Jefferson–Hemings controversy
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The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed
U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors from Jefferson's presidency that he had a slave
concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubi ...
. Based on his grandson's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings' children. Before changing his mind following the results of DNA analysis in 1998, Jefferson biographer
Joseph J. Ellis Joseph John-Michael Ellis III (born July 18, 1943) is an American historian whose work focuses on the lives and times of the founders of the United States of America. '' American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson'' won a National Boo ...
had said, "The alleged liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings may be described as the longest-running miniseries in American history." In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson is the father of one or more of Sally's children. Beginning in 1953, new documentation related to this issue was published and studied by historians. In a 1972 article in ''
American Heritage American Heritage may refer to: * ''American Heritage'' (magazine) * ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' * American Heritage Rivers * American Heritage School (disambiguation) See also *National Register of Historic Place ...
'' and later in her bestselling 1974 biography of Jefferson,
Fawn M. Brodie Fawn McKay Brodie (September 15, 1915 – January 10, 1981) was an American biographer and one of the first female professors of history at UCLA, who is best known for ''Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History'' (1974), a work of psychobiography, ...
suggested Jefferson had been the father of Hemings' children. In 1997, the controversy was reopened when
Annette Gordon-Reed Annette Gordon-Reed (born November 19, 1958) is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She ...
published an analysis of the historiography on this issue, deconstructing previous versions and detailing oversights and bias.Gallagher, "Episode 12: Overview"
, ''Jefferson-Hemings Controversy''
That year
Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...
released his documentary on Jefferson as a PBS series. African American historian John Hope Franklin noted all the
mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
es and mixed-race slaves of the period and said, "These things nterracial liaisonswere part of the natural landscape in Virginia, and Mr. Jefferson was as likely as any others to have done this because it's in character with the times—and indeed, with him, who believed in exploiting these people that he controlled completely." In the same documentary, though, historian Stephen Mitchell is quoted as believing "anyone who has a sense of integrity will recognize integrity in Jefferson and won't believe that there was an atom of possibility that the Sally Hemings story happened, since Jefferson was such a deeply compassionate man and felt the way he did about slavery." Historically, in the 1850s, Jefferson's eldest grandson,
Thomas Jefferson Randolph Thomas Jefferson Randolph (September 12, 1792 – October 7, 1875) of Albemarle County was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, an ...
, told historian
Henry Randall Henry Goldney Randall (8 August 1808, in Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire – 8 August 1881) was Archdeacon of Bristol from 1873 until his death at his residence at Christian Malford. Randall was the second son of Richard Randall of Old Jewry, Lo ...
that the late Peter Carr, a married nephew of Jefferson's (the son of his sister), had fathered Hemings' children; Randolph asked Randall to refrain from addressing the issue in his biography. Randall passed on this information to James Parton, another historian. Parton published the Carr story, and major historians of Jefferson generally denied Jefferson's paternity for nearly 150 years. While some historians challenged the denial, a changed consensus did not emerge until after a
Y chromosome The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...
DNA analysis was done in 1998. The DNA study showed a match between a descendant of the Jefferson male line, a descendant of Field Jefferson, and a descendant of
Eston Hemings Eston is a Village in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England. The ward covering the area (as well as Lackenby, Lazenby and Wilton) had a population of 7,005 at the 2011 census. It is part of Greater Eston, which include ...
, Sally's youngest son. It showed no match between the Carr line and the Hemings descendant. In 2000, a consensus, generated by the DNA study titled "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child," emerged among historians, even though the authors of the study admitted that the title of the study was misleading, saying "The title assigned to our study was misleading in that it represented only the simplest explanation of our molecular findings." In the majority view, the DNA evidence is consistent with Jefferson being the father of Eston Hemings, plus the historical evidence favors Jefferson's paternity for all of Hemings' children.''Jefferson's Blood''
, PBS Frontline, 2000, accessed March 10, 2012. Quote: "Now, the new scientific evidence has been correlated with the existing documentary record, and a consensus of historians and other experts who have examined the issue agree that the question has largely been answered: Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings' children, and quite probably all six."
The Monticello Foundation commissioned its study, which in 2001 concluded Jefferson was likely the father of Eston Hemings and the other children. Since then the organization has reflected this change in its exhibits, as well as publications about Jefferson and his times. The revelations have stimulated works by a variety of scholars, who have used the consensus as a basis for studies into Jefferson, the Hemings family, and interracial American society. In June 2018, the
Thomas Jefferson Foundation The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, originally known as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation founded in 1923 to purchase and maintain Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third ...
, with introduction of the new exhibit on Sally Hemings, asserted the relationship is "settled historical matter".


