| Episodes |
1) For two centuries Thomas Jefferson's legacy has been haunted by the first US presidential sex scandal -- the charge of an illicit relationship with his mulatto slave Sally Hemings. From the day the story broke in a Richmond newspaper in 1802, "Tom and Sally" has become the longest running mini-series in American history. Because the evidence was all circumstantial, no authoritative resolution has been possible. Until today, that is.
Lander and Ellis
2) Because most of the Y chromosome is passed unchanged from father to son, apart from occasional mutations, DNA analysis of the Y chromosome can reveal whether or not individuals are likely to be male-line relatives. We therefore analysed DNA from the Y chromosomes of: five male-line descendants of two sons of the president's paternal uncle, Field Jefferson; five male-line descendants of two sons of Thomas Woodson; one male-line descendant of Eston Hemings Jefferson; and three male-line descendants of three sons of John Carr, grandfather of Samuel and Peter Carr. No Y-chromosome data were available from male-line descendants of President Thomas Jefferson because he had no surviving sons.
Foster, "Fathered"
3) In the Jeffersonian tradition, the Foundation welcomes new information and insights. We saw Dr. Foster's article in Nature for the first time less than forty-eight hours ago, and we'll need more time to evaluate it thoroughly. Meanwhile, we eagerly look forward to public discussion of the conclusions reached in the article and to evaluations of those conclusions by the scientific and historical communities.
Daniel Jordan, Statement, November 1, 1998
4) He [James Callender] broke the story in The Richmond Recorder on Sept. 1, 1802, that the President "has kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves" and that "by this wench Sally, our president has had several children." Now, two centuries later, thanks to the same DNA testing that forced William Jefferson Clinton to admit misleading his compatriots about an improper liaison, we learn that a strong likelihood exists that one of Sally Hemings's children was fathered by our third President.
William Safire
5) No one who has studied the controversy closely should receive this latest news as if it were a bolt from the blue. On the contrary, the scientific evidence squares perfectly with overwhelming circumstantial evidence that has been available for well over a century. If this evidence had been applied to almost anyone other than Jefferson, the matter would have been settled long ago. Make no mistake, the additional scientific information is important. But the truth is that historians need not have ceded the question to scientific investigators. A more disciplined, rigorous and less prejudiced application of historical method could have yielded the same answer.
Annette Gordon-Reed, "Why"
6) The salient question now seems to be: What difference does it make? For the several hundred Hemings descendants who have maintained that their oral tradition was more reliable than the oral tradition of the white members of the Jefferson family, and also more historically accurate than a substantial group of Jefferson scholars was prepared to acknowledge, this news is deliverance. It confirms the stories they have been passing along from generation to generation.
Joseph Ellis, "Saint"
7) Lest you think it is the discovery that Jefferson was something other than a Rushmorean monument that bothers me, I hasten to say you are wrong. I never thought otherwise. The Hemings Story, first a whisper and now a dead certainty, always made sense to me. She was much like his late wife in appearance, we are told. Besides, this was 18th-century Virginia and slave owners routinely had sexual relations with their slaves. In this regard, Jefferson was just one of the boys.
Richard Cohen
8) It [the misleading headline in the science journal Nature dated November 5, 1998] has had a very negative impact on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson and has raised many concerns regarding the rights of some Jefferson/Hemings' descendants.
Herbert Barger, The Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study
9) With the exception of one member . . . our individual conclusions range from serious scepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly false.
Scholars Commission, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
10) The historical evidence is not substantial enough to confirm nor for that matter to refute his paternity of any of the children of Sally Hemings. The DNA studies certainly enhance the possibility but, to repeat, do not prove Thomas Jefferson's paternity. These events happened almost two hundred year ago and there were four (?five) people who might have known the truth about this issue. Only one of them has answered in his own handwriting and words. Thomas Jefferson denied all the allegations except for the "Walker" affair which he admitted.
Ken Wallenborn, Minority Report
11) The Jefferson-Hemings story is really about family more than just about sex and it has broad implications for all Americans.. Now that we are free to consider the story in a fair and open fashion, perhaps we can also bring a new understanding to slavery and race and to our growth as a nation. Once everyone's voice is heard equally, "surprises" like this one will be a thing of the past.
