The Selling of Sally Hemings

Oregon Magazine ^ | September 14, 2003 | Thomas Lipscomb

[WaterDragon]

The myth of Sally Hemings is for sale again. There has always been something about Thomas Jefferson’s lovely black slave Sally Hemings that drives otherwise rational people nuts. From the pages of The New York Times to prize-winning historians, the spewings of pseudo-science and psychic friends network nattering have been truly monumental.

[cyborg]

It serves their agenda to portray Sally Hemmings as a lowly black ugly uneducated slave. In fact, she was mulatto and very educated, and obviously loved Jefferson if she stayed with him so long whether or not they had children.

Completely unrelated BUT there was a slave Pierre Toussaint, a black slave, who selflessly stayed with his master's family and took care of them after the master died. He was up for canonization as a saint, BUT many saw him as not a good 'role model' for blacks. The democraps are evil and wicked. Sheesh, they don't even have their facts straight.

How can a country progress if you face backwards all the time and look at the past? Especially looking at it, in a shoulda coulda woulda and I hate so-and-so way.

[LWalk18]

The tragedy is that a wonderful American got trashed, and when you go to Monticello, and see Jefferson's home, in the context of the times. he took excellent care of his slaves, to the point of buying produce from them on land he gave them to grow vegetables for themselves. The slaves stayed on the Monticello for three and four generations because they had a home there and were well treated.

Yeah, he treated them so well he put mortgages on them in order to finance the constant building of Monticello. The slaves stayed on because they were slaves, he only freed 5 slaves in his will and the rest were put up for auction along with Monticello after he died.

I think you have Jefferson confused with Washington, who did treat his slaves well and freed them after Martha's death- many of his ex-slaves stayed in the area afterwards.

[davisfh]

"It's always been a source of amusement to me how folks operate on "info"-bytes: e.g., "Sally Hemmings" elicits "oh that slave that Thomas Jefferson screwed?"

Often I wonder how much of what we think we know, is actually true..."

Oh, but the liberals want so badly for it to be true.

[netmilsmom]

Reference?

[LWalk18]

Sally Hemings did have at least one child who was definitively NOT a Jefferson.

I have always suspected that Tom Woodson (the alleged oldest son) was not Sally's son either- the one Hemings child who gave an account of his parentage, Madison, claims that Sally's first child died in infancy.

One of my college professors was on the committee, and he loved to find out bad things about Jefferson. However, even he could not conclude that Thomas Jefferson was the father. He didn't think Jefferson physically had it in him to father ANY child when the alleged offspring were conceived. I'm less certain and think it possible.

Given the fact that I think President John Tyler remarried at 54 and had seven children in his fifties and sixties with a wife thirty years younger I also don't believe that it was impossible for Jefferson to father children up to age 65.

I tend to believe that he and Sally had a relationship, based on the fact that she only conceived when he was at Monticello, this during the years in which he was serving in Washington's cabinet, as Vice President, and President. It has not been document that Randolph or any other Jefferson was there at all the times she conceived children. In fact, no other Jefferson was advanced as suspects until after the DNA tests- before Jefferson's family and historians insisted that Jefferson's nephews the Carr brothers were the likely fathers- too bad they were excluded by the DNA tests.

[LWalk18]

Any Jefferson biography will tell you that Monticello and its contents, including its slaves were auctioned after his death. The fact that Jefferson died deeply in debt is also in any biography of Jeffeson. And I am sure you can find his will perhaps online, and he clearly frees only five of his slaves.

[WaterDragon]

It serves their agenda to portray Sally Hemmings as a lowly black ugly uneducated slave. In fact, she was mulatto and very educated..

So why isn't it enough to simply have bragging rights to Sally as an ancestor? Do her accomplishments not rate pride unless somehow a Jefferson is thrown into the mix?

[WaterDragon]

How can a country progress if you face backwards all the time and look at the past?

Even if you can claim a line from someone famous and respected, how does that help when there are probably plenty of scoundrels also in that line? LOL My husband's family are descendents of John Adams.....but also of that outlaw Jesse James! Along with a few preachers that got run off by their congregations! It's all just silly.

[freekitty]

They probably brought it up again to make Clinton look better.

[mrustow]

25

[cyborg]

Really I just see both sides engaging in this ancestor worship, which I find pointless. You are right. It's as if somehow genius will be channeled down through the genes. Not true. All of my family tree are poor people. Poor Italians, poor Spanish sugar cane cutters, etc. People are trying to derive some weird sense of self esteem from the ether instead of relying on God and their immediate family.

[WaterDragon]

People are trying to derive some weird sense of self esteem from the ether instead of relying on God and their immediate family. Well said!

[mrustow]

I just want to know what the New York Slimes hopes to achieve from a non-event 200 years ago.

I've wondered if the "New York Slimes" staff are merely lazy or actually afraid of reality. They seem to avoid any reference to it, certainly.

They are unregenerate frauds. The NYT articles were full of weasely language and outright lies.

[WaterDragon]

I've noticed that what the liberals want to be true is often reported as true, in the liberal media. They do lead a rich, if one-note, fantasy life. Particularly the NYTimes.

[WaterDragon]

The NYT articles were full of weasely language and outright lies.

That could be why they are losing readership?

[mrustow]

This guy is brilliant. This article is as clever and rich in knowledge as it is succinct.

[cyborg]

All the news that is unfit to print? How are they still the paper of record? I think the Enquirer tells the truth more than they do. Even after Jayson Blair, they still act as if people read and believe what they say. If it's time for LMS (luddite menstrual syndrome), I usually pick up the New York Post. Otherwise, I read FR. Why I've seen stuff appear on FR before Drudge!

[WaterDragon]

This guy is brilliant. This article is as clever and rich in knowledge as it is succinct.

That's what I thought, and why I posted it.

[mrustow]

The NYT articles were full of weasely language and outright lies.

That could be why they are losing readership?

I think the paper hit a critical mass of scandal, at which point readers actually became embarrassed to be associated with it. Not perhaps because the paper publishes lies on a daily basis, but because it got caught.

[mrustow]

Thanks.