The Foundation has concluded, based on its own research, that Jefferson and Hemings were the parents of at least one child.
“We’re confident about our own findings, but always welcome new evidence which we will take seriously,” Jordan told United Press International. “But there is no new evidence here, no original evidence.” …
Jordan told UPI, “We never said that DNA proved it. We said that the science and the history, especially the oral history, suggest a high probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered all of Sally Hemings’ children.”24
A Cox News reporter wrote: “The findings were questioned by Daniel P. Jordan, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. ‘Their scholars disagree with our scholars,’ he said. ‘We are confident about our findings. … ’”25 A Chicago Tribune writer reported: “Daniel Jordan, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, said his organization would stand by its conclusions.”26 A Washington Times account concluded:
The commission’s findings were in turn disputed by those at Monticello who argue that the evidence shows that Jefferson had an affair with Miss Hemings and fathered children with her. “The scientific, historical and documentary evidence indicates that Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings and was most likely the father of all six of her children,” said Wayne Mogielnicki, spokesman for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
“At first glance they did little or no original research and we have seen nothing that would cause us to alter our opinion on the matter,” Mr. Mogielnicki said.27
Since Mr. Mogielnicki and his colleagues at Monticello had not yet seen a copy of our full report at the time of these comments,28 his statement that “we have seen nothing” may have been factually accurate, if misleading. But, under the circumstances, such statements are difficult for me to understand. Furthermore, ignoring the fact that they had not yet even seen the report, given the large number of errors that we pointed out in their own internal report on the issue, if our report contained no “new information,” one must ask why Monticello had not previously corrected such errors as:
Relying upon the altered transcription of Ellen Randolph Coolidge’s letter from Professor Gordon-Reed’s book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, that totally reversed the clear intent of the original document;29
Asserting that all of Sally Hemings’ children were freed at the age of 21;30
Relying upon the 1873 story attributed to Madison Hemings without acknowledging its clear factual errors—such as the allegation that Dolley Madison was present at the birth of Madison Hemings;31
Relying upon obviously biased “witnesses” like John Kelly and Thomas Gibbons as evidence of a widely held belief that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings;32
Contending that no one had ever suggested Randolph Jefferson was the likely father of some of Sally’s children, and failing to point out the obvious correlation between the Eston Hemings family oral history—that Eston was the child of Thomas Jefferson’s “uncle”—and the fact that Randolph Jefferson was widely known as “Uncle Randolph” at Monticello;33 and
Asserting that the “oral histories” of all of Sally Hemings’ descendants confirmed that Thomas Jefferson fathered her children, whereas—if one excludes the obviously false stories passed down (and presumably accepted and repeated in good faith) among Woodson descendants (by far the strongest of the oral traditions)—only the descendants of Madison Hemings passed down a consistent story that they were descendants of Thomas Jefferson, and their accounts add little to the published account attributed to Madison in 1873. If Madison Hemings, like Thomas Woodson, either knowingly misrepresented the facts or was simply misinformed about his paternity, the entire oral history project adds nothing to the search for the truth in this matter. And, as discussed in Chapter Four, we know that many of the facts attributed to Madison Hemings are clearly not true.
It is simply not accurate to say there is “nothing new” in terms of factual information of relevance to the Jefferson-Hemings issue in the Scholars Commission report. But it probably is true that our greatest contribution has not been in uncovering a wealth of new documents or historical facts relevant to the debate, but rather in pointing out major factual and logical errors in the arguments being used by champions of the Hemingses’ claim. It is, after all, very difficult to find compelling evidence to prove a negative.
Another troubling aspect of the Monticello Report is that some of their factual findings contradict positions they held prior to the DNA tests that had nothing to do with those tests. A Monticello visitors guide prepared in the late 1980s, for example, noted that Thomas Jefferson “privately denied” Callender’s charge that he fathered children by Sally Hemings.34 That is a factually correct statement: in 1805 the Federalist press had just renewed a series of allegations, including the Sally Hemings story, and Jefferson wrote to a friend that the “only” one of “all their allegations against me” that was “founded in truth” was the one involving Mrs. Walker.35 It is certainly possible that Jefferson was not telling the truth, but the use of “only” and “all” in that context excludes the reasonable interpretation that—because Jefferson did not specifically mention Sally Hemings in his comment—that Federalist charge was not encompassed by his statement. But in the Monticello Report, we are told: “An ambiguous private letter of 1805 has been interpreted by some historians as a denial.”36
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the “problem” with Monticello’s handling of this issue than their treatment of “oral history,” or what is more accurately called “oral tradition.” For years, Monticello interviewed descendants of Thomas Woodson, accepting their claim that he was the child of Sally Hemings even when they were not prepared to acknowledge the truth of his claim that Thomas Jefferson was his father. By far the strongest oral tradition alleging a Jefferson-Hemings sexual relationship came from Woodson descendants, and most of the interviews related to Sally Hemings in Monticello’s “Getting Word” program of recording slave descendant family traditions reportedly involved individuals claiming Thomas Woodson as their ancestor.