Annette Gordon-Reed "Why Jefferson Scholars"
12) Historians argued that Jefferson's "basic character" made him immune to illicit sex. Joseph Ellis suggested in his most recent book that Jefferson sublimated his sex drive into architecture, making Monticello a perpetual work in progress that was built and rebuilt almost up to the day he died. Mr. Ellis and others also note that none of Jefferson's many thousands of letters mentioned Hemings or contained even a hint of lust. What we now know is that this lust was being satisfied with Hemings.
Brent Staples "Editorial Observer; Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Together at Last?"
13) Why was this stunning new evidence released on the weekend before Impeachment Election Day?
William Safire
14) It is interesting to see that in the never-ceasing battle of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Hemings is being used as a weapon to make the case against him. Historians have always known that Jefferson owned slaves. Yet that fact did not keep Jefferson, Washington or Madison out of the pantheon of American heroes. So if one owns black women, makes them work in the fields for no pay, sells them, as did all of these men, that's O.K. But if one is found to have slept with one of those women and had children (and the woman and her children were freed), one's reputation is summarily diminished. There is something wrong with this picture. If Jefferson is to be led out of the pantheon, these other men should follow right behind him.
Annette Gordon-Reed, "Jefferson and Hemings"
15) Acknowledging the role of contradiction also allows Americans to recognize and accept painful paradoxes in their history like the fact that Virginia was, not by accident, both the cradle of slavery and of our democracy. Above all, it will allow us to accept that in the course of their forced and often brutal embrace over three and a half centuries, African-Americans and European-Americans both wittingly and unintentionally influenced each other. In the process creating a civilization that is nether purely "black' nor "white," but an ecumenical synthesis that drew its energy and its greatness from the very contradictions of the past and the mighty struggles to overcome them.
Orlando Patterson
16) To a geneticist, the obvious solution -- short of exhuming the principals -- is to compare Y chromosomes from modern-day male-line descendants. Most of the Y chromosome is passed intact from father to son, so it can be used to trace paternal lineages. However, such studies require enough polymorphic markers . . . so that Y chromosomes can be distinguished by the haplotype . . . that they carry. Researchers from several laboratories have identified a collection of suitable markers from the Y chromosome over the past two years, and this collection is now fuelling an explosion in male-line genetic studies.
Lander and Ellis
17) Four of the five descendants of Field Jefferson shared the same haplotype at all loci, and the fifth differed by only a single unit at one microsatellite locus, probably a mutation. This haplotype is rare in the population, where the average frequency of a microsatellite haplotype is about 1.5 per cent. Indeed, it has never been observed outside the Jefferson family, and it has not been found in 670 European men (more than 1,200 worldwide) typed with the microsatellites or 308 European men (690 worldwide) typed with MSY1.
Foster, "Fathered"
18) I concur with the committee's findings. Although paternity cannot be established with absolute certainty, our evaluation of the best evidence available suggests the strong likelihood that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a relationship over time that led to the birth of one, and perhaps all, of the known children of Sally Hemings. We recognize that honorable people can disagree on this subject, as indeed they have for over two hundred years. Further, we know that the historical record has gaps that perhaps can never be filled and mysteries that can never be fully resolved. Finally, we stand ready to review any fresh evidence at any time and to reassess our understanding of the matter in light of more complete information.
Daniel Jordan, Statement, January 26, 2000
19) The fact that there is not a match with the first of Sally Hemings's children, Thomas, may deflect some attention from the match with her last child, Eston. But the Eston match is really all that matters because, in conjunction with the circumstantial evidence that already existed, it proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Jefferson had a long-term sexual relationship with his mulatto slave.
Joseph Ellis, "Saint"
20) Foster et al. examined a haplotype containing 19 polymorphic markers. Jefferson's haplotype . . . seems to be quite rare, inasmuch as it was not seen among a sample of 670 Europeans or 1,200 people worldwide. The authors found that this rare haplotype perfectly matches that of Eston Hemings' male-line descendant. The probability of such a match arising by chance is low -- safely less than 1%. Together with the circumstantial evidence, it seems to seal the case that Jefferson was Eston Hemings' father.
