User:Parkwells/Jefferson-Hemings controversy
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The Jefferson-Hemings controversy was related to questions for nearly 200 years as to whether United States President Thomas Jefferson had a long-term sexual relationship with his mixed-race slave Sally Hemings and fathered six children by her. When the claim was reported by political opponents in 1799, 1802 and later, Jefferson did not respond publicly. His descendants and various biographers of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries defended him, with denial of the pervasiveness of interracial relationships, especially among white masters and enslaved women. It resulted in many mixed-race "white" slaves in colonial and antebellum American society. The prevalence of the relationships and mixed-race descendants was commented on by contemporary women writers[1], foreign visitors[2], and numerous slave narratives published before the American Civil War, as well as African-American writers following the war. Since the mid-twentieth century, United States historians have more thoroughly studied and documented this issue.
Thomas Jefferson | |
---|---|
3rd President of the United States | |
In office March 4, 1801 ā March 4, 1809 | |
Personal details | |
Born | April 13 [O.S. April 2] 1743 Shadwell, Virginia |
Died | July 4, 1826(1826-07-04) (aged 83) Charlottesville, Virginia |
Spouse | Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson |
In 1873 Hemings' son Madison published a memoir in an Ohio newspaper, claiming Jefferson as father and recounting his family experiences at Monticello, including the promise Jefferson made to Sally Hemings to free her children. His account of paternity was confirmed by Israel Jefferson, a former slave at Monticello, in an interview in the same paper that year. Thomas Jefferson supporters generally discounted both interviews; they focused on political opponents' reasons for publication, rather than the details which could be confirmed independently. For instance, the Hemings family was the only one in which all members gained freedom, either before or after Jefferson's death. Madison's sister Harriet was the only female slave whom Jefferson allowed to be free in his lifetime.
The historiography of the issue shows that until the last quarter of the 20th century, prominent historians generally discounted and dismissed stories of Jefferson's "shadow family" (as such mistresses and children were called) by Hemings. They based this on two adult Jefferson grandchildren identifying the Carr brothers as father(s), ideas about Jefferson's character and personality, and Jefferson's bias against blacks expressed in his writings. (They failed to note that Sally Hemings was described as "highly attractive", was half-sister to his late wife, and was of three-quarters European ancestry.) Historians did not re-examine the original sources and note the conflicting evidence and errors of family testimony, but for 180 years pointed to the Carrs as the likely father(s) of Hemings children.
In the late 20th century, a few historians began to re-examine the body of evidence related to the allegations and differing testimony. A timeline showed that Hemings only conceived when Jefferson was in residence at Monticello, and a statistical analysis of the data in 2000 concluded there was a 99 percent chance he fathered all her children. A 1998 DNA analysis showed a descendant of Hemings had a match to the Y-chromosome of the Jefferson male line, and conclusively showed there was not a match between the Carr line and the Hemings line.
Most historians have come to acknowledge that Jefferson had the 38-year relationship and fathered all of Hemings' children. Four survived to adulthood. Seven-eighths European by ancestry and legally white by Virginia law of the time, they eventually moved North as adults: three became part of "white" society, as were their descendants. Additional descendants in later generations were known to enter white society. In 2010 three descendants of Thomas Jefferson were honored with the international "Search for Common Ground" award. They had reached across the divisions in the family between the Wayles-Jefferson and Hemings-Jefferson lines to heal "the legacy of slavery".[3] They have founded "The Monticello Community" to recognize the descendants of all the people who lived and worked at the plantation.[3]