The Jefferson-Hemings
Controversy
Report of the Scholars Commission
Edited by
Robert F. Turner
CAROLINA ACADEMIC PRESS
* * *
Durham, North Carolina
Copyright © 2001, 2011
Robert F. Turner
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Matter.
The Jefferson-Hemings controversy : report of the Scholars Commission / edited by Robert F. Turner.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-89089-085-1 (alk. paper)
1. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826--Relations with women. 2. Hemings, Sally. 3. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826--Relations with slaves. 4. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826--Family. I. Turner, Robert F. II. Title.
E332.2.S35 2010
973.4'6092--dc22 2010031551
Carolina Academic Press
700 Kent Street
Durham, NC 27701
Telephone (919) 489-7486
Fax (919) 493-5668
www.cap-press.com
Printed in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to the memory of our beloved colleagues
Professor Lance Banning
Hallam Professor of History
University of Kentucky
(January 24, 1942–January 31, 2006)
and
Professor Alf J. Mapp, Jr.
Eminent Scholar, Emeritus and Louis I. Jaffe Professor of History, Emeritus
Old Dominion University
(February 17, 1925–January 23, 2011)
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Members of the Scholars Commission
Scholars Commission on The Jefferson-Hemings Matter, Report 12 April 2001 Summary
Report of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Matter
Introduction
Background to the Controversy
The Scholars Commission
Assessing the Evidence
Assessing the Arguments
Conclusions
Minority Report
Individual Views of Scholars Commission Members
Individual Views of Professor Robert F. Turner joined by
Professor Alf J. Mapp, Jr., Professor David N. Mayer,
Professor Forrest McDonald, and Professor Thomas Traut
Introduction - The Sally Hemings Scandal and the Origins of the Scholars Commission Professor Gordon-Reed and "Transcription Errors"
Feeding Frenzy
About the Scholars Commission
1 - Understanding the DNA Evidence Linking Eston Hemings to Thomas Jefferson's Cousins The Clinton Impeachment Factor
The DNA Tests
Conclusions
2 - The Enigmatic Sally Hemings: So Few Facts, So Much Fantasy and Speculation Sally's Birth and Arrival at Monticello
Abigail Adams' Observations about Sally Hemings
Sally Hemings in Paris
Sally Hemings at Monticello
Thomas Jefferson's Known Statements about Sally Hemings
Sally Hemings' Known Statements about Thomas Jefferson
Sally Hemings' Children
Substituting Speculation for Scholarship
Was Sally Hemings Monogamous?
Sally Hemings' Life after Thomas Jefferson's Death
Sally's Alleged Child "Thenia"
3 - James Thomson Callender and the Origins of the 1802 Jefferson-Hemings Scandal
4 - Madison Hemings' 1873 "Memoir" in the Pike County Republican Madison Could Not Have Known Whether Key Parts of His Story Were True
The Words of the Story Are Likely Those of an Anti-Jefferson Editor
Madison Was the Only Member of His Family to Claim that Thomas Jefferson Was Their Father
Portions of Madison's Story Are Inconsistent with Known Facts
Other Parts of the Story Are Very Difficult to Believe
The Gordon-Reed Alterations to the Wetmore Article
The Statement Attributed to Israel Jefferson
Conclusions
Addendum: The Ellis Revelations
5 - Thomas Jefferson's Visitation Patterns to Monticello and Their Correlation with Sally Hemings' Conceptions "Junk Science"
The One-Father Assumption
Stacking the Deck
Cause and Effect
Where Was Sally?
Cause or Catalyst?
Monticello Was "Shut Up" When Jefferson Was Away
Old Age and Fecundity
6 - "Extraordinary Privileges" for Sally Hemings and Her Children The Real Explanation for "Special Treatment"
7 - The Physical Resemblance of Some of Sally Hemings' Children to Thomas Jefferson Known Children of Sally Hemings
8 - Reassessing the Oral Tradition of Sally Hemings' Descendants The Eston Hemings Family Oral Tradition Asserted Thomas Jefferson Was Not Eston's Father
Shortcomings of Oral Traditions
Thomas Jefferson's "Other" Black Children
Other Monticello Slave Accounts Make No Reference to the Alleged Jefferson-Hemings Affair
9 - Miscellaneous Arguments Said to Support Thomas Jefferson's Paternity of Sally Hemings' Children "Psychohistory" and Jefferson's Use of the Term Mulatto
Opinions of Jefferson's Friends and Neighbors
Verdict of the American People
Why Jefferson Never Publicly Denied the Callender Charges
Ohio Census, Rumors, and Newspaper Allegations
Thomas Jefferson as Music Teacher to His Slaves
Did Jefferson "Train" Sally's Children to Marry Whites?