Lander and Ellis
21) Four of the five male-line descendants of Thomas Woodson shared a haplotype (with one MSY1 variant) that was not similar to the Y chromosome of Field Jefferson but was characteristic of Europeans. . . . In contrast, the descendant of Eston Hemings Jefferson did have the Field Jefferson haplotype. The haplotypes of two of the descendants of John Carr were identical; the third differed by one step at one microsatellite locus and by one step in the MSY1 code. The Carr haplotypes differed markedly from those of the descendants of Field Jefferson.
Foster, "Fathered"
22) Dr. Foster's DNA evidence indicates a sexual relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, an African-American woman who was one of his slaves. Slavery and race are uncomfortable subjects for many Americans -- but they are in the mainstream of our interpretation at Monticello today precisely because they are part of the Monticello story. The Foundation has long believed that you cannot understand Thomas Jefferson without understanding slavery, and that you cannot understand Monticello without understanding its African-American community.
Daniel Jordan, Statement, November 1, 1998
23) Now, we have Jefferson the slave owner -- and not a reluctant one, either, like George Washington was. This is, though, the same man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, extolled religious liberty and established the University of Virginia -- and those achievements are epic and, it seems, eternal. He was, we have all been told, a man of his times. But I wonder. I do so not just because Jefferson's slave holding is at odds with the sentiments under glass at the National Archives, but because the explanation is too convenient -- too handy an excuse for a way of life that benefited him enormously. Slavery suited Jefferson -- not just Jefferson the planter, but Jefferson the aesthete. Slaves were at the center of Jefferson's world. They made it possible.
Richard Cohen
24) We know from the historical and the DNA data that Thomas Jefferson can neither be definitely excluded nor solely implicated in the paternity of illegitimate children with his slave Sally Hemings. When we embarked on this study, we knew that the results could not be conclusive, but we hoped to obtain some objective data that would tilt the weight of evidence in one direction or another. We think we have provided such data and that the modest, probabilistic interpretations we have made are tenable at present.
Eugene Foster, "Reply"
25) In 1997, an idea was conceived that might help shed some light on this long running rumor [of the Jefferson-Hemongs relationship]. This idea did not originate with the man that most people are led by the media to believe. Dr. Eugene Foster, a retired pathologist, did help locate donors, did draw blood samples and did personally deliver the samples to England, but the idea began with Mrs. Winifred Bennett, a friend of Dr. Foster's. She was convinced that by using the Y chromosome, they could prove or disprove the rumors and accusations that Thomas Jefferson fathered the child(ren) of Sally Hemings. It was later realized that the study would be able to disprove the accusations but would not be able to prove the accusations.
Herbert Barger, The Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study
26) Over the past 30 years, research into Jefferson has cast a shadow over his credibility as America's prophet of freedom and equality. Recent work has also emphasized his massive personal contradictions and his dexterity at playing hide-and-seek within himself. The new evidence only deepens the paradoxes. Jefferson is, with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, one of America's secular saints. His face looks out from the nickel, the two-dollar bill, the memorial near the Tidal Basin, and Mount Rushmore. His unique capacity to project inspirational words and ideas onto American public life has made him all things to all people. As an icon, Jefferson's legacy has been reinterpreted by every generation. Now, with impeccable timing, Jefferson reappears to remind us of a truth that should be self evident. Our heroes --and especially presidents -- are not gods or saints, but flesh-and-blood humans, with all of the frailties and imperfections that this entails.
Lander and Ellis
27) We cannot completely rule out other explanations of our findings based on illegitimacy in various lines of descent. For example, a male-line descendant of Field Jefferson could possibly have illegitimately fathered an ancestor of the presumed male-line descendant of Eston. But in the absence of historical evidence to support such possibilities, we consider them to be unlikely.
Foster, "Fathered"
28) When the DNA study was released on the evening of October 31, 1998, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (TJMF) responded immediately. Within twenty-four hours, we held a press conference with Dr. Eugene Foster . . . posted a statement on our web site, and instructed our interpreters to initiate conversations with our visitors about the study. The Foundation also pledged that it would evaluate the scientific results -- and all other relevant evidence . . . and that we would, in the Jeffersonian tradition, "follow truth wherever it may lead."
