Bill Hyland and Thomas Jefferson — Vindicated?
By Shaun Kenney | Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 | Culture, Virginia
Folks close to the Republican Party of Virginia may remember Bill Hyland, who was gracious enough to forward me a copy of his book In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal some years ago. He offers a brief recast of his arguments here – and they are compelling.
I read it with interest, but offered the critique that it was too prosecutorial, perhaps too direct, in challenging much of the evidence cited in favor of the notion that Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson sired children.
Today’s unnoticed news? A panel of scholars has published their findings on the Jefferson-Hemings allegations… and found the evidence not just to be inconclusive, but decidedly rejects the idea:
A committee formed by the Jefferson foundation concluded in 2000 that the weight of evidence suggested Jefferson was most likely the father of Eston, and perhaps the father of all six of Hemings‘ children recorded at Monticello.
The Heritage Society fought back with its own commission, which issued its report in 2001 disputing the conclusions. The 400-page book being released Thursday is the commission’s final product, complete with footnotes and references to rebut the other side’s claims.
Among their evidence:
• Claims that the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson started in Paris are unlikely because she was living with his daughters at their boarding school across the city at the time.
• The “Jefferson family” DNA used in the 1998 test came from descendants of his uncle, which the scholars said means any one of two dozen Jefferson men living in Virginia at the time Eston was conceived could have been the father.
I will confess — I believe that Thomas Jefferson *did* indeed father at least four of the Hemings children, and I base this mostly off of Annette Gordon-Reed’s excellent treatment — though at times, belabored and many-layered argument (though I can understand why) — in her Hemingses of Monticello. It is a fascinating, multi-layered capstone to the now two-decade old volume of evidence that Thomas Jefferson saw in Sally Hemings the half-sister of his lost wife, Martha Jefferson.
I have often been amused at some of the tour guides at Monticello weave their way through the controversy… some stating the Foundation’s position and allowing others to wonder, others emphatically stating that the debate has been settled.
This book will undoubtedly spark this…. well, scandal is too harsh, relationship perhaps ignoring the fact Jefferson “owned” Hemings… this facet of the Jeffersonian persona once again.
Peter Jefferson — brother of the president — was a well known visitor to Monticello. It has long been rumored — and was rumored in Albemarle County during both Jefferson’s lifetimes — that Peter Jefferson was known to wander the slave quarters at Monticello. Could he have done the deed? Would Thomas Jefferson have even approved much less permitted this to occur on four (six?) separate occasions? Doubtful… but possible.
Finally, Jefferson’s first airing of this “scandal” was through the eyes of James Callender — a 19th century polemicist imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts who was miffed about not receiving a patronage job in the frugal Jeffersonian Republican administration that followed.
Callender’s articles on “Monticellan Sal” were printed in a series of articles entitled The Jeffersoniad — red meat and scandal for Federalists under the two-term president, but not exactly the most reliable of historical resources.
So was there a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings that approached the level of intimacy? We may never know. Perhaps after all, Martha Jefferson was right about “moral impossibilities” after all.
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About the author
Shaun Kenney is the Chairman of the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors, former Communications Director for the Republican Party of Virginia, and an active blogger since 2002. Shaun lives in Thomas Jefferson's backyard with his wife, six children, and a modest attempt at a farm in Kents Store, Virginia.
Comments
11 Responses to "Bill Hyland and Thomas Jefferson — Vindicated?"
What’s the big deal (it has often been referred to as a “scandal”)? The relationship would have had to start after his wife Martha passed away. Why is it still looked to have been wrong on Jefferson’s part?
Venu: Well, owning your sexual partner certainly raise the possibility that it wasnt’ a consensual relationship.
And of course mixing of the races was “scandalous” in Jefferson’s time, although we wouldn’t think so today.
Venu,
I am not really concerned on whether or not Jefferson may have had sex with slaves. However, in answer to your question. Some people think it would have been wrong because the relationship was thought to have started while she was at a very young age (which wasn’t really abnormal at the time). Also, it is seen by some as an abuse of the master-servant relationship. The thought is that she would not have much choice in the matter. Although she was a slave, and therefore property. I don’t believe she had many legal protections. At the time it would have happened, many would have seen it as wrong because of the “mixing” of the races. Additionally, today, many use the slavery issue to try to undermine the value of the founding fathers in history and the principles that they have passed down to us.
There are serious evidentiary holes for all of the circumstances which are cited for a Thomas Jefferson paternity of the Hemings’s children. Since you believe that Jefferson was the father of four, these births stretching over a period of 10 years, with perhaps another dozen years before they all left Monticello, perhaps you have solved one dilemma. How did all this take place, and no one, not the Jefferson family who were constantly at Monticello, not the hundreds of visitors, not the slaves, some of whom could write, not the hundreds who observed Jefferson in Paris, Philadelphia and Washington, and not Sally or any of her family, during all these years, left a single word that supports your belief?
