Did Jefferson Sleep with Sally Hemings?
In May the descendants of Thomas Jefferson's daughters (Martha and Maria) voted by a margin of 93 percent to deny admission to the descendants of Sally Hemings, the slave woman who was alleged to have been his" concubine" in Paris and thereafter and to have given him several children. The press and liberal pundits have had a field day denouncing the descendants as racists and bigots. The charge is unfair. Honorable people may disagree about the meaning of the very limited evidence that exists, but the case that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings is far weaker than is popularly believed.
To begin with, the allegation was first publicized in September 1802 by a disreputable scandalmonger names James Callender, who had earlier libeled Washington, Hamilton, and Adams. Callender was trying to blackmail Jefferson into naming him postmaster of Richmond, and when the job was refused he wrote a series of libelous articles which he characterized as"ten thousand fold vengeance" against the president designed to assure that he would not be reelected. Few seem to have believed the allegations, and Jefferson was reelected by a landslide (162-14 electoral votes).
Callender's case was premised upon the existence of"President Tom," a mulatto child allegedly conceived by Jefferson and Hemings in Paris in 1789. There is no record of any such child in Jefferson's papers, but a strong oral history identifies him as Thomas Woodson. But six different DNA tests in 1998, involving male descendants of three different sons of Thomas Woodson, proved that Woodson could not possibly have been Thomas Jefferson's child unless Jefferson himself was illegitimate. (No DNA from Thomas Jefferson is available.)
FAWN BRODIE
With the exception of Fawn Brodie (whose book was panned by historians across the political spectrum), until 1997 three was an overwhelming consensus by Jefferson historians that the accusation was false. After all, in Notes on the State of Virginia (1781), Jefferson specifically denounced the despotic sexual exploitation of slave women and focused especially on its harmful effects upon the master's own children. Yet we are asked to believe that six or seven years later he began a sexual relationship with the slave child who was the maid to his own beloved daughters. There is not a single incident to my knowledge in his life after the death of Martha that suggests such reckless behavior, and it is extremely difficult to believe that he would have entrusted his cherished reputation to the discretion of a child who Abigail Adams had described (while watching Sally for three weeks in London on her way to Paris) as lacking the maturity of Jefferson's eight-year-old daughter Polly.
The only comments that survive about Sally's abilities related to that period and are in accord on Sally's immaturity and inability to serve even as a baby-sitter. Her son Madison was alleged to have claimed that he taught himself to read with the help of Jefferson's white grandchildren, which certainly suggests that Sally Hemings was illiterate. Observers who praised other members of the Hemings family at Monticello for their skills limited their comments on Sally to her"handsome" or"pretty" appearance and almost white skin. And excluding her appearance on lists of slaves (where she was treated exactly like other members of her family), everything we really know about Sally Hemings from surviving records could be put on an index card and provides not the slightest hint that she was sophisticated or influential at Monticello. Her son Madison (who under Virginia law at the time probably had enough white"blood" to be legally considered white--and, like Sally, was recorded as being"white" in the 1801 Charlottesville census) reportedly acknowledged that President Jefferson paid no attention to him even in private. Given the love Jefferson showed to his known children, this is totally inconsistent with the theory that he and Sally were madly in love with each other and Madison was their child.
MEDIA MISTAKE?
The DNA tests were grossly misrepresented in much of the press. They excluded Thomas Woodson as a possible child of Thomas Jefferson and found it extremely likely that Eston Hemings was fathered by one of more than two-dozen Jefferson males in Virginia at the time. If we ignore other variables (like known presence at Monticello, but also personal character, age, health, and the like), the DNA tests suggest a less than 4 percent probability that the 64-year-old Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston.
We will likely never know who fathered Eston Hemings, and if it was not Thomas Jefferson the issue is of little importance to most of us. Among the likely candidates are Thomas Jefferson's much younger and less cerebral brother, Randolph, and at least four of Randolph's five sons (ranging in age from about seventeen to twenty-seven when Eston was conceived). One of the few surviving letters from Thomas Jefferson to Randolph was written about a week before the period during which experts project that Eston was probably conceived, and it informed Randolph that his much-beloved twin sister (Anna Scott Marks) had just arrived for a visit; perhaps, it was suggested, Randolph could visit, too. Advocates of the Hemings story emphasize that there is no"proof" that Randolph accepted the invitation. This is true. But Randolph was such a frequent guest that Jefferson did not normally record his visits. Indeed, if one relies only upon visits documented in Jefferson's records (which would occur in connection with some other matter, such as if Randolph were to need a legal document that survived or to bring or do something that warranted comment in a letter to someone else), it would appear that Randolph sometimes waited more than a decade between visits (which we know is not true).