Daniel P. Jordan, Statement, January 26, 2000
29) Based on the examination of currently available primary and secondary documentary evidence, the oral histories of descendants of Monticello's African-American community, recent scientific studies, and the guidance of individual members of Monticello's Advisory Committee for the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies and Advisory Committee on African-American Interpretation, the Research Committee has reached the following conclusions:
1. Dr. Foster's DNA study was conducted in a manner that meets the standards of the scientific community, and its scientific results are valid.
2. The DNA study, combined with multiple strands of currently available documentary and statistical evidence, indicates a high probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings, and that he most likely was the father of all six of Sally Hemings's children appearing in Jefferson's records. Those children are Harriet, who died in infancy; Beverly; an unnamed daughter who died in infancy; Harriet; Madison; and Eston.
3. Many aspects of this likely relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson are, and may remain, unclear, such as the nature of the relationship, the existence and longevity of Sally Hemings's first child, and the identity of Thomas C. Woodson.
4. The implications of the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson should be explored and used to enrich the understanding and interpretation of Jefferson and the entire Monticello community.
Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, January 2000, VI. Conclusions)
30) Jefferson has always been Clinton's favorite Founding Father. Now, a sexually active, all too human Jefferson appears alongside his embattled protege. It is as if Clinton had called one of the most respected character witnesses in all of U.S. history to testify. The primal urge has a most distinguished presidential pedigree. The dominant effect of this news will be to make Clinton's sins seem less aberrant and more palatable. If a vote against Clinton is also a vote against Jefferson, the prospects for impeachment become even more remote.
Joseph Ellis, "Saint"
31) Politically, the Thomas Jefferson verdict is likely to figure in upcoming impeachment hearings on William Jefferson Clinton's sexual indiscretions, in which DNA testing has also played a role. The parallels are hardly perfect, but some are striking. Both "improper" relationships involved women about 28 years younger --although there is a world of difference between a slave and master at the close of the eighteenth century, and a White House intern and a married man at the end of the twentieth. Both presidents seem to have engaged in politically reckless conduct.
Eric S. Lander and Joseph J. Ellis, "Founding Father"
32) But assuming what the gene-counters say is true, how should this affect our judgment of Jefferson?
William Safire
33) The frequency of the Jefferson haplotype is less than 0.1 per cent, a result that is at least 100 times more likely if the president was the father of Eston Hemings Jefferson than if someone unrelated was the father.
Foster, "Fathered"
34) I've been asked more than once what this weekend is all about. I believe this weekend is about an opportunity for individuals who share a common heritage -- and common ground at Monticello -- to come together and to get to know one another better. This weekend is an American story. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is honored to be a part of this historic event. We look forward to every opportunity to work with those in attendance as well as with the families and traditions they represent -- all in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, who believed in following truth wherever in may lead.
Daniel Jordan, "Whoever Said"
35) While waiting for the results from the laboratory, I continued sending Dr. Foster historical information. Some of this information related to Thomas' brother, Randolph who lived about twenty miles away, his five sons and other male Jeffersons who lived at or near Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. One of Randolph's sons, Isham, was "reared" by Jefferson according to the History of Todd Co., Kentucky. He responded by saying, "Thanks very much for the information about Isham and Randolph Jefferson. This is exactly the kind of information that will have to be considered if it turns out that there is Jefferson Y-chromosomal DNA in Hemings descendants. The DNA evidence in itself can't be conclusive for a variety of reasons."
Herbert Barger, The Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study
36) After a careful review of all of the evidence, the commission agrees unanimously that the allegation is by no means proven; and we find it regrettable that public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people. With the exception of one member, whose views are set forth both below and in his more detailed appended dissent, our individual conclusions range from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly false.
Scholars Commission, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
37) The DNA Study Committee majority appears to agree that the DNA study showed that Eston Hemings' direct male line descendants had an identical DNA haplotype to that of Field Jefferson's direct male line descendants. . . . This would prove that Thomas Jefferson was related to Eston Hemings (Sally Hemings' youngest son). The DNA Study Committee agrees that this finding alone does not prove that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings.