The Alleged "Closeness" of Sally's Children
The Absence of Letters and References to Sally and the Great Coverup
Using the Absence of Information as Evidence
Does the Fact that Sally Hemings Apparently Did Not Bear Children by Other Slaves Imply Thomas Jefferson's Misconduct?
French Law Governing Slaves
10 - Revisionist Arguments Reconsidered: Evidence Too Quickly Dismissed? The Testimony of Edmund Bacon
The Accounts of Thomas Jefferson's Relatives
The Assessment of Sally Hemings by Abigail Adams and Andrew Ramsay
The Mysterious Thomas Hemings
Other Possible Fathers
The Issue of the Timing of Sally's Conceptions
11 - The "Silent Dogs" and Other Issues Ignored by Most Revisionist Scholars The Missing Evidence that Ought to Exist
Problems with Some Implicit Assumptions of Revisionist Scholars
Would Thomas Jefferson Have Entrusted His Reputation to the Discretion of Sally Hemings?
Was Sally Hemings Thomas Jefferson's "Type"?
Why Did Sally Not Confirm the Relationship after Jefferson's Death?
Why Did None of Sally's Children Confirm the Relationship During the Four Decades after Jefferson's Death?
With One Problematic Exception, Other Monticello Slaves Did Not Confirm the Allegation
To Accept This Story, We Must Dismiss the Oral Tradition of Eston Hemings' Family and Accept Instead the Unsupported Allegations of Vile Racists Like James Callender and Thomas Gibbons
Why Did Thomas Jefferson Not Free Sally in His Will?
Individual Views of Professor Jean M. Yarborough, joined by Professor Charles Kessler and Professor Harvey C. Mansfield
12 - Individual Views of Jean M. Yarborough, Charles Kessler, and Harvey C. Mansfield
Individual Views of Professor Lance Banning
13 - Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: Case Closed?
14 - Individual Views of Professor Robert H. Ferrell
Individual Views of Professor David N. Mayer
15 - The Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Myth and the Politicization of American History Introduction
Evolution of the Myth
Myth vs. History: Oral Tradition as Unreliable Evidence
Broader Context of the Myth Today: The Assault on Standards
The Flawed Case for the Jefferson-Hemings Story
The Implausibility of the Story
Denials by Jefferson Himself and Virtually All His Contemporaries
Jefferson's Character
Conclusion
Individual Views of Professor Forrest McDonald
16 - Individual Views of Professor Forrest McDonald
Individual Views of Professor Thomas Traut
17 - Does the DNA Analysis Establish Thomas Jefferson's Paternity of Sally Hemings' Children? Background on DNA Analysis
Strategy of the DNA Analysis
Results of the DNA Analysis by Foster et al.
Interpretation of the DNA Analysis by Foster et al.
Conclusion
Notes
Statement of Playwright Karyn Traut
18 - Thomas Jefferson: Brother's Keeper A Playwright's Progress
Additional Sources
Minority Views of - Professor Paul A. Rahe
19 - Minority Views of Professor Paul A. Rahe
Editor's Postscript: - Reactions to the Scholars Commission Report
20 - Editor's Postscript: Reactions to the Scholars Commission Report The Press Conference
The Monticello Association Vote
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello)
Reaction of Scholars
Multiculturalism and Thought Reform in America
Conclusion
Preface
* * *
For more than two centuries there have been rumors and allegations that Thomas Jefferson had a long-term sexual relationship with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. They originated from the pen of a disreputable journalist named James Thomson Callender in October 1802 and were picked up by Federalist editors and abolitionists in the United States and abroad. Most serious Jefferson scholars and many of Jefferson’s political enemies dismissed them, in part because the notorious Callender lacked credibility and in part because the charge seemed so out of character for Jefferson. But the story resurfaced with the 1974 publication of Fawn Brodie’s Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Biography and became more believable in the 1997 book by Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
Perhaps the most decisive development in the case was the publication in the prestigious British science journal Nature in November 1998 of results of a DNA study linking Sally Hemings’ youngest son to a Jefferson father. In January 2000 the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation—owner of Jefferson’s home at Monticello and long a protector of the former president’s reputation—issued its own report concluding that President Jefferson fathered at least one and perhaps all of Sally Hemings’ children.