Background

Jefferson became a widower at age 39 in 1782. He never remarried and died in 1826. Sally Hemings, a "
quadroon In the colonial societies of the Americas and Australia, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one quarter African/ Aboriginal and three quarters European ancestry. Similar classifications were octoroon for one-eighth black (Latin root ''octo ...
" (3/4 white), was his much younger slave and a likely half-sister of his wife. In 1787, when Hemings was 14, she accompanied his daughter Maria to France, where Jefferson was serving as the American ambassador to France. Hemings and Jefferson are believed to have started a sexual relationship at some time before 1789, when she returned with him to Monticello. Most historians now believe that this relationship lasted nearly four decades, until Jefferson's death, and that he fathered six children by Hemings. Four of Hemings' children survived to adulthood. In the antebellum period, hers would have been called a "shadow family". Sally Hemings was also the child of a shadow family. Historians believe her father to have been
John Wayles John Wayles (January 31, 1715 – May 28, 1773) was a colonial American planter, slave trader and lawyer in colonial Virginia. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. ...
, Jefferson's father-in-law, who as a widower had a 12-year liaison with his
mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
slave Betty Hemings and fathered six children with her. These children had three-quarters European, one-quarter African ancestry, and were half-siblings to Jefferson's wife
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson Martha Skelton Jefferson ( ''née'' Wayles; October 30, 1748 – September 6, 1782) was the wife of Thomas Jefferson. She served as First Lady of Virginia during Jefferson's term as governor from 1779 to 1781. She died in 1782, 19 years before ...
. Sally Hemings was the youngest child of this shadow family. Jefferson former slave
Issac Jefferson Isaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger (1775 – 1846)
described Sally as "mighty near white ... very handsome, long straight hair down her back." Of the four Hemings children who survived to adulthood—William Beverley, Harriet,
Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...
, and
Eston Hemings Eston is a Village in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England. The ward covering the area (as well as Lackenby, Lazenby and Wilton) had a population of 7,005 at the 2011 census. It is part of Greater Eston, which include ...
—all but Madison Hemings eventually identified as white and lived as adults in white communities. Under the Virginia law of '' partus sequitur ventrem'', because Sally Hemings was a slave, her children were also born enslaved. But the children were seven-eighths European, one-eighth African by ancestry. If free, they would have been considered legally white in Virginia of the time.Kolchin, Peter ''American Slavery, 1619–1877'', New York: Hill and Wang, 1993, p. 17Taunya Lovell Banks, "Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit -Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Virginia"
, 41 ''Akron Law Review'' 799 (2008), Digital Commons Law, University of Maryland Law School, accessed Apr 21, 2009


Controversy


Early claims

In 1802, the journalist
James T. Callender James Thomson Callender (1758 – July 17, 1803) was a political pamphleteer and journalist whose writing was controversial in his native Scotland and later, also in the United States. His revelations concerning George Washington, Alexander Hamilt ...
, after being refused an appointment to a
postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...
position by Jefferson and issuing veiled threats of "consequences," reported that Jefferson had fathered several children with a slave
concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubi ...
named Sally. Others privately or publicly made the claim.
Elijah Fletcher Elijah Fletcher (July 28, 1789 – February 13, 1858) was a 19th-century teacher and businessman, who also served as mayor of Lynchburg, Virginia for two terms in the early 1830s, as well as on the city council. Early and family life Tonnie wa ...
, the headmaster of the New Glasgow Academy ( Amherst County, Virginia) visited Jefferson in 1811 and wrote in his diary: Jefferson made no public comment on the matter, although most historians interpret his cover letter from 1805 to Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith as a denial alluding to a fuller reply, which has been lost. The Jefferson-Wayles descendants and most historians denied for nearly 200 years that he was the father of Hemings' children. Since the mid-20th century, there have been challenges to that denial, as historians have reexamined some of the evidence and thought to interpret it differently. Disagreements have arisen since the late 20th century over how to interpret historical evidence related to the issue. According to an 1868 letter by Jefferson biographer Henry S. Randall to the historian
James Parton James Parton (February 9, 1822 – October 17, 1891) was an English-born American biographer who wrote books on the lives of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, and contributed three bio ...
, Jefferson's grandson,
Thomas Jefferson Randolph Thomas Jefferson Randolph (September 12, 1792 – October 7, 1875) of Albemarle County was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, an ...
, said that Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha stated on her deathbed that Jefferson had been away from Monticello for 15 months before one of Hemings' children was born, so could not be the father. But historian
Dumas Malone Dumas Malone (January 10, 1892 – December 27, 1986) was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, ''Jefferson and His Time'', for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history a ...
later documented that Jefferson had been at Monticello nine months before the birth of each of Hemings' children.Gordon-Reed, ''An American Controversy'', 1997, pp. 80–83 Randolph also said: Randolph told Randall that the late Peter Carr, Jefferson's nephew by his sister and a married man at the time, had fathered Hemings' children, as an explanation for the "startling" close resemblance that every visitor to Monticello could see. According to legal professor
Annette Gordon-Reed Annette Gordon-Reed (born November 19, 1958) is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She ...
, by this act, he was violating a strong social taboo against naming a white man as the father of slave children, to explain the strong physical resemblance seen by visitors. She suggested he would only have done so for the more compelling reason of protecting his grandfather.Gordon-Reed, ''American Controversy,'' pp. 80–83 Because of the social taboos about this topic, Randolph requested, and Randall agreed, to omit any mention of Hemings and her children in Randall's three-volume biography, ''Life of Thomas Jefferson'' (1858). But Randall passed on the Randolph oral history in a letter to the historian
James Parton James Parton (February 9, 1822 – October 17, 1891) was an English-born American biographer who wrote books on the lives of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, and contributed three bio ...
. He also suggested that he had personally seen records supporting it – but no such record has been found. Randall's 1868 letter relating Randolph's family account of the Peter Carr paternity was a "pillar" of later historians' assertions that Carr was the father of Hemings' children, and Jefferson was not.


