I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but I could understand Madison Hemings preferring to tell people "I am the son of Thomas Jefferson" instead of "I am the son of Thomas Jefferson's brother."
I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but I could understand Madison Hemings preferring to tell people "I am the son of Thomas Jefferson" instead of "I am the son of Thomas Jefferson's brother."
LOL. Note that the leaders of the Hemings Party are very insulted by such contentions, and have even insisted, logic be damned, that there would be no reason for Hemings' children to prefer claiming Thomas over Randolph as their father.
That 1873 newspaper article sounds like the one from the political activist editor (Westmore?) who some scholars now say, wrote everything in his own words (i.e., not in the sort of language Hemings would have used), and likely projected his own political project onto the son, because the interview supposedlt contained things that the son could not have learned from his mother, but were fromn the likes of Callender.
Another problem for the Hemings Party is that the two sons represent mutually incompatible oral traditions. The one tradition passed on the belief that Thomas was the father, while the other one maintained that another Jefferson male was the father.