Ins't Herb's "theory" simply that it was anyone but Jefferson? The logic escapes me.
Jefferson was a man with normal, even high level, sex drive. As young man he propositioned his neighbor's wife; his own wife was constantly pregnant. When she died Sally was soon available. Sally was his wife's half-sister and probably looked somewhat (much) like his late wife. Jefferson lived in a culture where slaveowning men had free and easy access to their slave women. Elite slaveowners, like Jefferson, lived in a culture where sex with slaves was common and unexceptional. As a widower Jefferson was not even subject to raise eyebrows for cheating on his wfe. While some modern scholars are shocked at the olded Jefferson having a relationship with the teenaged Sally, this was not shocking at the time. Madison was courting a girl in her early teens when he was in his late 20s or early 30s and no one thought anything of it. President Tyler married a much much younger woman after his first wife died. This was not uncommon. Nor were most of the Founders "prudes" or "Victorians" about sex (John Adams and perhaps John Jay are notable exceptions).
So, the real issue is why are people like Herb so invested in asserting that TJ could not, would not, did not, have sex with Sally, when all the evidence (timing of her the birth of her children, access, etc.) was there before the DNA came along? Why would we expect anything else from a slaveholding widower isolated on his mountain top? Do we think Jefferson in his 40s became a monk?
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York 12208-3494
518-445-3386
[log in to unmask]
>>> Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]> 07/17/08 9:05 AM >>>
Unless I am mistaken, Herb's theory (and this is a new theory) that the
French servant Adrien Petit fathered children with Sally Hemings at
Monticello does not hold water. Adrien Petit worked for Jefferson in
Philadelphia and he returned to France in January 1794, a year before Sally
Hemings conceived Harriet 1, who was born in October 1795. Petit was across
the sea when Hemings conceived children at Monticello. If there is a record
that states otherwise I will be glad to see it.
Henry Wiencek
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