Claims of Madison Hemings

In November 1845, Ohio newspapers reported that one of Jefferson's sons by Sally Hemings living in a central Ohio county was not allowed to vote or testify in court due to Ohio laws regarding his race. The story was subsequently reported by
William Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he found ...
's newspaper, ''
The Liberator Liberator or The Liberators or ''variation'', may refer to: Literature * ''Liberators'' (novel), a 2009 novel by James Wesley Rawles * ''The Liberators'' (Suvorov book), a 1981 book by Victor Suvorov * ''The Liberators'' (comic book), a Britis ...
''. On July 7, 1870,
Chillicothe, Ohio Chillicothe ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Ross County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Scioto River 45 miles (72 km) south of Columbus, Chillicothe was the first and third capital of Ohio. It is the only city in Ross Count ...
census taker William Weaver made a note in his official census book beside the entry for "Hemmings, Madison": "This man is the son of Thomas Jefferson." In 1873, the issue received renewed, widespread attention after publication of an interview with
Madison Hemings James Madison Hemings (January 19, 1805 – November 28, 1877) was the son of the mixed-race enslaved woman Sally Hemings and her enslaver, President Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of her four children to survive to adulthood. Born into s ...
, who asserted that Jefferson was his father. He was interviewed about his life as a slave at Monticello, and his account was published in an Ohio newspaper. Then age 68, Hemings claimed Jefferson as his and his siblings' father. He said that when Jefferson and Sally Hemings were still in Paris, she became pregnant with his child. Slaves could petition for their freedom in France, and Hemings initially demurred when Jefferson asked her to return with him to Virginia. Based on Jefferson's promise to free her children when they came of age, she returned with him to the United States from France.''The Memoirs of Madison Hemings''
, Thomas Jefferson: ''Frontline'', PBS-WGBH
Israel Jefferson Israel Jefferson (1800 – c. 1879), known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for y ...
, also a former slave of Monticello, confirmed the account of Jefferson's paternity of Hemings' children in his own interview published that year by the same Ohio newspaper. Critics attacked the newspaper account as politically motivated and the former slaves as mistaken, or worse. In 1874, James Parton published his biography of Jefferson, in which he attributed the content of Madison Hemings' memoir to the political motives of a journalist who interviewed him. He and other critics essentially discounted Madison's memoir, while attributing to him a range of negative motives for telling his story. In his work, Parton repeated the Jefferson family's oral history about a Carr paternity and the claim that Jefferson was absent during the conception period of one of Hemings' children.


Modern historians

Succeeding 20th century historians, such as
Merrill Peterson Merrill Daniel Peterson (31 March 1921 – 23 September 2009) was a history professor at the University of Virginia and the editor of the prestigious Library of America edition of the selected writings of Thomas Jefferson. Peterson wrote several bo ...
and Douglass Adair, relied on Parton's book as it related to the controversy. In turn,
Dumas Malone Dumas Malone (January 10, 1892 – December 27, 1986) was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, ''Jefferson and His Time'', for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history a ...
adopted their position. In the 1970s, as part of his six-volume biography of Jefferson, Malone was the first to publish a letter by Ellen Randolph Coolidge, Randolph's sister that added to the Carr paternity story. But she claimed that the late Samuel Carr, brother to Peter and also a nephew of Jefferson's through his sister, had fathered Hemings' children. Like Peter, Samuel was married when Hemings' children were born. Neither of the Randolphs named Jefferson's nephews as putative fathers of Hemings' children until after the men had died. The above 20th century historians and other major biographers of the late 20th century, such as Joseph Ellis and Andrew Burstein, "defended" Jefferson based on the Jefferson/Randolph family testimony: saying that he was absent at the conception of one Hemings child, and the family identified Peter or Samuel Carr as father(s) of Hemings' children. Also, the historians concluded from their interpretations of Jefferson's personality and views that he would not have had such a relationship. They noted he had expressed antipathy to blacks and miscegenation in his writings, and he was thought to have a "high" moral character.Gordon-Reed, ''American Controversy,'' pp. 14–22 The manuscripts for ''Thomas Jefferson's Farm Books'' were rediscovered and published for the first time in 1953, edited by Edwin M. Betts. They provided extensive data about slaves and slave births, including all of Sally Hemings' children, and have been used extensively by researchers. Black oral history preserved the account of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship and the place of African Americans at the center of United States history. Black historians began to publish material related to the mixed-race Hemings descendants.
Lerone Bennett Lerone Bennett Jr. (October 17, 1928 – February 14, 2018) was an African-American scholar, author and social historian who analyzed race relations in the United States. His works included ''Before the Mayflower'' (1962) and '' Forced into Glo ...
, in his article, "Thomas Jefferson's Negro Grandchildren," published in '' Ebony'' in November 1954, examined the current lives of individuals claiming descent from this union.Lerone Bennett, "Thomas Jefferson's Negro Grandchildren," '' Ebony'', Vol. X (November 1954), pp. 78–80 In 1961, historian Pearl M. Graham published an article in the ''
Journal of Negro History ''The Journal of African American History'', formerly ''The Journal of Negro History'' (1916–2001), is a quarterly academic journal covering African-American life and history. It was founded in 1916 by Carter G. Woodson. The journal is owned and ...
'' on Jefferson and Hemings. It was based on material from the ''Farm Books,'' as well as a detailed timeline of Jefferson's activities developed by historian
Dumas Malone Dumas Malone (January 10, 1892 – December 27, 1986) was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, ''Jefferson and His Time'', for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history a ...
in his extensive biography. This was published in several volumes beginning in the 1940s. Graham noted that Hemings conceived her children only when Jefferson was in residence at Monticello, during a time when he traveled frequently and was away for lengthy periods. Graham also provided biographical information on Sally's children; she supported accounts that Hemings and Jefferson had several children together. In 1972,
Fawn M. Brodie Fawn McKay Brodie (September 15, 1915 – January 10, 1981) was an American biographer and one of the first female professors of history at UCLA, who is best known for ''Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History'' (1974), a work of psychobiography, ...
published "The Great Jefferson Taboo" in ''
American Heritage American Heritage may refer to: * ''American Heritage'' (magazine) * ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' * American Heritage Rivers * American Heritage School (disambiguation) See also *National Register of Historic Place ...
'' magazine. She addressed the rumors of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings, his
quadroon In the colonial societies of the Americas and Australia, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one quarter African/ Aboriginal and three quarters European ancestry. Similar classifications were octoroon for one-eighth black (Latin root ''octo ...
slave, conducted extensive research, and concluded that they had a long relationship. Anticipating "inevitable controversy", the magazine broke with its usual practice and published Brodie's extensive footnotes for her article.Brodie, Fawn D.,
The Great Jefferson Taboo
,'' ''American Heritage'' Magazine, June 1972, Volume 23.