Still, not everyone was convinced, and a group of doubters came together and established the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society. Their first act was to seek a blue-ribbon reexamination of all of the evidence for and against Thomas Jefferson’s paternity of one or more of Sally Hemings’ children. They approached a diverse group of senior scholars with a simple request: carefully examine all of the evidence, draw your own conclusions, and issue a public report. The Heritage Society played no role in the actual investigation, and no member of the Scholars Commission was compensated in any way for his or her efforts in this process. This volume is the final product of that “Scholars Commission” inquiry.
After a year-long investigation involving individual research and group meetings in a hotel near Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C., summary majority and minority reports were drafted and approved by group members. In addition, members of the Commission were invited to express their personal views with individual statements concurring or dissenting from the majority report. In the pages that follow, the official Majority Report—adhered to by twelve of the thirteen members of the Commission—appears first, followed by the Minority Report. It should be emphasized that the statements of individual views that follow the official summary report are attributable only to the members whose names appear at the front of each such statement.
In an effort to provide some historical context to the reception given the report and relevant subsequent developments, the editor has attached a Postscript at the end of the volume. The views expressed therein are his alone, and the Postscript is not a part of the official Report of the Scholars Commission. Members of the Scholars Commission are listed with their academic institutions for purposes of identification only, and the views expressed herein are those of the individuals involved and should not be attributed to any university, organization, or other entity.
Copies of the majority and minority reports and supplemental statements of individual views were distributed at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 12, 2001. Members were then given additional time to expand and revise their individual statements, with the expectation that a book version of the Scholars Commission Report would appear the following year. Regrettably, publication was delayed because the professional duties of the chairman of the commission and editor of this volume involved the study of international terrorism and other aspects of national security law. As might be imagined, the demands on his time following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks left little time for extracurricular endeavors.
We are pleased finally to make this volume available. It does not pretend to be the final answer to the controversy, but we hope it will be useful in assisting interested readers to understand the relevant facts and issues and to identify points of disagreement between experts.
Robert F. Turner
Charlottesville, Virginia
February 14, 2011
Acknowledgments
* * *
Being asked to chair the Scholars Commission (SC), and to work with such a distinguished group of scholars, was among my most memorable and cherished professional activities. I want to thank the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) and its members for giving me this opportunity, and all of my distinguished colleagues on the SC for their outstanding work in our shared search for the truth. I also owe each of them my profound apology for the long delay in finally getting this volume in print.
Sadly, because of my delay in getting the final manuscript ready for publication, two of the most active and distinguished members of the Scholars Commission passed away before the book was published. Professors Lance Banning and Alf Mapp attended all of our meetings and took an active part in bringing this work to fruition. Both were extraordinary human beings and superb Jefferson scholars. We have dedicated this volume to them, but I wanted to add a personal note to emphasize my own deep indebtedness to both of them. I like to think that although they are no longer among us, their contributions will live on for years to come through their writings and the work of their students. May they rest in peace with the knowledge that the world was a better place for their presence here.
I would be remiss if I did not thank several individuals who contributed to bringing this volume to fruition. Marilyn Yurk provided the guidance of a professional editor, as did Becky Gildersleeve. Carolyn Andersen provided valuable research assistance at a critical time.
I am also most grateful to Dr. Keith Sipe, Linda Lacy, Tim Colton, and their colleagues at Carolina Academic Press—who provided encouragement and a variety of other assistance in transforming the manuscript into a finished book. They patiently tolerated the numerous delays in the process caused by the post-9/11 increased demands on my time. I have worked with them on several other volumes over more than two decades, and they have never failed to exceed all reasonable expectations.
Addi
tional acknowledgments for assistance with my own personal contributions to this volume appear at the end of the Introduction to my Individual Views.1
RFT
Members of the Scholars Commission
* * *
Lance Banning
Hallam Professor of History
University of Kentucky
Professor Banning held the John Adams Chair in American History at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and served as Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh. Two of his award-winning books (The Jeffersonian Persuasion and Jefferson and Madison) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History.
James Ceaser
Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs
University of Virginia
Professor Ceaser is the author of Reconstructing America and has taught at Harvard University, the University of Montesquieu, the University of Basel, and Marquette University.
Robert H. Ferrell
Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus
Indiana University
Professor Ferrell was educated and has also taught at Yale University. He is the author or editor of more than forty books, and was described as “the dean of American presidential historians” by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Charles R. Kesler
Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government
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