There being no Disney World at the time, it was common for such family visits to last for weeks at a time. August would be a particularly convenient time for such a visit, as crops would probably have been planted but not ready for harvesting. Given Randolph's known fondness for his twin sister, and the absence of any letter explaining why he could not visit, the most logical presumption is that Randolph and his boys made the trip and probably stayed through the entire time during which Eston was likely conceived. Thomas Jefferson had other relatives who might also have visited at that time without leaving behind any surviving documentation.
HEMINGS FAMILY CHANGES ITS STORY
Until Fawn Brodie persuaded them they were mistaken, the descendants of Eston Hemings were told that his father was not the famous president but"an uncle." Randolph Jefferson was widely known as"Uncle Randolph" at Monticello (because of his relationship to Jefferson's daughters). An investigator who believed the Jefferson-Hemings story half-a-century ago reported that Hemings descendants had told her that Randolph fathered children by his own slaves. The book Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, by former Monticello blacksmith Isaac Jefferson, reported that when Randolph visited Monticello he would spend his nights playing his fiddle and dancing"half the night" with Monticello slaves.
Then there is the apparent (but uncertain) coincidence of Sally's children likely being born between the death of Randolph's first wife and his remarriage about the time Jefferson returned home after his second term as president. Sally would have been about thirty-four then, yet she had no more known children. An affidavit from Jefferson used in the dispute over his late brother's will testifies that Randolph's second wife was a controlling woman who might well have put a stop to his fondness for strolling down to the slave quarters when they visited Monticello.
RACISM ISN'T A FACTOR
At their 1999 and 2000 annual meetings, Jefferson's descendants listened to a number of advocates of the Hemings story and apparently found it believable. Some of them were no doubt a bit shocked and disappointed to hear that the long-dismissed rumors were true, but they seemed not only prepared to accept it and move on but to even react negatively to the small number of disbelievers who they felt would reinforce the Hemings allegation that family members" could not accept the idea that a white man might find love in the arms of a black woman." I've heard and read that statement several times from the Hemings side, but I've not even heard second-hand accounts of any white Jefferson descendant suggesting it was an issue.
Even if a small number of them were racists (which is certainly possible), the reality is that Sally Hemings was not really a"black woman." Like so many Americans today, she was a mixture of more than one race--but predominantly white. Every surviving account of her appearance emphasizes her"might near white" appearance, and the 1830 Charlottesville census taker marked her down as"white."
The point that I hear repeatedly emphasized by those who find the allegation"out of character" for Thomas Jefferson is that the allegation begins the relationship in Paris where by all accounts Sally was a very young and immature child lacking the judgment of Jefferson's eight-year-old daughter Polly. More importantly, as a slave Sally had no right (and probably no concept) of" consent." Morally speaking, for Thomas Jefferson to have become sexually involved with Sally Hemings in Paris would be akin to a teacher or minister engaging in sex with a child entrusted to his care. Thomas Jefferson was on record in strong opposition to the sexual exploitation of even mature slave women, and one of his arguments was that the relationship was harmful to the master's children. Sally Hemings was not just an immature slave, she was the maid to both of Jefferson's beloved daughters.
THOMAS JEFFERSON HERITAGE SOCIETY
The small group of Jefferson defenders joined together with like-minded people from outside the family and set up the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS). They were so convinced that the facts were on their side that they took an interesting gamble, and asked a blue-ribbon group of more than a dozen scholars to examine the evidence anew and issue a public report.
For reasons that I was never told but have assumed had to do with the unwillingness of more senior scholars to take on the administrative burdens of the job, I was asked the chair the"Scholars Commission." I had been a student of Thomas Jefferson for about three decades, and one of their members learned of my existence through a mutual friend. I agreed to take on the task only under certain conditions, all designed to guarantee both the perception and reality of a fair process. They had earlier contacted several scholars, and I went over their list and excluded everyone who was not at least a full professor (most were chaired professors or had served as departmental chairs, graduate program chairs, or the like). No one was to receive so much as a penny in compensation for their work, so it could not be claimed that we were influenced to reach a particular conclusion. I wanted complete control for the Commission to set its own rules, pick its own members, and conduct its work completely independent of the TJHS.
They accepted my terms, and the only effort of which I became aware to modify them was when they learned I had invited Forrest McDonald to join the Commission. He was very open in telling me that he was not a Jefferson fan and had known of the Hemings story for decades, since he was an Associate Professor at Brown when Winthrop Jordan was writing White Over Black there. I replied that I was delighted, because his anti-Jefferson bias would balance my own admiration for Jefferson. (I, too, had accepted the Hemings story when I learned that Monticello had confirmed it was true--until I read their report.) When someone in the TJHS learned that McDonald was on the commission, he/she/they suggested that there needed to be a rule that no dissenting opinion could be longer that"x" number of pages. (I don't think a specific figure was ever suggested.) I responded that if they wanted me to remain as chair and as a member of the group, there would be no limits on dissenting views, and they quickly withdrew the proposal. I didn't know at that time how the final vote would come out, but I was determined that it would be a fair process.