Evidence

In 1953, ''Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book'' was published in an edited version, after having been rediscovered. Its records of slave births, deaths, purchases and sales, and other information has provided researchers with considerable data about the lives of slaves at Monticello, including the births of all Sally Hemings' known children.
Dumas Malone Dumas Malone (January 10, 1892 – December 27, 1986) was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, ''Jefferson and His Time'', for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history a ...
documented Jefferson's activities and residencies through the years. His documentation in his multi-volume biography (published 1948–1981) provided the details that Pearl Graham analyzed to show Jefferson was at Monticello for the conception of each of Hemings' children. She never conceived when he was not there. Martha Randolph, Jefferson's daughter with Martha Wayles Jefferson, had made a deathbed claim that Jefferson was away for a 15-month period during which one of the Hemings children was conceived. Gordon-Reed shows this claim is not supported by Malone's documentation; Jefferson was at Monticello at the time of conception of each child. In 1968 the historian
Winthrop Jordan Winthrop Donaldson Jordan (November 11, 1931 – February 23, 2007) was an American historian and professor who specialized in the history of slavery in the United States and racism against Black Americans. His 1968 work ''White Over Black: A ...
said that Jefferson was at Monticello "nine months prior to each birth" of Hemings' children, during a 13-year period when he was often away for months at a time. He acknowledged that the relationship was possible. Fawn Brodie also used this information in her biography of Jefferson, which contributed to her conclusion that he had fathered Hemings' children.Fawn McKay Brodie, ''Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History'' (1974). The source for the birth dates of the children is Jefferson's Farm Book.Appleby, Joyce Oldham and Arthur Schlesinger. ''Thomas Jefferson''. New York: Macmillan, 2003, pp. 75–77. In 2000, a statistical analysis of the conception data and Jefferson's residencies concluded it was 99 percent likely that he was the father of her children, and that there was only a 1 percent chance that he was not the father of all her children. This analysis, commonly referred to as a
Monte Carlo simulation Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be determini ...
, was done by Fraser D. Neiman, head of archaeology at Monticello.Fraser D. Neiman, "No Access Coincidence or Causal Connection? The Relationship between Thomas Jefferson's Visits to Monticello and Sally Hemings's Conceptions"
, ''William and Mary Quarterly'', January 2000, pp. 198–210, accessed January 12, 2012
Lucia C. Stanton, "Elizabeth Hemings and Her Family"
, ''Free Some Day: The African American Families of Monticello'', University of North Carolina Press, 2000, p. 117, accessed August 13, 2011.
In 2001, the Scholars Commission Report of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society criticized the study, as they said Neiman had not accounted for the possibility of multiple fathers. The Hemings children were named for people in the Randolph-Jefferson family or who were important to Jefferson, rather than for people in the Hemings family. When mixed-race children were sired by the master, they were frequently named after people from his family.Annette Gordon-Reed (1997), ''American Controversy'', pp. 210–23 Jefferson gave the Hemings family special treatment: the three boys while young had very light household duties. At working age, they were each apprenticed to the master carpenter of the estate, the most skilled artisan, who was also their uncle. This would provide them with skills to make a good living as free adults. According to Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson's treatment of Sally Hemings children is a good indication that he could have fathered the children. Harriet Hemings did not begin working as a weaver until she was fourteen years old. Many of Jefferson's slaves would have started at ten. Another example is that unlike other slaves, Madison Hemings stated that until they were put to work, they would run errands with Sally. This was very uncommon. Most importantly, Gordon-Reed notes that Jefferson freed all the Hemings children. Theirs was the only slave family to all go free from Monticello; they were the only slaves freed in their youth and as they came of age, and Harriet Hemings was the only female slave he ever freed."Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account"
, Monticello, accessed March 4, 2011
He allowed Beverley (male) and Harriet to "escape" in 1822 at ages 23 and 21, although Jefferson was already struggling financially and would be $100,000 (US$ in dollars) in debt at his death. He gave his overseer money to give to Harriet for her journey. Jefferson avoided publicity this way, but the gentry at the time noted the Hemingses' absences. Monticello overseer
Edmund Bacon (1785–1866) Edmund Bacon (1785–1866), was the business manager and primary overseer for 20 years for Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, at Monticello. Among some of his other business duties, Bacon supervised the daily chores and activit ...
noted in his memoir (published after Jefferson's death) that people were talking about Harriet's departure. In the memoir, Bacon stated that in all the years he had worked there, he never saw Jefferson and Sally Hemings together in any capacity that would suggest a sexual liaison, and on several occasions witnessed another man leaving Sally's room early in the morning. In an interview Bacon maintains: In his 1826 will, Jefferson freed the younger brothers Madison and Eston Hemings, who were approaching the age of 21. To enable them to stay in Virginia, Jefferson's will petitioned the legislature for permission for them to stay in the state with their families. (Such legislative approval was required by laws related to manumission and free blacks.) Jefferson also freed three older males from the extended
Elizabeth Hemings Elizabeth Hemings ( 1735 – 1807) was an enslaved mixed-race woman in colonial Virginia. With her master, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the conditio ...
family; they had each served him for decades. His will also requested that they be allowed to stay in the state. Jefferson's daughter Martha Randolph gave Sally Hemings "her time" after Jefferson's death, an informal freedom, and the former slave lived with her two younger sons, Madison and Eston, in nearby
Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Cha ...
for nearly a decade before her death.


1998 DNA study

According to an initial report on the findings of a 1998 DNA study which tested the Y-chromosome of direct male-line descendants of Eston Hemings, and other related tests, there is a high probability that Thomas Jefferson was the biological father of Eston Hemings, with a nearly perfect match between the DNA of Jefferson's paternal uncle and the descendants of Eston Hemings. These initial claims were later relativised by the lead researcher in the case, acknowledging that the DNA was compatible with the paternity of some of Jefferson's relatives and that it was inconsistent with paternity by one of the Carr brothers.Eugene A. Foster et al.,
Reply: The Thomas Jefferson Paternity Case
," Nature 396 (January 7, 1999), 32.
In his reply to questions on the study, the authors of the DNA study made clear: In the Monticello Commission's report on the paternity question, Dr. David Page, one of the committee's scientific case reviewers, recommended that additional research needed to be done into "the local population structure around Monticello two hundred years ago, as respects the Y chromosome," before entirely ruling out the possibility of the paternity of any of the other 7 potential paternity candidates.


