Does she mean that Madison Hemings’ assertion that Thomas Jefferson “had but little taste or care for agricultural pursuits”29 should be given equal weight to the hundreds of pages of contemporary records to the contrary in Jefferson’s own handwriting, or that the “oral traditions” handed down in good faith by descendants of Thomas Woodson should be given equal weight with the six DNA tests of descendants of three of Woodson’s sons showing no connection with the Jefferson DNA? To her credit, Professor Gordon-Reed is apparently willing to give the Woodson DNA test results more weight than the oral traditions of his descendants, as she writes:
What we know of the Woodson link to Jefferson and Hemings comes exclusively from generations of Woodsons, who passionately asserted the truth of their own family tradition. Their claims could not be dismissed out of hand, however, for different branches of the family, who had no contact with one another, had preserved the same account of Woodson’s paternity. Once again, DNA testing was determinate: The DNA results that bolstered the Hemings family tradition totally discounted the Woodsons’ claim.30
In an effort to explain some obvious factual errors in James Callender’s accounts of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Joshua Rothman writes in Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson:
Most people who knew the story had probably heard it secondhand, at best. Callender’s information came to him through at least one other person and more likely through two, three, or four. The more people the story passed through before it got to Callender, the less likely that all of the facts would be correct.31
Obviously, this is equally true of family “oral history” or “family tradition”—irrespective of the race of the storytellers. And when the stories are preserved in human memories for years at a time between retellings, the chances of errors obviously increase. Further, there is a natural temptation for each party to the exchange to embellish the family legacy to instill pride and confidence in the next generation.
Historians cannot be held to the same standards of evidence demanded of attorneys in a court of law where people’s rights or liberties may hang in the balance, but the rules of evidence are nonetheless relevant to any factual inquiry. The reason “hearsay” evidence is normally excluded from court is that both experience and reason show that it is less reliable than first-person testimony. No attorney would ever consider offering fourth- or fifth-degree hearsay (“I overheard a fellow say that he heard from a guy that a friend of his knew a woman who said she heard . . .”) to a judge or jury, and yet the oral history we are asked to accept in the Hemings case is sixth- or seventh-degree hearsay at best. One of the many problems with hearsay is that one cannot be certain that one or more people along the chain did not forget, modify, embellish, or otherwise alter the original story.
Consider this account, also in Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson, from two champions of Hemings family oral history, Lucia Stanton and Dianne Swann-Wright, concerning the oral history of Madison Hemings’ youngest daughter, Ellen Wayles Hemings, who married a man said to have “no white blood”:
Some of Ellen’s descendants tell an interesting story about the origin of this union: Madison Hemings, old and infirm, arranged this marriage for his last unmarried daughter, joining her, possibly against her will, with a much older man he recognized as able to support her. Ellen and Andrew J. Roberts’s marriage record, however, is dated a year after Madison Hemings’s death and reveals Roberts to be only five years older than his wife.32
Or consider this question: What is one to make of the oral traditions of the descendants of Betty Hemings’ eldest daughter, Mary, who allege such things as that Mary was “one of the three colored women by whom Jefferson had children,”33 and that Jefferson was “unscrupulous in his sexual demands upon colored women?”34
In settings where “family tradition” is the only information available, it obviously warrants attention. At minimum, it may lead historians to other and more reliable leads. In some and perhaps many cases it may prove to be generally accurate, but it is seldom the most reliable of evidence.
In the current dispute, on balance, the Hemings family oral tradition supports the conclusion that “Uncle Randolph” Jefferson or one of his sons was the father of Eston Hemings—the only Hemings child shown by DNA testing to have probably been fathered by a Jefferson. That, in turn, would undermine the theory that Sally Hemings was monogamous or else rule out Thomas Jefferson’s paternity of any of her children. This oral tradition evidence is not highly probative, however, and obviously does not rule out the possibility that Thomas Jefferson fathered one or even all of Sally Hemings’ children.
There is reportedly compelling oral history from the descendants of Madison Hemings identifying Thomas Jefferson as the father of all of Sally Hemings’ children; but the existence of a similar account attributed to Madison himself in 1873 makes it unnecessary to rely upon subsequent family traditions. One might think that if the descendants of Madison Hemings were truly anxious to find the truth, they might cooperate in an effort to obtain DNA from the gravesite of Madison’s son William. But, thus far, that is reportedly not the case. Candidly, there are ethical considerations that also ought to be taken into account before disturbing a gravesite to satisfy historical curiosity.