Minority Report
38) It is interesting to see that in the never-ceasing battle of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Hemings is being used as a weapon to make the case against him. Historians have always known that Jefferson owned slaves. Yet that fact did not keep Jefferson, Washington or Madison out of the pantheon of American heroes. So if one owns black women, makes them work in the fields for no pay, sells them, as did all of these men, that's O.K. But if one is found to have slept with one of those women and had children (and the woman and her children were freed), one's reputation is summarily diminished. There is something wrong with this picture. If Jefferson is to be led out of the pantheon, these other men should follow right behind him.
Annette Gordon-Reed, "Jefferson and Hemings"
39) Further, we believe a scholarly approach is always the key as we seek to advance our core mission of preservation and education. The Monticello staff includes seven Ph.D.'s as well as six individuals who have written one or more books with a university press. The Foundation has its own research center, which fields approximately 1,100 serious queries a year from the media, scholars, and other interested parties seeking accurate information about Thomas Jefferson and his times.
Daniel Jordan, Statement, November 1, 1998
40) If the scholarly portrait of Jefferson had already begun to depict him as inherently hypocritical, the popular perception has remained resolutely reverential. If the scholarly Jefferson has become a more controversial and problematic icon, the vast majority of ordinary Americans continue to regard him as the most potent symbol of American values in the entire gallery of national greats.
Joseph Ellis, "Saint"
41) Indeed, the most remarkable fact associated with this entire inquiry is probably how little we really know about Sally Hemings. If we exclude the various list of slaves in Jefferson's Farm Book. . . . (in which Sally and her children are treated exactly like other members of her family) -- everything we reliably know about Sally Hemings could probably be printed on an index card.
Scholars Commission, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
42) Knowing that the greatest of our Founding Fathers was a practicing miscegenist should energize the recent shift away from the either-or definition of "race" that has historically underpinned the caste-like segregation of African-Americans, toward a more blended and self-chosen definition of group identity. No society has ever solved its ethnic problems without intermarriage, and America will be no exception.
Orlando Patterson
43) The Foundation will evaluate carefully Dr. Foster's findings and any other relevant evidence on the subject; and then, in the Jefferson tradition, the Foundation will follow truth wherever it may lead us.
Daniel Jordan, Statement, November 1, 1998
44) Some commentators have spoken of Jefferson's "guilt" as well as of a "flaw" in his character. Others have wondered whether the "jury" is or is not still out on the question. All this suggests that present day observers think Jefferson's involvement with Hemings was a crime more heinous than the crime of his legal ownership of her.
Annette Gordon-Reed, "Why
45) Within the scholarly world, the acceptance of a Jefferson-Hemings liaison had been gaining ground over recent years. Now that it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt, the net effect is to reinforce the critical picture of Jefferson as an inherently elusive and deeply duplicitous character. We already knew that he lived the great paradox of American history. Which is to say he could walk past the slave quarters at Monticello thinking grand thoughts about human equality and never notice the disjunction. Now it would seem that his oft-stated belief in black inferiority and his palpable fear of racial amalgamation somehow coexisted alongside his intimate relationship with an attractive black woman. His public announcements and his private behavior apparently occupied wholly different and mutually exclusive compartments in his soul. The man who wrote "A Dialogue Between My Head and My Heart" in a letter to Maria Cosway, with whom he was intensely infatuated during his Paris years, apparently did not permit those different parts of his own personality to speak to one another.
Joseph Ellis, "Saint"
46) My study indicates to me that Thomas Jefferson was NOT the father of Eston or any other Hemings child. The DNA study along with historical information, indicates that Randolph is possibly the father of Eston and maybe the others.
Herbert Barger, The Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study
47) Shortly thereafter, I appointed a staff research committee that included four Ph.D.'s (one with advanced study in genetics) and an M.D. The mandate was straightforward: (1) to gather and assess critically all relevant evidence about the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings; (2) to consult with outside experts as well as with two long- standing TJMF advisory committees, comprised of scholars, public historians, and museum professionals who provide counsel for the Foundation's International Center for Jefferson Studies and about African- American interpretation at Monticello; and (3) to report its findings and recommendations to me in written form and in a timely manner.