Historical consensus

With the Eston Hemings descendant found consistent with the Jefferson male line, and inconsistent with the Carr male line, formerly skeptical biographers, such as Joseph Ellis and Andrew Burstein, publicly said they had changed their opinions and concluded that Jefferson had fathered Hemings' children.Richard Shenkman, "The Unknown Jefferson: An Interview with Andrew Burstein"
, ''History News Network'', July 25, 2005, accessed March 14, 2011.

, ''Online Newshour'', PBS, November 2, 1998, accessdate August 4, 2006
As Burstein said in 2005,
e white Jefferson descendants who established the family denial in the mid-nineteenth century cast responsibility for paternity on two Jefferson nephews (children of Jefferson's sister) whose DNA was not a match. So, as far as can be reconstructed, there are no Jeffersons other than the president who had the degree of physical access to Sally Hemings that he did.
In 2000, the
Thomas Jefferson Foundation The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, originally known as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation founded in 1923 to purchase and maintain Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third ...
, which operates Monticello, issued a report of its own investigation, which concluded by accepting Jefferson's paternity. Dr. Daniel P. Jordan, president of the foundation, committed at the time to incorporate "the conclusions of the report into Monticello's training, interpretation, and publications." This included new articles and monographs on the Hemings descendants reflecting the new evidence, as well as books on the interracial communities of Monticello and Charlottesville. New exhibits at Monticello show Jefferson as the father of the Sally Hemings children."Conclusions"
, ''Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings'', Monticello, January 2000, accessed March 9, 2011. Quote: The DNA study, combined with multiple strands of currently available documentary and statistical evidence, indicates a high probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings, and that he most likely was the father of all six of Sally Hemings's children appearing in Jefferson's records. Those children are Harriet, who died in infancy; Beverly; an unnamed daughter who died in infancy; Harriet; Madison; and Eston."
In 2010, the Monticello website noted the new consensus that has emerged on Jefferson's paternity of Hemings' children in the decade since those major studies. In its January 2000 issue, the '' William and Mary Quarterly'' published ''Forum: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings Redux,'' a total of seven articles noting the changed consensus and the developing new views on Jefferson. One article had the results of an analysis by Fraser D. Neiman, who studied the statistical significance of the relationship between Jefferson's documented residencies at Monticello and Hemings' conceptions. He concluded that there was a 99 percent chance that Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children. In May 2000,
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
''
Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...
'' produced, ''Jefferson's Blood,'' a program about the issues related to the DNA test and historical controversy. It stated in its overview:
More than 20 years after CBS executives were pressured by Jefferson historians to drop plans for a mini-series on Jefferson and Hemings, the network airs ''Sally Hemings: An American Scandal.'' Though many quarreled with the portrayal of Hemings as unrealistically modern and heroic, no major historian challenged the series' premise that Hemings and Jefferson had a 38-year relationship that produced children.Quote: "More than 20 years after CBS executives were pressured by Jefferson historians to drop plans for a mini-series on Jefferson and Hemings, the network airs ''Sally Hemings: An American Scandal.'' Though many quarreled with the portrayal of Hemings as unrealistically modern and heroic, no major historian challenged the series' premise that Hemings and Jefferson had a 38-year relationship that produced children.
In the fall of 2001, the
National Genealogical Society The National Genealogical Society (NGS) is a genealogical interest group founded in 1903 in Washington, D.C. with over 10,000 members. Its headquarters are in Falls Church, Virginia. The goals of the organization are to promote genealogical skill ...
published a special issue of its quarterly devoted to the Jefferson–Hemings controversy. In several articles, its specialists concluded that, as the genealogist Helen M. Leary wrote, the "chain of evidence": historical, genealogical, and DNA, supported the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson was the father of all of Hemings' children.''National Genealogical Society Quarterly'', Vol. 89, No. 3, September 2001, pp. 207, 214–18