Readers can learn more about the Scholars Commission and read the full text of our report (originally 550-pages with more than 800 footnotes, although it was later reduced to a shorter length by converting it to single-spaced Times Roman text) on the web at: http://www.geocities.com/tjshcommission. It will be published (later this year or early in 2003) by Carolina Academic Press (http://www.cap-press.com/bookinfo.php3?id=1179).
CONCLUSIONS
We concluded unanimously that the case was not proven, and with but a single mild dissent (by another clear critic of Jefferson) that he was probably not the father of Eston or any other Hemings child. The story is contrary to everything we know about Thomas Jefferson's character. It is contrary to the eye-witness testimony of Edmund Bacon, Monticello overseer at the time of Eston's conception, who reported having frequently observed a man other than Thomas Jefferson leaving Sally's room early in the morning while arriving for work. No one who was close to Jefferson at the time the children were born is alleged to have believed the story, and many of his Federalist enemies disbelieved it because they knew Callender's reputation.
Monticello was crawling with visitors when Jefferson was present (as many as 50 strangers would show up at a time expecting to be put up, fed, and entertained for sometimes weeks at a time), yet there is not a scrap of paper suggesting that any of them saw the slightest hint of a sexual relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. No one saw her sneaking into the house at night, or him sneaking out, or the two of them walking off into a field, or so much as a suggestive glance between them. There is no record that Sally ever alleged the story was true. (She was also libeled by Callender, who referred to her as a"slut" and called her children a"yellow litter.")
This, by the way, raises another problem with the whole story: Sally may well not even have lived in the same building with Thomas Jefferson in Paris except for a brief period as they prepared to return to Virginia. Jefferson's daughters Patsy and Polly lived in a convent across town that had accommodations for servants. Letters from Paris classmates written to Patsy at Monticello asked to be remembered to"Sally"--establishing that people at the convent knew Sally Hemings. Advocates of the Sally story argue that it was possible the classmates met Sally while visiting Jefferson's residence. But we must ask whether they would be more likely to make reference to a servant they encountered briefly during a home visit, or to have sent their regards to a servant who lived at the convent and with whom they interacted on a regular basis. We can't be certain, as there is no documentation on where Sally lived or what she did in Paris other than that she was apparently the servant to Jefferson's daughters. But no one who lived at or visited Jefferson's residence made any reference to her.
If Sally had been influential and the"lady of the house" as Callender suggested, surely someone would have recorded such a role. Many visitors wrote about their visits to Monticello, but none of them suggested that the Callender story was true.
THE HEALING LIE
One individual who I am told read our report agreed that we were correct in our conclusions, but nevertheless was angry because we had"killed the healing lie." The theory was that it is important to sacrifice the reputation for another"dead white male" in order to promote diversity and make everyone feel good. I have several problems with that.
First of all, I don't perceive it to be the role of the scholar to lie to the public to promote some political agenda. Finding the truth is often very difficult, but that ought to be our goal.
Secondly, as Henry Steele Commager pointed out in his foreword to one edition of Jefferson's Farm and Garden books, no Virginian (and probably no American) did more than Thomas Jefferson to oppose slavery. I don't have time to summarize all of his contributions, but the 13th Amendment is largely taken from a report Jefferson submitted to the Continental Congress and he repeatedly jeopardized his political viability by denouncing slavery. He inserted anti-slavery language in the Declaration of Independence until South Carolina and Georgia refused to sign if it was not removed. Ultimately, I think he realized that it was better to win independence from Great Britain and then work on the slavery issue rather than dividing the country when the freedom of all Americans was at risk.
Even Joseph Ellis acknowledges Jefferson could have passed a polygraph test on his belief that his own slaves were better off under his care than had they been turned loose to fend for themselves. Jefferson argued that, until they could persuade the people to end the evil practice by law, those entrusted with the care of slaves had a duty to treat them fairly, provide for their care, and demand of them no more than they would demand of a hired laborer.
To be sure, looking back from the 21st Century we can agree that this was not properly his decision to make, and that even Monticello slaves lived a harsh life and deserved their freedom. Jefferson was incredibly paternalistic by today's standards--indeed, when he set out a schedule for his daughter he filled it with so many"lessons" that there was no break for lunch.
Jefferson bought and sold slaves. But often that was to unite families or to fulfill the expressed wishes of individual slaves. In the end, he clearly wanted to free all of his slaves, but he was more than $100,000 in debt and, as"property" under Virginia law, his slaves were as subject to the claims of his creditors as his house and land.