When six DNA tests proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Thomas Woodson could not have been Thomas Jefferson’s child—but said nothing about Woodson’s possible connection with Sally Hemings—one might have expected Monticello to respect their extensive collection of oral traditions except to the degree they had been proven inaccurate by science. But this would have meant acknowledging that Sally Hemings could not have been both monogamous and a sexual partner of Thomas Jefferson (or for that matter any Jefferson male37), and that, in turn, would undermine the strongest circumstantial case pointing to Thomas Jefferson as opposed to one of the two dozen or more other candidates as the father of Eston Hemings. So—while Monticello continued to host the Woodson descendants as part of the Hemings family for purposes of a family reunion38 —they assumed for the purposes of their paternity investigation that Woodson could not have been Sally Hemings’ child.39
Nor were they any more considerate of the oral traditions passed down by descendants of Eston Hemings. It is understandable that some of those individuals, after having been told by Fawn Brodie that they were in reality descendants of perhaps America’s brightest President, would look for ways to dismiss the stories they had been told by parents and grandparents that Eston’s father was not President Jefferson but merely an “uncle.” But it is more difficult to understand why Monticello scholars would dismiss this oral tradition—unless, without it or the strong traditions passed down through the Woodson family, they realized that all they really had were reports that descendants of Madison Hemings had passed down the story published by Samuel Wetmore in 1873, with all of its obvious shortcomings.
When the Scholars Commission report was released and it became obvious to most that the DNA tests had been misrepresented and did not come close to proving that Thomas Jefferson fathered any children by Sally Hemings (indeed, by disproving the Woodson predicate to the Callender allegation, the DNA tests actually u
ndermined Callender’s original story), Dr. Jordan explained to the media that it did not really matter, because “We never said that DNA proved it. We said that the science and the history, especially the oral history,”40 made Thomas Jefferson the most likely father of Sally Hemings’ children. But, on the contrary, the DNA test exposed the Woodson oral history claims to be false, and the story passed down by descendants of Eston Hemings (prior to their corruption in the mid-1970s through the intervention of Fawn Brodie) that Eston’s father was a Jefferson “uncle,” could most easily be reconciled with the DNA tests by concluding that “Uncle” Randolph Jefferson was Eston’s father. Monticello knew Randolph had been invited to Monticello shortly before Eston was conceived and had a documented propensity to socialize at night with his brother’s slaves.
Until Nature misreported the significance of the DNA tests, few serious scholars took Fawn Brodie’s “psycho-history” of Thomas Jefferson seriously. Over the years, scholarly reviewers from across the political spectrum have panned it as silliness, and quite rightly.41 But the Monticello Research Committee alleged that Brodie’s scholarship “has stood the test of time.”42
Throughout our entire inquiry, and extending to his retirement in 2008,43 Dr. Jordan and his staff at Monticello were totally cooperative and more than gracious in their dealings with me. Not once, in my presence or in their written communications to me, have I heard any criticism of the material facts or conclusions contained in the Scholars Commission report. Yet, from other sources, including current and former guides and financial contributors to Monticello, I hear very different reports. Guides speak of having to move away from the mansion even to discuss the report among themselves, for fear that they may lose their jobs, and tell stories of other guides being reprimanded for mentioning during a tour that some prominent Jefferson scholars do not agree with the Foundation’s conclusion that Thomas Jefferson probably fathered Sally Hemings’ children. One substantial contributor reports that a senior Monticello fundraiser told her that the Scholars Commission report was “full of inaccuracies,” mentioning as an example our observation that Thomas Jefferson wrote that Monticello was kept locked while he was away in Washington. This, she said, was a “foolish” argument, because no one “could lock up a whole plantation.” This is absurd. As documented above at page 132, in a 1797 letter Jefferson wrote: “our house is shut up one half the year.”44 Monticello employees are certainly aware that, to prevent theft, Jefferson installed locks on many interior and all exterior doors, and the exterior doors were routinely kept locked when the family was away during his service in the White House. Although the word “Monticello” (Italian for “little mountain”) denotes Thomas Jefferson’s plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia, it is also used to describe the mansion he built on top of the mountain.45 Our obvious point was not that there were barbed-wire-capped chain-link fences all around the mountain, but that Jefferson’s home—where friends and relatives would routinely gather during his presence—was kept locked or “shut up” during his absence and thus visitors would be uncommon.