Richard Dixon
Editor, Jefferson Notes
It is very hard to argue with William Hyland’s well-researched arguments in defense of Mr. Jefferson. I found it far more compelling and logical than Ms. Reed’s writings.
@Richard –
There is a ledger of Jefferson’s arrivals at Monticello that date nine months prior to the birth of Sally’s children?
If so, that is compelling evidence… as Peter would have had access to the plantation at anytime.
Moreover, Sally wasn’t black — she was a “quadroon” or 3/4ths white. Given the fact she was Martha’s half sister, it is not unfathomable that a relationship was there. Given her status within the household, there may have been an understanding even without Patsy Jefferson’s consent or knowledge.
Add this to the testimony of the Hemings family… and that fairly insurmountable evidence that Thomas Jefferson indeed fathered four (not all six) Hemings children. I do not put much stock in the fact he released the children at a certain age — in fact, Jefferson has a history of doing this with many of his “family” — but the ledger of his presence at Monticello co-inciding with the births of Sally’s children… that is difficult to explain away.
Keep in mind, not only am I entirely open to both sides of this debate, I really don’t have a dog in this fight (in short, I don’t care… but I do find it fascinating history).
@Shaun
“Moreover, Sally wasn’t black — she was a “quadroon” or 3/4ths white.”
I’m pretty sure that qualifies her as “black,” you know, the whole “drop of blood” thing.
That’s like saying President Obama isn’t a black man. His mother was white American and his father a black African. Is he not “black?”
Their are several premises that need to be checked–the first is the 9-month rule. Even today, being born 9-months after conception is an anomaly, not the rule. The margin of error was greater then, as physical labor and nutritional intake affected the carrying time. This does not eliminate the possibility of TJ siring illegitimate children, but I believe it must be considered.
The second (and not posited by you, Shaun) is that if indeed these were the children of TJ, it was an non-consensual encounter. Jefferson was quite fond of many of his slaves–it would almost do injustice to them to describe them as such. Hemmings certainly enjoyed more privileges than most, being a household slave and not a field slave. There was truth in some cases about masters treating their slaves as family, and Jefferson seems to have been more benevolent toward them than most (though I must disclaim that this does not forgive the ultimate abhorrence of such an institution). If indeed there was a relationship, it is more probable in Jefferson’s case that there was a legitimate admiration for the man by Hemmings, and that he merely found this admiration advantageous.
As you say though, the matter is at this point unverifiable.
I think its damning for Jefferson regardless.
Either he used his position as master to force a slave into a sexual relationship OR
He know his brother, or own family member, was taking advantage of Sally Hemmings and did nothing to stop it.
Of all our Founding Fathers, the more I have studied Thomas Jefferson, the less I have respected him.
He was the ONLY President who failed to free his slaves upon his death.
While both of his neighbors in Albemarle freed their slaves, he did not.
Why? Because Jefferson wrote about human freedom but cared about practicing himself. Because Jefferson lived so financially recklessly and was so in debt, he was unable to financially free the people he held in bondage.
In short, Jefferson would rather have nice French wine, a huge library and “free manual labor” to tinker and build on Monticello then to do the right thin and free slaves held in bondage.
He choose the comforts of wine, books and a huge house rather than practicing what he preaches. To make matters worse, he either took sexual advantage of Sally Hemmings, or allowed his brother to do the same and fail to stop it.
Like I said, the more he is studied, the less respect I have for him.
@VA is for politics,
I, like you, have come to respect Jefferson less and less the more I have studied him, but for very different reasons than you.
I disagree with your position that either way, it is damning for him. As I stated earlier, a relationship between him or his brother, and a household slave, does not mean it was not consenual. It could have been forceful, but it wasn’t necessarily the case. It is possible that Hemmings desired the relationship. The notion that all slaves were treated as disposable pieces of capital must not be accepted without qualification, especially in Jefferson’s case.
As to him not freeing his slaves upon his death, it is much more complicated than simply not caring about human freedom. He feared that if he freed his slaves in his estate’s current financial condition, they would actually be worse off free than as slaves. But you are right in that Jefferson was a spendthrift, and much of his estate’s misfortune was due to his poor financial planning.
Additionally, we must reject the notion that slavery was equal to “free manual labor.” Many Virginians, especially those in Western Virginia (Jefferson included), saw that slavery was becoming too expensive to be economically viable, and began petitioning the legislature to begin to place limits on the institution. True, the slaves themselves rarely received the fruits of their labor, but the idea that slavery was categorically cheaper than hired labor for the property owner is, again, much more complicated.
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