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Months after this chapter was drafted, another bizarre twist surfaced regarding the Eston Hemings “oral history.” According to an article in the March 3, 2001, New York Times, Julia Jefferson Westerinen is now asserting that her father and his brothers “met in the 40’s and decided to kill the story” that they were descendants of Thomas Jefferson.35 Perhaps this is true. But in November 1998 Julia Jefferson Westerinen repeatedly—including to the New York Times36 and on the Oprah Winfrey Show37—alleged that, until Fawn Brodie38 informed them they were direct descendants of the famous President, her family believed “we were distantly related” to Jefferson through a “nephew” or “uncle.” According to Judith Justus’ book Down from the Mountain, Ms. Westerinen’s father, William McGill Jefferson, passed away in 1956 and his two brothers—Carl S. Jefferson, Jr., and Beverly Frederick Jefferson—by 1960.39
Presumably, some family member is now prepared to announce that he or she recalls one of these deceased relatives having decades ago disclosed a conspiracy to alter the family tree to conceal the reality of having African-American ancestors. And perhaps that is true.40 But the simple reality is, it is also possible that this is but a new attempt to enhance the claim to famous ancestry—a claim that has reportedly earned Ms. Westerinen many thousands of dollars on the college lecture circuit. That is one of the most serious problems with having to rely upon oral history as a source of the truth: anyone, at any stage of the process, can embellish or otherwise alter the facts.
Thomas Jefferson’s “Other” Black Children
If one relies upon claims of oral traditions, the allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Monticello slaves go far beyond Sally Hemings. Although the 1873 Pike County Republican article discussed in Chapter Four attributed to Madison Hemings asserts Madison stated Sally’s children “were the only children of his [Jefferson’s] by a slave woman,”41 a 1926 publication entitled Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens asserts that “‘Jos’ Fossett was the son of America’s President and remained with him at Monticello until he went above to join the great galaxy of other notables.”42
An article in the Washington Afro-American asserted that:
It was common knowledge that President Thomas Jefferson had a violent love affair with brown-skinned Sally Hemings. A considerable number of the Jefferson slaves were his own children born by various colored girls on his plantation.43
The November 1954 issue of Ebony magazine included two stories about Jefferson descendants. The primary story states:
Many reputable historians concede that Jefferson fathered at least five Negro children and possibly more by several comely slave concubines who were great favorites at his Monticello home. Although the great bulk of material wr
itten on Jefferson is discreetly silent on this point, numerous authorities hold that the slaves Jefferson freed in his will were his own children. At least three and possibly all five of these slaves—Burwell, Joseph Fossett, John, Madison and Eston Hemings—were sons of the celebrated “Black Sal,” a stunningly-attractive slave girl with long pretty hair and milk-white skin.
Perhaps the best-known Negro descendants of Jefferson are the great grandchildren of one of these slaves, Joseph Fossett. …44
The second story, entitled “Family Tradition Kept Alive by Some of Descendants,” identifies Peter Fossett as Thomas Jefferson’s child and discusses the special privileges he received at Monticello.45
In July 1993, following Thomas Jefferson’s two-hundred-fiftieth birthday, Ebony ran a story on the descendants of Jefferson’s first alleged son by Sally Hemings, Thomas Woodson, whose oral history appears to be the strongest of any of his alleged slave children. The story recounts the oral history of Virginia attorney Robert H. Cooley III, who told a gathering of Jefferson scholars at the University of Virginia “his story—a story that he and hundreds of African-Americans across the country grew up hearing from their elders.” According to Ebony:
The story of the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings …Cooley informed them …is fact—fact backed up by almost 200 years of oral history passed down through generation after generation of Jefferson’s and Hemings’ first-born son, Thomas Woodson.46
Ebony provides this testament from another descendant of Thomas Woodson:
“From the time I was a little boy my family insisted I know my heritage,” said [John Q. T.] King, who can still remember his great-aunt Minerva opening the family Bible to the pages of the family tree and explaining that Thomas Woodson—“our family patriarch”—was the first-born son of Jefferson and Hemings.47
The Woodsons were featured again in Ebony in February 1999, in a story subtitled “Did Jefferson Also Father Children By Sally Hemings’ Sister?”48 Asserting that DNA tests had recently “provided virtual proof-positive that America’s third President fathered at least one child by Hemings,” the story quotes Woodson descendant John King as saying: “We have always had implicit faith and extreme confidence in the oral history of our family. … ”49
The story notes that “five lines of Thomas Woodson descendants who had been dispersed throughout the world for four generations and had no contact with one another maintained consistent oral accounts of their relationship to Jefferson,” and quotes John Q. T. King as saying the oral accounts were not just consistent, “they were almost identical.”50
Indeed, the Woodson family belief in this story was so strong that they readily volunteered for Dr. Eugene Foster’s DNA study to establish their claim. According to Ebony: “While the test offers almost certain evidence that Jefferson is the father of Hemings’ youngest son, Eston, it did not establish a definite Y chromosome match on Thomas. … ”51
In reality, of course, the Woodson tests not only “did not establish a definite Y chromosome match on Thomas,” they established with reasonable certainty that Thomas Jefferson could not have been the father of Thomas Woodson. A subsequent sixth DNA test also revealed no link between descendants of any of three sons of Thomas Woodson and the Jefferson family.
No one questions the sincerity of the Woodson family belief in their illustrious heritage. For generations, the same story was passed down through Woodson families across the land. Similar stories were passed down by at least some lines of the Joe and Peter Fosset families and the family of Madison Hemings. (It is more than a little ironic that the oral history of Eston Hemings, the one Monticello slave who has been connected to a Jefferson father by DNA, apparently did not claim direct lineage from Thomas Jefferson.) The Woodson experience clearly demonstrates the risks inherent in relying upon “family tradition” or “oral history” as fact.