Dissenting views

In 1999, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) commissioned a report on the matter and asked a group of scholars to look at the evidence and make a public report detailing their conclusions. The TJHS Scholars Commission included
Lance Banning Lance Banning (January 24, 1942 – January 31, 2006) was an American historian who specialized in studying the politics of the United States' Founding Fathers. He taught mostly at the University of Kentucky. Life Banning was a native of Kan ...
,
Walter E. Williams Walter Edward Williams (March 31, 1936December 1, 2020) was an American economist, commentator, and academic. Williams was the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist an ...
,
Robert F. Turner Robert F. Turner (born February 14, 1944) was a professor of international law and national security law at the University of Virginia and the co-founder of its Center for National Security Law. Education Turner earned his BA in Government ...
, and Paul Rahe, among others. On May 26, 2000, John H. Works, the President of TJHS sent a letter to the Chairman of ''The Scholars Commission'', Professor Robert Turner explaining to him that "you have our assurance that the work of The Scholars Commission will be completely independent of efforts to influence your methodology or conclusions by The Heritage Society or its members." The members of this commission included a diverse group of senior scholars, most having either chaired professorships or served as departmental chairs at prominent universities. Several had written highly respected books about Jefferson. They worked independently of the TJHS, were not compensated for their work, and spent nearly a year examining the arguments and evidence regarding paternity. The group published its report in 2001. In it they unanimously agree that the allegations were "by no means proven", and also state that they find it "regrettable that public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled people." The scholars on the Commission concluded that there was insufficient evidence to determine that Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children. The report states that it is a matter about which reasonable people can disagree but by a margin of 12 to 1 their final views "ranged from 'serious skepticism' about the charge to a conviction that it is 'almost certainly false'." Their report suggested that his younger brother Randolph Jefferson, or one of his sons, was the father, and that Hemings may have had multiple partners. They emphasized that more than 20 Jefferson males lived in Virginia, eight within 20 miles of Monticello. Their report summary goes on to state "The most important results from the DNA testing may well have been the determination that Thomas Woodson, long thought by many to be the Tom referred to by James Callender in 1802 as having been conceived by Sally Hemings in Paris, and having a strong physical resemblance to the President could not have been the son of Thomas Jefferson. Subsequent DNA testing of descendants of a third Woodson son confirmed the earlier results. Most of us believe this goes far towards undermining any remaining credibility of the original Callender allegations." Paul Rahe published a minority view, saying he thought Jefferson's paternity of Eston Hemings was more likely than not. The founder and Director Emeritus of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society Herbert Barger, a family historian, had assisted Eugene Foster by finding descendants of the Jefferson male line, Woodsons and Carrs for testing for the DNA study. Foster later said that Barger was "fantastic" and "of immense help to me".Eliot Marshall, ''Which Jefferson Was the Father'', ''Science'' 8, January 1999 The Monticello Jefferson-Hemings Report found that from its "research it was determined that, other than Thomas Jefferson, twenty-five adult male descendants of his father Peter (1707-1757) and his uncle Field (1702-1765) lived in Virginia during the 1794-1807 period of Sally Hemings's pregnancies." Of this number, in examining Randolph Jefferson as a candidate, it found that he made four recorded visits to Monticello (in September 1802, September 1805, May 1808, and sometime in 1814), though none coincided with possible dates of Sally Hemings' conceptions. In August 1807, a probable conception time for Eston Hemings, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his brother about visiting, but there is no evidence that the younger man arrived. Similarly, no documentation of a Randolph visit appears at the probable conception time for Madison Hemings. John H. Works, Jr., a Jefferson-Wayles descendant and a past president of the
Monticello Association The Monticello Association is a non-profit organization founded in 1913 to care for, preserve, and continue the use of the family graveyard at Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The o ...
, a Jefferson lineage society, wrote that DNA tests indicated that any one of eight Jeffersons could have been the father of Eston. The team had concluded that Jefferson's paternity was the simplest explanation and consistent with historic evidence, but the DNA study could not identify Thomas Jefferson exclusively of other Jefferson males because no sample of his DNA was available. In the fall of 2001, articles in the ''National Genealogical Society Quarterly'' criticized the TJHS Scholars Commission Report for poor scholarship and failure to follow accepted historical practices of analysis, or to give sufficient weight to the body of evidence. In the same year, historian Alexander Boulton wrote that Randolph Jefferson had never been seriously proposed as a candidate by historians before the 1998 DNA study. He noted "previous testimony had agreed" that Hemings had only one father for her children, and criticized the idea that she had multiple partners for her children.Alexander Boulton, "The Monticello Mystery-Case Continued": reviews of ''The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty''; ''A President in the Family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings and Thomas Woodson''; and ''Free Some Day: African American Families at Monticello''
; in ''William & Mary Quarterly'', Third Series, Vol. 58, No. 4, October 2001. Quote: "Past defenses of Jefferson having proven inadequate, the TJHS advocates have pieced together an alternative case that preserves the conclusions of earlier champions but introduces new "evidence" to support them. Randolph Jefferson, for example, had never seriously been considered as a possible partner of Sally Hemings until the late 20th century, when DNA evidence indicated that a Jefferson was unquestionably the father of Eston."
Jeanette Daniels, Marietta Glauser, Diana Harvey and Carol Hubbell Ouellette conducted research and in 2003 concluded that Randolph Jefferson had been an infrequent visitor to Monticello.Jeanette K. B. Daniels, AG, CGRS, Marietta Glauser, Diana Harvey, and Carol Hubbell Ouellette, "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, A Look at Some Original Documents"
, ''Heritage Quest Magazine'', May/June 2003


Monticello Association

In 1999,
Lucian Truscott IV Lucian King Truscott IV (born April 11, 1947) is an American writer and journalist. A former staff writer for ''The Village Voice'', he is the author of several military-themed novels including ''Dress Gray,'' which was adapted into a 1986 tele ...
, a Wayles-Jefferson descendant and member of the Monticello Association, the Jefferson lineage society, invited Hemings' descendants to that year's annual meeting.Lucian K. Truscott IV, "Children Of Monticello"
, ''American Heritage'', February/March 2001, Volume 52, Issue 1, accessed April 19, 2012
The Association decided to commission its own report to determine whether it would admit Hemings' descendants to the lineage society (termed the MAC report or Membership Advisory Committee Report). The report was to determine whether the Hemings descendants could satisfy the society's requirements for documentation of lineage. The 2002 report to the Monticello Association concluded the evidence was insufficient to establish Jefferson's paternity. The majority of members voted against admitting the Hemings descendants as members of the group. Truscott noted in ''
American Heritage American Heritage may refer to: * ''American Heritage'' (magazine) * ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' * American Heritage Rivers * American Heritage School (disambiguation) See also *National Register of Historic Place ...
'' magazine that the Association had not had such strict documentation standards before the DNA study results were published in 1998. He checked the previous membership rules and found the following:
ARTICLE III — Membership . . . Any lineal descendant of Thomas Jefferson who applies for membership, and annually pays dues as stated in the By-Laws of this Association, shall be a Regular Member of the Association. . . ." Only those 33 of the 93 words in that section of the article address membership criteria; the rest of the paragraph was largely concerned with the payment of dues.


