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Post by sloanrodgers on May 20, 2012 18:01:23 GMT -5
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Post by Allen Wiener on May 20, 2012 20:37:36 GMT -5
Here's an interview with James Ellis, one of the leading authors and scholars on the founders. If you have not read his Founding Brothers I highly recommend it as probably the best single volume overveiw of those men, and a great read. Ellis was totally convinced that the Hemmings story was not true and said so in his monumental Jefferson biography American Sphinx, which I also recommend. However, once he saw the DNA results, he had a whole new take on Jefferson and the Hemmings affair, which did not really diminish his opinion of Jefferson. Although he says there's still room for doubt, the preponderance of evidence is on the Hemmings side of the debate. His key remarks in this interview, as far as this is concerned are: “In truth, until 1998, with the development of new Recombinant DNA techniques permitting matching of Y chromosomes, it was impossible to render a judgment on this that had any kind of real credibility. Different people argued different sides of this with evidence, all history evidence from the black community, all history evidence from Jefferson's side in the white community. In some sense, Jefferson covered his tracks so effectively on this, that it required 200 years and the most highly technological tools in order to find out whether it's true. And it's still not a certainty. It is in my judgment now a probability. Before you could say that the evidence had failed to reach a kind of beyond a reasonable doubt. Now I think, from my point of view, now the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt.” “I know what she's getting it. I know exactly what she's getting at. That's an excellent question too. Essentially she's saying, to what extent did this revelation force me to change my impression of him? No, no. It forced me to deepen it. That is, he's even more of a sphinx than I had ever realized. And I resist using the word "hypocrite" in American Sphinx. I say Jefferson plays tricks inside himself. He's the kind of man who plays hide-'n'-seek inside of himself and instead of seeing him as kind of an outright hypocrite, I see him as a man of great duplicity, internally. With the Sally Hemings thing, I think you've got to start thinking in terms of hypocrisy. Because this really does mean that he was living a lie for the following big, big reasons. One of the reasons Jefferson gave as the reason he could not assume a leadership issue on the problem of slavery is he didn't think it was possible for blacks and whites to live together in the same society and he feared if they were, it would produce what is called "miscegenation," the coming together of races, which he disapproved of. There he is, living a considerable portion of his adult life, in a relationship with a black woman -- she's actually a mulatto woman -- and in that sense violating the very thing that he claims stands in his way of freeing the slaves. So he also never acknowledges his paternity. That is to say, some planters had children with slaves and they took them on as their own children. Jefferson never did that. Jefferson refused to acknowledge that they were his children. He didn't allow them to escape or include them in his will.” However, to get to get a comprehensive view of Ellis's opinion and a more fleshed out portrait of Jefferson, read the entire interview. Ellis does not have an agenda and is a pro who is just after the truth. www.ushistory.org/us/historians/ellis.asp
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Post by sloanrodgers on May 24, 2012 2:12:22 GMT -5
Here's an interview with James Ellis, one of the leading authors and scholars on the founders. If you have not read his Founding Brothers I highly recommend it as probably the best single volume overveiw of those men, and a great read. American Sphinx is an old book, but a good one. I enjoyed it, although I don't agree with all of Ellis's conclusions. It was obviously written before the big DNA test and extreme rush to judgement by the media and public. It only scratches the surface of the Jefferson/ Hemings Controversy and Ellis seems to still be out of the loop on a lot of little details. Ellis is considered a Jefferson scholar, but maybe not a DNA or Hemings expert. Perhaps he's not interested in this sordid tale. One flaw with the interview is that he now thinks Jefferson had a long drawn out unwitnessed affair with Hemings and that he effectively covered his tracks in hiding this relationship. How is repeatedly having children with your alleged mistress (even after you've been exposed by the national press) attempting to cover up your affair? Ellis is clearly wrong in his last statements. It is well-documented that Jefferson allowed the two oldest Hemings children to escape north with his supposed secret and that he freed the younger ones in his will. Jefferson's will was published in several newspapers shortly after his death and elsewhere. Why would Jefferson want his name carved in stone and the public record with the Hemings children if he was trying to hide his paternity of them? I'm smarter than that and Jefferson was a lot more intelligent than me.
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Post by sloanrodgers on May 25, 2012 2:45:39 GMT -5
Another interesting indicator that the Hemings Family and the relationship promoters like to ignore is the child naming issue. Sally and her descendants apparently had no great love or respect for her master Thomas Jefferson. The name Thomas very rarely passed down from generation to generation. It was a common American custom among successive generations to name one male child after a single immigrant progenitor or famous relative, especially in aristocratic Virginia. Instead of naming their children after President Jefferson,the Hemings descendants usually continued the names of James Madison, Beverly Randolph and others. A case in point I have an ancestor who was a minor Virginia legislator during Jefferson's time. He got the ball rolling and named one of his son's John after himself. Each of his children named a grandson John and so on and so forth for generations. It made for a bunch of Johns and family confusion. It seems very strange that this did not occur to a similar degree in the Hemings Family if they are truly the descendants of a founding American father. Perhaps they didn't like Master Tom or maybe little President James Madison is the real ancestor of the Hemings Clan.
Addendum: The names Thomas and Martha were often used in the president's Anglo family and the names Harriet and Wayles were used successively in the Hemings Family. Why not Thomas and Sally if this big affair existed? Maybe it's just me, but It seems peculiar.
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