At about the same time, I received a fax (from an unidentified sender) of a copy of a letter signed by a senior Monticello official to a New York attorney, who had written to a mutual friend asking why, following the release of the Scholars Commission report, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation did not at least take a more neutral position on the Sally Hemings issue. I sought the consent of both parties to reprint this letter, and the recipient gave his consent but suggested that I avoid mentioning names. The sender indicated it was a “private” letter which should not be shared beyond the original recipient and anyone copied on the original.
I have agonized about how to handle this letter since it first came into my possession. Were I convinced that it was, in fact, a “private” communication between two friends, the case against publication would be extremely powerful and could only be overcome by the strongest considerations of public good. But on its face it appears to be an official explanation of Thomas Jefferson Foundation views—written to an apparent stranger on Monticello letterhead—and it may contribute to an explanation of the Foundation’s position.
Rather than reprinting the letter in its entirety, however, I have decided to make only two brief references. The letter asserts that the Scholars Commission report “offered no surprises and very little in the way of new insights or evidence”—essentially the position taken publicly by the Foundation’s President and press spokesman the day our report was issued—and it informed the recipient that the “only truly third-party, objective, and independent assessment[s]” of the debate were “a recent article in the William & Mary Quarterly” and a “special issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.” These articles have also been referenced by other supporters of the revisionist viewpoint, and they will be discussed below.
About a year later, however, a significant change appears to have taken place at Monticello. I received several reports from individuals who had recently taken tours of Jefferson’s home saying that the guides were now taking a more balanced view, noting both the initial conclusions of the Foundation’s Research Committee and the fact that a group of scholars later reached a different conclusion—leaving visitors to make up their own minds on the issue. During much of 2001 and all of 2002, the Monticello Web site had included a section entitled “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account.”46 Perhaps most importantly, this Web page concluded:
It likely will take newly uncovered historical evidence or scientific methods still unknown to determine beyond doubt the truth about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and the complete story may never be known. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation stands by its original findings—that the weight of evidence suggests that Jefferson probably was the father of Eston Hemings and perhaps the father of all of Sally Hemings’ children—but is ready to review new evidence at any time and to reassess its understanding of this matter in the light of new information.47
However, in February 2003, Monticello altered this Web page, inserting the following new conclusion:
Although the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings has been for many years, and will surely continue to be, a subject of intense interest to historians and the public, the evidence is not definitive, and the complete story may never be known. The Foundation encourages its visitors and patrons, based on what evidence does exist, to make up their own minds as to the true nature of the relationship.48
This is a far more defensible position.
In early 2008 the TJF announced that the number of visitors to Monticello had continued to decline since 2002—reaching a twenty-eight-year low in 2007. This was despite the fact that the Foundation had “offered discounts and worked with cultural and historic organizations to get Monticello on people’s minds.” 49 Monticello spokesmen explained the decline in part as a result of “[h]igher gas prices and the lackluster fall foliage,” but the primary explanation was a “nationwide trend at similar places.”50
However, in covering the story, the Charlottesville Daily Progress did some independent research and reported:
Two similar historic sites in Virginia didn’t see the same attendance pattern last year. Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington outside Alexandria, had 1.08 million visitors in 2007, the first time since the 9/11 tragedy that the site had more than 1 million visitors, a spokesman said. James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange County [located within thirty miles of Monticello] saw an increase in visitation in 2007 of about 25 percent from 2006. …51
While there may be many variables at play here, some consideration might be given to the possibility that many Americans bring their families to places like Monticello, Mount Vernon, and Montpelier to celebrate the lives and pay respect to the memories of the nation’s founders. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s decision to stop “memoralizing” Thomas Jefferson clearly alienated many visitors, and might well have been a factor in the downward trend of Monticello visitors.
; Reaction of Scholars
One of the greatest surprises (and, from my perspective, disappointments) was the reaction of the leading revisionist scholars to our report. I had anticipated that they would vigorously challenge us, and that the public would benefit from the scholarly exchanges that might follow. When Scholars Commission member Professor Paul Rahe (our sole dissenter) asked whether I would be willing to take part in a debate on the Jefferson-Hemings issue at the 2002 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, I enthusiastically accepted. But, in the end, the planned program had to be cancelled when Professor Rahe proved unable to find a prominent revisionist scholar willing to debate the issue. Others have contacted me about possibly taking part in debates as well, only to report later that the leading revisionists had said they had “moved on” to other issues.
It is perhaps understandable that the two most prominent scholars supporting the Hemingses’ claim withdrew a bit from the limelight on this issue, as both came under fire about the time our report was released. While the first case was addressed in our original report, it has largely been ignored (despite several front-page stories about similar behavior from other scholars52). The second received major press coverage shortly after our report was released, but because the scholar was so respected and so critical to the widespread misunderstanding of the DNA stories it probably warrants further mention here. I will take them in order and discuss them before considering the views of other scholars and writers.
Professor Annette Gordon-Reed
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 62