Monticello Community

In 2010, Shay Banks-Young and Julia Jefferson Westerinen (descended from Sally Hemings' sons Madison and Eston, respectively; they identify as African American and white), and David Works (brother of John H. Works, Jr., and descended from Martha Wayles), were honored with the international "Search for Common Ground" award for "their work to bridge the divide within their family and heal the legacy of slavery." The three have spoken about race and their extended family in numerous appearances across the country.Michel Martin, "Thomas Jefferson Descendants Work To Heal Family's Past"
, NPR, November 11, 2010, accessed March 2, 2011.
After organizing a reunion at Monticello in 2003 of both sides of the Jefferson family, they organized "The Monticello Community", for descendants of all who lived and worked there during Jefferson's lifetime. In July 2007, the three-day Monticello Community Gathering brought together descendants of many people who had worked at the plantation, with educational sessions, tours of Monticello and Charlottesville, and other activities. Shay Banks-Young, a descendant of Madison Hemings, had grown up with a family tradition of descent from Jefferson. David Works had originally resisted the new DNA evidence, but after he read the commissioned reports, he became convinced of Jefferson's paternity. Julia Jefferson Westerinen is descended from Eston Hemings."Julia Jefferson Westerinen"
, ''Getting Word'', Monticello, accessed May 8, 2012
After Hemings moved his family to
Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
in 1852, they took the surname Jefferson and entered the white community. His descendants married and identified as white from then on. In the 1940s, Julia's father and his brothers changed the family oral tradition and told their children they were descended from an uncle of Jefferson, as they were trying to protect them from potential racial discrimination related to their descent from Sally Hemings. In the 1970s, a cousin read
Fawn McKay Brodie Fawn McKay Brodie (September 15, 1915 – January 10, 1981) was an American biographer and one of the first female professors of history at UCLA, who is best known for ''Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History'' (1974), a work of psychobiography, ...
's biography of Jefferson and recognized Eston Hemings' name from family stories. She contacted Brodie and learned the truth about their descent. Their family was later contacted to recruit a male descendant for the 1998 DNA testing. Julia's brother, John Weeks Jefferson, was the Eston Hemings' descendant whose DNA matched that of the Jefferson male line.


Changing scholarship

In his last book before the DNA test results were published, Andrew Burstein wrote that Jefferson could not have been the father of Hemings' children. Since then he published ''Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello'' (2005), in which he concluded that Jefferson did have a long-term sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. Burstein said in an interview about his 2005 book,
On Jefferson's isolated mountaintop, sex took place as part of a hierarchy that everyone involved understood. Jefferson, and those of his class, did not share our current understanding of sexual morality. Sally Hemings was his servant, and had little power. She was dependent economically, though this does not mean her feelings were irrelevant. But it does mean that he had extraordinary power, and she very little, and so, as his
concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubi ...
, she had probably replicated her mother's relationship with Jefferson's father-in-law; for she was, in fact, Jefferson's late wife's half-sister, and I have described the Hemings family as a parallel, subordinate family to the all-white Jeffersons.
In 2005 Christopher Hitchens published a new biography of Jefferson, whom he had always admired and praised. While continuing that praise, he assessed the president and his views. In an interview on NPR about the book, Hitchens discussed Jefferson's pessimistic views of the possibility of the co-existence of whites and blacks in the United States. He said,
Then there's the odd, of course, fact that he had a very long love affair with a woman who he owned, who he inherited from his father-in-law, who was his wife's half-sister, and produced several children by her, whose descendants have mainly been brought up on the white side of the color line. So in a strange way, his own patrimony disproves his own belief that there couldn't be coexistence between black and white Americans.
In her
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning '' The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family'' (2008),
Annette Gordon-Reed Annette Gordon-Reed (born November 19, 1958) is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She ...
recounts the history and biography of four generations of the enslaved Hemings family, focusing on their African and Virginian origins and interrelationships with the Jefferson-Wayles families, until the death in 1826 of Thomas Jefferson. She discusses Jefferson's complex relationships as the family's master, Sally Hemings' partner, and the father of her children.Cohen, Patrici
"Seeing past the slave to study the person"
, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' (September 19, 2008).
Gordon-Reed is frequently asked about the emotional relationship between Jefferson and Hemings when giving talks. She writes, "In all the venues I have visited, from Houston to Stockholm, one question always arises: Did they love each other?" The question brings up many thorny issues in the context of a master-slave relationship. "Rape and the threat of it blighted the lives of countless enslaved women," she notes. "At the same time, some black women and white men did form bonds quite different in character than from those resulting from sexual coercion." In 2012, the
Thomas Jefferson Foundation The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, originally known as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation founded in 1923 to purchase and maintain Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third ...
(which operated Monticello as a house museum and archive) and the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
collaborated on a major exhibit held at the
National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history. Among the items on display is t ...
, ''Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: The Paradox of Liberty'' (January–October 2012). Described as a "groundbreaking exhibit", it was the first on the national Mall to address Jefferson as slaveholder and the family lives of slaves at Monticello. Jacqueline Trescott, "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: The Paradox of Liberty"
''The Washington Post'', January 27, 2012, accessed April 21, 2012
Members and descendants of six families, including the Hemings, were documented and the strength of the enslaved families was shown. The exhibit also noted that "evidence strongly support the conclusion that Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings' children."''Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: The Paradox of Liberty''
, January 27, 2012 – October 14, 2012, Smithsonian Institution, accessed March 23, 2012. Quote: "The NAtest results show a genetic link between the Jefferson and Hemings descendants: A man with the Jefferson Y chromosome fathered Eston Hemings (born 1808). While there were other adult males with the Jefferson Y chromosome living in Virginia at that time, most historians now believe that the documentary and genetic evidence, considered together, strongly support the conclusion that Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings's children."
More than one million visitors saw the exhibit. Following the Washington run, the exhibit toured the US, being held at museums in
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, St. Louis and other venues. Both the United States National Park Service and the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs note in their online biographies that Jefferson's paternity of Hemings' children has been widely accepted.