Daniel P. Jordan, Statement, January 26, 2000
48) About a year ago, a number of Jefferson admirers formed the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS), and one of their first acts was to ask a group of Jefferson scholars to reexamine the issue carefully and issue a public report. This report is the result of that inquiry.
Scholars Commission, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
49) If the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the DNA Study Committee majority had been seeking the truth and had used accurate legal and historical information rather than politically correct motivation, their statement should have been something like this: "After almost two hundred years of study including recent DNA information, it is still impossible to prove with absolute certainty whether Thomas Jefferson did or did not father any of Sally Hemings five children."
Ken Wallenborn, Reply to the Response to the Minority Report
50) Now, however, Jefferson's life and his most intimate personal choices just as clearly reveal an interracial commitment that probably endured for 38 years. The Hemings descendants have sustained the story of their lineage for many generations because they are proud of their biological connection to Jefferson. While it will require a rather large stretch to transform Jefferson from a thinking man's racist to a multicultural hero, some commentators are sure to make the leap.
Joseph J. Ellis, "When a saint becomes a sinner"
51) The Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings controversy is now almost two-hundred years old, and it is one about which honorable people have disagreed. Few Americans have been more vigorous advocates of scientific pursuits than Jefferson. To reduce the mysteries of the past and move us all closer to the truth is in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson.
Daniel Jordan, Statement, November 1, 1998
52) Indeed, Jefferson's legacy might appear more lustrous than ever before. For he is now thoroughly human, the American demigod made flesh who dwelt among us, the saint who sinned, the great man with ordinary weaknesses. As we approach the end of the "American Century," he has metamorphosed into the new role model for our postmodern temperament, if you will, a '90s kind of guy.
Joseph Ellis, "Saint"
53) Two of the dominant American isms are sexism and racism: One or the other is employed to explain just about everything. When it comes to Jefferson, though, maybe it's appropriate to exhume Marxism and to talk not just of racial or sexual exploitation, but of exploitation of the good old economic kind. Jefferson was an enormously self-absorbed man, more interested in mankind than in men, and he might have held on to his slaves no matter what their race. Likewise, some people at that time held racist views but abhorred slavery. This is what Sally Hemings has done to Thomas Jefferson: made him harder, meaner, selfish--an exploiter. His epic achievements are not diminished. But the man, I am sorry to say, certainly is.
Richard Cohen
54) In the article, Dr. Foster says that the purpose of the study was to prove or disprove the Carr brothers being the father. Since the Carr brothers were eliminated, the simplest explanation is that Thomas fathered Eston Hemings. This may have been the simplest explanation, but to offer it as "the" explanation without explaining the rest of the story gives a grossly incomplete story that results in an inaccurate conclusion. Dr. Foster's only caveat was that the DNA study was not conclusive. However, without explaining why the study was not conclusive, that there were other Jeffersons with access to Sally, leaves the reader with "the simplest explanation." Needless to say I was extremely upset with the article and its misleading title. It implied that Thomas Jefferson was, as a matter of fact, the father of Eston Hemings. I had given Dr. Foster significant amounts of historical information that needed to be considered by everyone before any conclusion was reached. I could not believe that Dr. Foster would have allowed this article to be published with this title. . . . My concern was that the public would see the headline "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child" and believe it to be historically and scientifically correct.
Herbert Barger, The Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study
55) The committee concludes that convincing evidence does not exist for the hypothesis that another male Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings's children. In almost two hundred years since the issue first became public, no other Jefferson has ever been referred to as the father; denials of Thomas Jefferson's paternity named the Carr nephews. Furthermore, evidence of the sort of sustained presence necessary to have resulted in the creation of a family of six children is entirely lacking, and even those who denied a relationship never suggested Sally Hemings's children had more than one father. Finally, the historical evidence for Thomas Jefferson's paternity of Eston Hemings and his known siblings overwhelmingly outweighs that for any other Jefferson.
Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, January 2000
56) There is not a single eyewitness account by anyone clearly linking Thomas Jefferson romantically to Sally Hemings, not from one of the hundreds of slaves who were owned by Jefferson over the years and not from any of the hundreds of visitors who swarmed over Monticello when Thomas Jefferson was home. . . . Edmund Bacon, the Monticello overseer during most of Jefferson's presidency and retirement years, both denied the allegations of Jefferson's paternity and stated that he had often personally witnessed another man leaving Sally's room early in the morning while arriving for work.
