| Episodes |
1) The Hemings Family blooms: Annette Gordon-Reed (2008)
AGR's second book wins the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for History, the very highest marks of intellectual recognition. She describes her purpose in this second book not to "analyze the analysis," as she did in the first book, but "to talk not just about Sally but about her entire family, to put all the Hemingses into a context that would make it easier for people to see them as human beings." The book moves chronologically from the time of Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings through Jefferson's death and the auctioning of the people and property of Monticello. A second volume is planned to follow the Hemings family further into the 19th century. (See the YouTube links in the primary bibliography for this episode to hear AGR talk about her work.) In the middle of the chronological and biographical approach, however, AGR stops for four chapters to linger on Sally in Paris. Let's linger there as well.
Here is what I think is the main question AGR is addressing in each chapter:
Chap. 14 "Sarah Hemings: A Fatherless Girl in a Patriarchal Society": What type of man did Sally see in Jefferson?
Chap. 15 "The Teenager and the Woman": What was the nature of their sexual relationship? Was it rape?
Chap. 16 "His promises, on which she implicitly relied": Why would Sally trust Jefferson, and why would she return to Virginia with him?
Chap. 17 "The Treaty and Did They Love Each Other?": Did she love him? Did he love her? Did they love each other?
At this point in our study of the controversy, we all should be have an opinion on the question of love -- what do you think?
2) Rearguard action: William Hyland (2009)
The title of Hyland's book says it all: In Defense of Thomas Jefferson. He is a lawyer, like Annette Gordon-Reed, who models his book on a trial, and whose work functions as a kind of answer to the big splash made by AGR's Hemings family book. On what basis does Hyland prosecute his case and attempt to halt the stampede of acceptance of a Jefferson-Hemings relationship for which AGR is largely responsible?
3) The Big Picture: Clarence Walker (2009)
Walker confronts such charges as political correctness and multiculturalism of the "post-DNA critics" who refuse to accept the Jefferson-Hemings relationship. (For an interesting and relevant point of reference, see section IV of David Mayer's statement in episode 13's Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society "Scholars Commission" report.) Walker's idea is that accepting that our "founding parents" are "Jefferson and Hemings, as a mixed-race couple, rather than George and Martha Washington" will help to make visible the heretofore invisible truth that America has always been a mixed-race nation, a "mongrel nation." It's a monster-sized claim -- what do you think?
