives at all, some sort of credit system of borrowing against future crops for both expenses and capital needs was almost essential. Jefferson's habits were expensive, but he was not, as were some of his peers, a compulsive gambler or rake-hell who spent his patrimony on fallen women. IIRC, when his father died, Jefferson inherited lands already heavily encumbered, and never worked his way out from under, indeed made it worse. As to his leaving his family, that, too, was not unusual in that period: men were often away (whether at sea or at war or for business) for years at a time. Jefferson could almost be considered a homebody by contemporary standards, except for the time he spent abroad or in Philadelphia and Washington in government service.

Jefferson's relations with women are not very clear. That he did not remarry is surprising, but, then, people took promises such as the one he made to Marth more seriously than we do today. Fascinating subject.

[mrustow]

TJ originally hired Callender to print lies about Adams but since TJ was a chronic debtor he was unable to pay Callender for his "services". TJ also lied to his old friend Adams about his sponsorship of the slanders Callender wrote. When Jefferson refused to pay Callender, he retaliated by printing the TJ/slave story. DNA testing indicates a Jefferson male did in fact boink his slaves but it does not narrow it down to TJ himself. Given TJ's duplicitious deceptive nature, I wouldn't put it past him. Jefferson brought this on himself.

Wow! That's news to me. It gives the 200-year smear a tragic, karmic flavor. Do you have any sources re Jefferson's hiring of Callender for purposes of libel?

[AdamSelene235]

I read about the subject in Joseph J. Ellis's Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.

[mrustow]

Here’s what is known: Thomas Jefferson owned a slave named Sally Hemings.

How much more likely then, that Jefferson fathered one of her children. If she lived on his property, it would have been very peculiar for other members of Jefferson's family to pay a visit to his slave. Can you just see them sneaking around back, on an ostensible visit to Jefferson - it just isn't plausible. And how would such a relationship with one of his relatives have been initiated? It just makes more sense that a relationship would have developed between Jefferson and his slave - though, with him being in a position of authority, how much of a relationship would that have been?

If you have any evidence for the "wouldas/couldas" you just posited, I'm all ears. But until then, I think we should respect the crucial distinction between historical possibility and historical fact.

[mrustow]

Thanks for the tip.

[mrustow]

Jesse Jackson is Richard Milhouse Nixon's illegitimate love child. Micheal Jackson, too!

ROTFL

[mrustow]

It matters. The truth always matters. Something is or it isn't,

and dissemblers and liars shouldn't be given a pass on manipulating a COUNTRY! The vast majority of Americans now think Thomas Jefferson indeed fathered kids with Sally Hemmings, and there is not yet conclusive proof of that. For those who would make political hay out of such a "fact," that national delusion is very useful. It matters.

Bump to that!

[mrustow]

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the article for later study.

[cajungirl]

Thanks again! Now that I see him in the context of his time I guess I am not so surprised. Except that Adams who was also a farmer, smaller than Jefferson however, hated debt, lived frugally and left money in his estate. From the Adams bio, Jefferson spent his money on books, furniture, art and maybe clothing. Anyhow, I guess leaving ones life in debt so that the heirs are encumbered just seems so alien to me even as a southerner. Jefferson seemed to just love to build, decorate, remodel and really loved to buy books. Not a bad thing.

[John Robertson]

Thanks. I just re-read what you excerpted, and realize that I was really riding a high horse there, wasn't I? But I also realize, such a ride is easier when you're right.

[CatoRenasci]

The cultural differences between the New Englanders, frugal merchants and yeoman farmers reared in a Puritan environment, even such a sophisticated man as Adams, and the typically Anglican gentry that constituted the educated and hence governing class in the Southern colonies, was as great as the cultural difference today between an Upper West Side of Manhattan graduate of Harvard, and the owner of small retail service business in Texas.

What is remarkable is that the submerged (but didn't completely put aside) their cultural and regional differences in the creating of the American Experiment, from the War of Independence through the adoption of the Constitution.

[MHT]

Thank you for this post. DNA proves that Eston was the son of a Jefferson, but WHICH Jefferson cannot be answered without DNA from the mother, father, and offspring--none of which were tested. If they want to go to the trouble of exhuming all three and THEN conclude that Tom fathered Sally's littlest boy--fine. Until then, they are making an exact science into pseudo-science and rewriting history with a political agenda.

[centurion316]

But I know what a devil Truscott is.

Truscott, or, as his West Point classmates knew him: "Louce the Douce", has made a career of this sort of behavior. He was thrown out of the Army for his outrageous conduct at this first duty assignment, Ft. Carson. He would have been court-martialed, except for the reputation of his father and grand-father. He wore this as a badge of honor, claiming to have courageously stood up in opposition to the Vietnam warfare. Truth is that he was both a coward and a traitor, and totally devoid of honor.

He caused quite a scene when he strolled into his Class 10-year reunion dinner at West Point - barefoot in Black Tie with some Greenwich Village cutie on his arm. But, like many others on the Left - its got to be all about him.

[cajungirl]

It is remarkable. I loved the part of the Adams bio when the author described the Virginians riding into Philadelphia on grand horses with their appearance being that of princes. The Philadelphians were amazed with them, they were like grand royalty. I loved that. Adams was so different and he and Jefferson were close for years. That is amazing to me. And I do believe Abigail was fascinated and attracted to Jefferson until she turned on him for being so backstabbing to Adams. Abigail added immensely to Adam's life, a shame Jefferson didn't have the same influence.

[CatoRenasci]

I met Truscott socially in NYC in the early '80s. He was a regular in the old Lion's Head pub, a place with a certain following among the soused literati A rather self-important fellow, I thought, certainly not up to the family standards.

[centurion316]

About the same time when I last saw him. He certainly considers himself among the literati, but I think that your first impression is more accurate.

[mrustow]

Thanks. I just re-read what you excerpted, and realize that I was really riding a high horse there, wasn't I? But I also realize, such a ride is easier when you're right.

Exactly.

[mrustow]

Thank you for this post. DNA proves that Eston was the son of a Jefferson, but WHICH Jefferson cannot be answered without DNA from the mother, father, and offspring--none of which were tested. If they want to go to the trouble of exhuming all three and THEN conclude that Tom fathered Sally's littlest boy--fine. Until then, they are making an exact science into pseudo-science and rewriting history with a political agenda.

My pleasure. It's weird when you consider what revolutionary strides real science has made in the past 50 years alone, and then see that in the social sciences, and the application of science to social controversies (e.g., DNA testing), we are marching backwards.

[willyboyishere]

Truth or hoax, it's all part of the GLORIOUS AMERICAN MOSAIC!!!! (another part which is that intersection where
tabloid journalism meets "historical scholarship").