Scholars Commission, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
57) The results from the DNA studies enhance the possibility that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings children, Eston Hemings, but the findings do not prove that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston. This is a very important difference.
Minority Report
58) If the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the DNA Study Committee majority had been seeking the truth and had used accurate legal and historical information rather than politically correct motivation, their statement should have been something like this: "After almost two hundred years of study including recent DNA information, it is still impossible to prove with absolute certainty whether Thomas Jefferson did or did not father any of Sally Hemings five children."
Ken Wallenborn, Reply to the Response to the Minority Report
59) That was not all this prize-winning historian [Joseph Ellis] did for Clinton on election weekend. He was one of the signers of a full-page ad by "Historians in defense of the Constitution" who brazenly associated their colleges with a plea to drop impeachment proceedings "mangling the system" lest this "permanently disfigure" the Presidency.
William Safire
60) I am just asking that it be written in history books for our future generations to learn, that "A" Jefferson fathered Easton Hemings. It cannot be PROVEN CONCLUSIVELY that Thomas was the father. With all the "circumstantial evidence" that supports numerous possibilities of who fathered Sally's children, I do not know how anyone can feel so adamant that Thomas had to be the father.
Herbert Barger, The Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study
61) Although paternity cannot be established with absolute certainty, our evaluation of the best evidence available suggests the strong likelihood that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a relationship over time that led to the birth of one, and perhaps all, of the known children of Sally Hemings.
Daniel P. Jordan, Statement, January 26, 2000
62) Scholarship drives the mission. We have eight Ph.D.s on the Monticello staff, and six colleagues who have published one or more books with a university press. Scholarship isn't foolproof, but it gives us the best chance of getting our history right. Scholarship also helps us appreciate that accurate history must be inclusive history. You cannot understand Thomas Jefferson without understanding slavery, and you cannot understand Monticello without understanding its African-American community. This is not being politically correct. It is being scholarly.
Remarks from Daniel P. Jordan, President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, at the meeting of the Monticello Association, the organization of descendants of Thomas Jefferson, May 15, 1999
63) Remember there was NO Jefferson/Woodson (alleged first child) match, thus, no long running "love affair."
Herbert Barger
64) There is historical evidence of more or less equal status on both sides of this issue that prevent a definitive answer as to Thomas Jefferson's paternity of Sally Hemings' son Eston Hemings or for that matter the other four of her children. In fairness to the descendants of Sally Hemings and the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Martha Wayles Jefferson, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation should continue to encourage in-depth historical research in hopes that accurate answers to very sensitive questions may be found.
Minority Report summary
65) Nothing in Foster and colleagues' study, and nothing in the vast historical literature, sheds any light on the character of the relationship between Jefferson and sally Hemings. Was it, as his contemporary critics charged, a tale of lust and rape? Was it, as several twentieth-century scholars and novelists have suggested, a love story rooted in mutual affection? Or was it something in-between? These questions are open to endless interpretation but, in a broader sense, the new findings give blacks and whites alike an opportunity to confront a largely secret, shared history.
Eric S. Lander and Joseph J. Ellis, "Founding Father"
66) For Jefferson, African-Americans could not really be invisible. His relationship with Hemings was almost certainly no one-night stand. It is not possible that he could have had a relationship with an African-American that likely lasted more than three decades and deny the very human reality and presence of her being, her progeny and the people with whom she was identified. The longevity of the relationship not only humanizes Jefferson for us, but suggests that his doubts about his racialist theories may have been far more serious than he let on in his writings. Today, I feel less alienated from him as I suspect will most African-Americans eventually. He is part of the family, a family with a ghastly, contradictory past, to be sure, but a family nonetheless.
Orlando Patterson
67) Honest people may disagree, but to brand total strangers with the epithet 'Whitey' because they believe Jefferson and the oral history passed down by Eston Hemings over the blatantly racist Callender is as unfair as it is unprofessional.