Other Monticello Slave Accounts Make No Reference to
the Alleged Jefferson-Hemings Affair
Concerning the allegation that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings, no discussion of the stories passed down by the descendants of former Monticello slaves would be complete without noting the apparent lack of confirmation of the allegation by other Monticello slaves (with the exception of Israel Jefferson, whose alleged statement has already been addressed in Chapter Four).
It is difficult to imagine that Sally Hemings could have carried on a sexual relationship with Thomas Jefferson for decades without the knowledge of others in the slave community. After two centuries, it is not possible to go back and interview slaves at Monticello to ascertain what they knew or believed. Nevertheless, it is of some significance that—with the exception of the 1873 accounts attributed to Madison Hemings and Israel Jefferson—none of the hundreds of slaves who lived at Monticello during all or part of this alleged relationship have left behind any hint of such knowledge. Surely this would have been recognized as significant news, and surely someone would have left a record if the accounts were at all widespread among those living at Monticello.
Isaac Jefferson
Indeed, it is noteworthy that former slave Isaac Jefferson, whose Memoirs of a Monticello Slave were taken down by Charles W. Campbell in 1847 and first published in 1951, gave no hint of any such relationship. While the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation staff report attempts to downplay the importance of Isaac’s observations by noting that he left Monticello in 1797 (when he was reportedly given to Jefferson’s daughter Polly), Isaac claims to have left Monticello in 1822,52 and former Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Resident Director James A. Bear, Jr., notes that a year after being deeded to Polly, Isaac “apparently joined the family of her sister, Martha Randolph,”53 who lived at Edgehill after 1800 but returned to Monticello in 1809.54
Isaac would have been fourteen years old when Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings returned from Paris, and twenty-two or twenty-three when Harriet I was born. Both during that period, and during the subsequent thirteen-year period beginning in 1809, he would presumably have been cognizant of the major gossip among the slaves and might well have been witness to signs of a decades-long love affair between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson—had such a relationship actually existed. Isaac was the son of perhaps the second most important slave family at Monticello,55 and his factual account seems far more accurate than either Madison Hemings’ or Israel Jefferson’s.56 Although his Memoirs are not lengthy, Isaac specifically discusses Sally Hemings and others in her family; but he offers not the slightest corroboration of the allegations made by Madison Hemings and Israel Jefferson nearly a quarter-century later. Like Edmund Bacon, Isaac Jefferson’s testimony is unusually credible in this matter, as he is providing, for the most part, eye-witness accounts, and he lacks the obvious bias that one might expect to be present with respect to both the Jefferson and the Hemings descendants. While one might argue that in 1847 an African-American man might be hesitant to even discuss rumors of a sexual liaison between a white master and one of his slaves, that cannot be the case here because Isaac expressly mentioned the rumors that Sally herself might have been the child of Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law John Wayles.
Peter Fossett
There is also the account of Peter Fossett, the son of Betty Hemings’ son Joe Fossett who was freed in Jefferson’s will. As a prominent Baptist minister in 1898, Peter Fossett was interviewed by a New York World reporter and gave a highly laudatory account of Thomas Jefferson. He emphasized Jefferson’s kindness towards his slaves, and since he was being interviewed by a predominantly African-American newspaper, presumably he could have presented Jefferson in an even more favorable light to many readers by asserting that Jefferson took a slave woman as his de facto wife after Martha’s death. But Peter Fossett made not the slightest suggestion that Thomas Jefferson was sexually involved with Sally Hemings or any other Monticello slave.57
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Footnotes
1. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committ
ee, Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Appendix F, p. 3 (hereinafter cited as “Monticello Report”).
2. Kurt Samson, Slave’s Children Not Jefferson’s, UPI wire service, COMTEX, Thurs., 12 Apr. 2001, 20:46 ET (emphasis added).
3. See Chapter One at pages 62–64.
4. SHANNON LANIER & JANE FELDMAN, JEFFERSON’S CHILDREN: THE STORY OF ONE AMERICAN FAMILY 56 (2000).
5. Patrick Rogers, Glenn Garelik & Amanda Crawford, Out of the Past: All Tom’s Children—A President’s Presumed Affair With a Slave Gives New Meaning to the Term Jeffersonian, PEOPLE, Nov. 23, 1998, at 77.
6. THE FAMILY LETTERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 182 (Edwin Morris Betts & James Adam Bear, Jr. eds. 1966.
7. Id. at 343. As with so many other things, I am indebted to Cynthia Burton for bringing these letters to my attention.
8. BRODIE, THOMAS JEFFERSON 440.
9. See Chapter Ten.
10. Monticello Report, Appendix G.
11. The argument on the other side would be that even a slight risk of being discovered to have African-American ancestry would be so upsetting to the white Hemings that they could not chance acknowledging their relationship to the famous President. While this strikes us as silly today, we cannot rule it out as a possibility. But it is in this instance clearly a supposition, in a setting where there are reasonable explanations that do not require such creative reasoning.
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 31