Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson

by Lewis, Jan; Onuf, Peter S.

• ISBN13: 9780813919195
• ISBN10: 0813919193
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

The publication of DNA test results showing that Thomas Jefferson was probably the father of one of his slave Sally Hemings's children has sparked a broad but often superficial debate. The editors of this volume have assembled some of the most distinguished American historians, including three Pulitzer Prize winners, and other experts on Jefferson, his times, race, and slavery. Their essays reflect the deeper questions the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson has raised about American history and national culture.The DNA tests would not have been conducted had there not already been strong historical evidence for the possibility of a relationship. As historians from Winthrop D. Jordan to Annette Gordon-Reed have argued, much more is at stake in this liaison than the mere question of paternity: historians must ask themselves if they are prepared to accept the full implications of our complicated racial history, a history powerfully shaped by the institution of slavery and by sex across the color line.How, for example, does it change our understanding of American history to place Thomas Jefferson in his social context as a plantation owner who fathered white and black families both? What happens when we shift our focus from Jefferson and his white family to Sally Hemings and her children? How do we understand interracial sexual relationships in the early republic and in our own time? Can a renewed exploration of the contradiction between Jefferson's life as a slaveholder and his libertarian views yield a clearer understanding of the great political principles he articulated so eloquently and that Americans cherish? Are there moral or political lessons to be learned from the lives of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings and the way that historians and the public have attempted to explain their liaison?Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture promises an open-ended discussion on the living legacy of slavery and race relations in our national culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(18)
Jan Ellen Lewis
Peter S. Onuf
PART I. RACE, SEX, AND HISTORY
The Ghosts of Monticello	19	(16)
Gordon S. Wood
Hemings and Jefferson: Redux	35	(17)
Winthrop D. Jordan
Interracial Sex in the Chesapeake and the British Atlantic World, c. 1700-1820	52	(35)
Philip D. Morgan
PART II. STORIES AND LIES, REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING
James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virginia	87	(27)
Joshua D. Rothman
Monticello Stories Old and New	114	(13)
Rhys Isaac
The White Jeffersons	127	(34)
Jan Ellen Lewis
Bonds of Memory: Identity and the Hemings Family	161	(26)
Lucia Stanton
Dianne Swann-Wright
PART III. CIVIC CULTURE
``Denial Is Not a River in Egypt,''	187	(12)
Clarence Walker
Presidents, Race, and Sex	199	(11)
Werner Sollors
Our Jefferson	210	(26)
Jack N. Rakove
``The Memories of a Few Negroes'': Rescuing America's Future at Monticello	236	(19)
Annette Gordon-Reed
Appendix A. Madison Hemings's Memoir	255	(4)
Appendix B. James Callender's Reports	259	(3)
Appendix C. Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gray, 4 March 1815	262	(2)
Appendix D. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV	264	(5)
Appendix E. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII	269	(2)
Notes on Contributors	271	(2)
Index	273