Robert F. Turner
68) But for now, we will move forward to implement the findings of the research committee in a way that reflects the Foundation's ongoing commitment to scholarship. From the beginning, we have treated the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings relationship as a research issue, and we will continue to do so. We believe it offers opportunities for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, and that it will advance our firm belief in telling a story here that is accurate and honest -- and thus inclusive -- about Jefferson's remarkable life and legacy in the context of the complex and extraordinary plantation community that was Monticello.
Daniel P. Jordan, Statement, January 26, 2000
69) Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the DNA study conducted by Dr. Eugene Foster and colleagues and reported in Nature did not "prove" that Thomas Jefferson fathered any of Sally Hemings' children. It . . . established that it is very probable that Sally's youngest son, Eston, was fathered by one of the more than two-dozen adult Jefferson men in Virginia at the time he was conceived. . . . Because of his advanced age (sixty four) and character, Thomas Jefferson may arguably have been the least likely of the group to have fathered a child by Sally Hemings -- although some of the relatives lived far away and are less likely candidates on that basis alone. But the DNA tests show that it is possible that Thomas Jefferson was Eston's father. . . . They do not rule out the possibility that Thomas Jefferson (or any other particular adult male) fathered one or more of Sally's other children.
Scholars Commission, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
70) But assuming what the gene-counters say is true, how should this affect our judgment of Jefferson?
William Safire
71) Knowing that the greatest of our Founding Fathers was a practicing miscegenist should energize the recent shift away from the either-or definition of "race" that has historically underpinned the caste-like segregation of African-Americans, toward a more blended and self-chosen definition of group identity. No society has ever solved its ethnic problems without intermarriage, and America will be no exception.
Orlando Patterson
72) For Jefferson, African-Americans could not really be invisible. His relationship with Hemings was almost certainly no one-night stand. It is not possible that he could have had a relationship with an African-American that likely lasted more than three decades and deny the very human reality and presence of her being, her progeny and the people with whom she was identified. The longevity of the relationship not only humanizes Jefferson for us, but suggests that his doubts about his racialist theories may have been far more serious than he let on in his writings. Today, I feel less alienated from him as I suspect will most African-Americans eventually. He is part of the family, a family with a ghastly, contradictory past, to be sure, but a family nonetheless.
Orlando Patterson
73) That was not all this prize-winning historian did for Clinton on election weekend. He was one of the signers of a full-page ad by "Historians in defense of the Constitution" who brazenly associated their colleges with a plea to drop impeachment proceedings "mangling the system" lest this "permanently disfigure" the Presidency.
William Safire
74) Acknowledging the role of contradiction also allows Americans to recognize and accept painful paradoxes in their history like the fact that Virginia was, not by accident, both the cradle of slavery and of our democracy. Above all, it will allow us to accept that in the course of their forced and often brutal embrace over three and a half centuries, African-Americans and European-Americans both wittingly and unintentionally influenced each other. In the process creating a civilization that is nether purely "black' nor "white," but an ecumenical synthesis that drew its energy and its greatness from the very contradictions of the past and the mighty struggles to overcome them.
Orlando Patterson
75) Good afternoon. Welcome. (Applause.) Welcome back, Thomas. (Laughter.) Senator Warner and Senator Allen, it's good to see both. Congressman Goode, welcome. The First Lady of the Commonwealth of Virginia, it's good to see you again. And I want to thank all the descendants of Thomas Jefferson who are here. I want to thank the Jefferson scholars who are here. I want to thank my fellow Americans who are here. Welcome to the White House. . . . Jefferson holds the American imagination because he articulated the American creed. We declared our independence with his words, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights. Jefferson is the poet laureate of American freedom. Our world echoes with Jefferson's ideals, even though Jefferson did not always act as if they were true. The same Thomas Jefferson who wrote the original ordinance banning slavery in the Northwest Territories lived on the labor of slaves. The same Jefferson who denied racial equality spoke ringing words of equal rights. . . . No wonder America sees itself in Thomas Jefferson. He was what we are: marked with faults, inspired by strong ideals. Thomas Jefferson still inspires us. . . . Like many great men, Thomas Jefferson leaves behind a complex legacy. Tomorrow would have been his 258th birthday. On his 358th birthday, Americans will still be debating his achievements and his faults, his words and his deeds.
George W. Bush