Representation in media

In 1979, Barbara Chase-Riboud published a novel on Hemings that gave her a voice, portraying her as both an independent woman and Jefferson's concubine. Jefferson historians succeeded in suppressing a planned CBS television film based on this novel. In 1995, the film ''
Jefferson in Paris ''Jefferson in Paris'' is a 1995 historical drama film, directed by James Ivory, and previously entitled ''Head and Heart''. The screenplay, by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, is a semi-fictional account of Thomas Jefferson's tenure as the Ambassador of the ...
'' was released, which portrayed a Jefferson-Hemings liaison. CBS aired the television film ''Sally Hemings: An American Scandal'' (1999), also portraying this relationship; it was not challenged by any major historian. While historians have discussed the issue, numerous artists, writers and poets have grappled with the meaning of Jefferson's paternity in American history, as in these selections from a list of resources listed in a Lehigh University student project of "History on Trial": ''The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy'':Resources: ''The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy''
, History on Trial, Lehigh University, 2009–2012
* Bolcom, William, composer. ''From the Diary of Sally Hemings''. Perf: Alyson Cambridge, Lydia Brown. Audio CD. White Pine Music, 2010. Setting of text by
Sandra Seaton Sandra Cecelia Seaton is an American playwright and librettist. She received the Mark Twain Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature in 2012. Seaton taught creative writing and African-American literature at Central Michigan ...
(18 pieces) *Hartz, Jill. ''Siting Jefferson: Contemporary Artists Interpret Thomas Jefferson's Legacy''. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2003. The record of a
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
Art Museum exhibit, ''Hindsight/Fore-sight: Art for the New Millennium'' (2000), in which performance works, such as Todd Murphy's "Monument to Sally Hemings" (on the cover), were site-specific. A chapter is devoted to "Thomas Jefferson: Race and National Identity."
''Hindsight/Fore-Site: Art for the New Millennium'' (2000)
University of Virginia Art Museum, some images from installations

Of Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Mion wrote: "I feel that the real story is being overlooked. Most people don't know that Sally was Martha's half-sister and that, by written accounts, she looked like Martha. Sally moved into the White House after Martha's death. How strange it must have been for Jefferson to be constantly reminded of his dead wife." *Monteith, Sharon.
Sally Hemings in Visual Culture: A Radical Act of the Imagination?
''Slavery and Abolition'' 29.2 (2008): 233–46. Explores the representation of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship in visual culture.

Fiber Scene. In a public art installation at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, Park placed wigs she had made on historical public statues sited on the campus. She said, "Thomas Jefferson wore a slave bonnet and a wig, alluding to his alleged relationship with his slave mistress of forty years, Sally Hemings."
Saar, Lezley. ''Harriet Hemings: Slave Daughter of Thomas Jefferson'' (1999)
All-Art.org * Salter, Mary Jo. "The Hand of Jefferson," in ''A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems,'' New York: Knopf, 2008. pp. 124–38. Excerpt: "His time is over. / He'll take the answer to his grave / whether he fathered children with his slave, / Sally Hemings; what words he'll offer / to cover himself are buried in a drawer, / meant for his tombstone."
Seaton, Sandra. "From the Diary of Sally Hemings"
''Michigan Quarterly Review'' 40.4 (2001). (See William Bolcom above, who set several of these texts to music.)
Taylor, Tess. "A Letter to Jefferson from Monticello"
''Common-Place'', Vol. 13 No. 4, Poetry. See also poet's note: Research Notes. Taylor is a descendant from the Jefferson-Wayles marriage.
"Virginia is for Lovers"
''The Hook'', 19 April 2007. Article reports on the Committee for Jeffersonian Traditions, a "new secret society" at the University of Virginia, running a "Tommy Heart Sally" campaign "to knock school founder Thomas Jefferson off his pedestal and bolster the recognition of his African American slave and mistress, Sally Hemings."


See also

* ''
Clotel ''Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States'' is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brow ...
'' or ''The Presidents Daughter'' an 1853 novel by William Wells Brown *
Bibliography of Thomas Jefferson This bibliography of works on Thomas Jefferson is a comprehensive list of published works about Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States. Biographical and political accou ...
* List of haplogroups of historic people * Randolph Jefferson § Suggested paternity of Sally Hemings' children * Children of the plantation * African heritage of presidents of the United States *
List of presidents of the United States who owned slaves This is a list of presidents of the United States who owned slaves. Slavery was legal in the United States from its beginning as a nation, having been practiced in North America from early colonial days. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United S ...


Notes


References


Further reading

*


External links


"The History of a Secret: A chronology of how the Jefferson-Hemings story was long dismissed by historians as legend, lie or worse"
''Jefferson's Blood'',
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
''
Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...
,'' May 2000
"Web resources on the Hemings Controversy"
Monticello Website (Thomas Jefferson landmark)
''The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy'' (16 episodes, 2009–2012)
History on Trial project, Lehigh University
Herbert Barger, ''Thomas Jefferson – Sally Hemings: the truth about a founding father''/ "The DNA Study"
n.d., Thomas Jefferson – Sally Hemings blog, articles cited on first page, 2002–2003

at the International Society of Genetic Genealogy * ''
Jefferson in Paris ''Jefferson in Paris'' is a 1995 historical drama film, directed by James Ivory, and previously entitled ''Head and Heart''. The screenplay, by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, is a semi-fictional account of Thomas Jefferson's tenure as the Ambassador of the ...
'' (1995) – a
James Ivory James Francis Ivory (born June 7, 1928) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. For many years, he worked extensively with Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic as well as professional partner, and with screen ...
film dramatizing some episodes of the Jefferson-Hemings story; produced before results of DNA study.
''Sally Hemings, An American Scandal''
(2001) – a TV mini-series written by
Tina Andrews Tina may refer to: People *Tina (given name), people and fictional characters with the given name ''Tina'' Places *Tina, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran *Tina, Tunisia, a town in Sfax Governorate, Tunisia *Tina, Guadalcanal, Solomon ...
dramatizing the Jefferson-Hemings story. Released on DVD as ''Sally Hemings: An American Love Story'' (2011) *
Did John Adams Out Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings?
article on Smithsonianmag.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferson-Hemings controversy Hemings controversy 1790s in the United States 1800s in the United States 1873 in the United States 1874 in the United States 18th-century controversies in the United States 19th-century controversies in the United States Genetic genealogy Historical controversies Interracial relationships Multiracial affairs in the United States Presidents of the United States and slavery Sally Hemings