I've only scratched the surface of this issue. My point is that, of all the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson (with all his imperfections) was the man who cried out for equality and justice. He ought to be as much a hero to African-Americans as Martin Luther King ought to be to European- and Asian-Americans. Instead, we are told that we should embrace the lies of James Callender, who wrote the"Black Sal" story because he assumed that all Americans would be as revulsed at the idea of interracial love as he was. And we are told it is more important to promote the myth that Sally Hemings was a"sophisticated" and"influential" woman--for which there is not the slightest bit of evidence--than to uphold the character of Thomas Jefferson.
No one is saying that Jefferson ought to be admired because he was less cruel to his slaves than were his neighbors. Slavery was evil, he knew that, and we would all have been happier had he never owned a single slave. Indeed, the only people who might not have been happier were those slaves who belonged to him, because by every surviving slave account he was recognized to have been unusually kind--probably kinder than the masters who would have owned them had he not been around. But that is only to say that he was perhaps"less evil" than others who owned human beings as"property."
On September 11th, religious fanatics murdered 4,000 innocent people. If there is an antithesis to Osama bin Laden, it is Thomas Jefferson, whose Declaration of Religious Freedom continues to stand as a landmark of religious tolerance and human freedom. Even if he didn't always live up to his ideals, the ideals he left to us were truly remarkable and provide the intellectual creed of this country. And I personally believe that includes his denunciation of the evils of human bondage.
Some criticize him because he toned down his rhetoric as he got older. Even in his final year he continued to privately denounce slavery, but I believe the failure of his fellow citizens to see the obvious truth of his arguments was so emotionally painful for him that he withdrew a bit from that battlefield. To have done much more than he did would likely have denied us the benefits of his tremendous service in other areas. Perhaps it is selfish of me, but if that is true I am glad he made the decision not to"fall on his sword" in a fruitless protest on this one issue and instead continue to fight hard for the things he could influence. We are a better, and a freer, country for his efforts.
WHY I'M SPEAKING OUT
But my real point in writing is a simpler one. The descendants of Thomas Jefferson who met in Charlottesville this spring and by a 93 percent majority voted to exclude the Hemings, were not all motivated by racism. Indeed, I believe they examined the issue carefully and voted their conscience. To be sure, there was"rancor" at the meeting as the press has reported. But, prior to the final vote, I did not hear a single word from a single member of the Jefferson family that struck me as being motivated by racial prejudice. (That is not to say there could have been no racists in the group.) Their arguments had to do with the lack of compelling evidence that the Callender story was true. And I think their anger came from listening to descendants of Thomas Woodson denounce them as"racists" if they did not admit the Woodsons to their organization on the basis of their strong (and no doubt very sincerely believed) oral history--despite the fact that six DNA tests had disproved their claim. Rather than address the merits of the arguments raised in the Scholars Commission report, one Hemings member tried to dismiss it by alleging it was"funded by the Klan."
Racism is an evil thing and a sign of ignorance. To be wrongfully called a racist is a hurtful thing. There is racism in America--within those of all colors and genders--and we should work to eliminate it by education and telling the truth. But we should not tell lies to make anyone feel good, and we should not accuse anyone of racism in the absence of serious evidence that they are guilty of it.
To me (and I think to many others who have looked carefully at the issue), it is silly to treat the Sally Hemings story as a controversy about race. (I would personally be delighted if someone found evidence that Jefferson had found love in the arms of a free African-American adult woman who had the capacity to give consent and was a willing partner.) In addition to the absence of evidence to support the story, what makes it difficult for me to believe is that it is contrary to most of what we believe we know about Jefferson's character. He clearly loved his daughters, and urged them time and again to"do what is right." Would he have entrusted his reputation with them to the discretion of a servant who lacked the judgment of an eight-year-old and was regularly in their contact? Would he have betrayed his trust (as he viewed his relationship to slaves pending a democratic decision to outlaw the evil institution) by imposing himself on such a child? Paris was filled with beautiful women and he often complained about the lack of marital fidelity--and from the women we know he found attractive his tastes consistently ran not to immature children but rather highly accomplished and mature women. Most of the women he flirted with were excellent musicians, and Maria Cosway was a superb painter, linguist, and scientist as well. Many men in that era did find teenage girls to be attractive (including William Short and James Madison), but Thomas Jefferson's known" crushes" were on sexually mature women who either were married or had in the past been married.
Perhaps the greatest irony in all of this is that since our report was released the leading scholars on the pro-Hemings side have been reluctant to engage in public debate. When contacted, they tend to explain that they have"moved on" to other issues. When Prof. Paul Rahe, a former Rhodes Scholar and the sole dissenter on the Scholars Commission, tried to set up a Jefferson-Hemings debate at the 2002 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, the program had to be canceled because he could not find anyone willing to defend the Hemings position. I assured him I would be happy to debate anyone, anywhere, at a mutually-convenient time if someone would pick up my expenses. That offer remains, if someone reading this wants to promote a major public debate on this issue.