Herb,
The fact that there is no "proof" that the paternity of Jefferson to Sally
Hemings children is true, does not affect really change whether indeed it
was true or not. Truth that is not "proven" is not thereby disproven.
Certain highly publicised trials in recent years included aquittals which
brought disbelief to many. The reality is that the failure of "proof"
sufficient to result in a conviction, is not necessarily "proof" of
innocence.
In your efforts to demand a "proof" that things of the past are "Truth" or
not, you have cast aspersions on the characters of those whose memories,
comments, observations, and testimony may well have been based on reality,
but you have dismissed them as insufficient to "prove" a decision you and
your "foundation" seem to have made in advance of examining the evidence.
To some degree your protestations that all the damning evidence is lies and
the conclusion mere speculation brings to mind the many tv commercials for
drugs whose side effects include the very things that the ad says are not a
factor for the advertised drug. Claritin Clear is one of the more aggregious
of those ads who promise that you will not feel drugged, or uncapacited if
you take that medication - then they tell you that those are the very side
effects that have been reported by some users.
"Buyer Beware" is still a necessity in choosing a drug, and "Reader Beware"
is a necessity in reading "research" that results in conclusions that were
predetermined before the research was undertaken.
I will remind that it would have been a greater breach of integrity and
humanity for Jefferson to have given his faithful servant to be used by his
brother, or his youthful nephews than for him to have taken his pleasure
with her himself. In attempting to uphold the supposed "integrity" of your
man, you are actually undermining not only his "integrity" but casting
aspersions on the "integrity" of those who may have been without sin.
Anne
Perhaps one day, the Madison Hemings will be sufficiently angered by your
constant denigration of the limited information they left for posterity and
will be prompted to prove you wrong with the scientific evidence you demand.
I have no doubt that you will them try to practice "damage control" by
limiting the value of that "proof" to a Madison Hemings only rather than
recognize that with two such judgement, the evidence would point to the
liklihood that the paternity extended to the other childen who were believed
by those who were present and witnesses to the goings on, to have been the
children of that wayward womanizer whose "integrity" you have pledge to
defend. In short, no matter how much scientic proof is added to the
circumstantial proofs already well established, you will undoubtedly
continue to protest that the proof is not conclusive enough to convince you.
Anne Pemberton
[log in to unmask]
http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Herbert Barger" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 9:40 PM
Subject: Re: The Wayles/Hemings miscegenation "rumor"
> Henry,
>
> Thanks for adding the web page of my very exciting interview with Mr.
> Francis (Frank) Berkley. As explained in the interview, he was VERY
> knowledgeable about Virginia and the people in it. He was a walking and
> talking historian and very passionate about his work.
>
> I can not think of a better interview I have done and place it on the
> level as that of my interview with Mrs. Winifred Bennett of Arlington,
> Va. who originated the idea to have a DNA Study. She died not long ago,
> broken hearted that Dr. Eugene Foster had "jerked the rug out from under
> her" in the name of "fame" as she said. Dr. Foster would give the story
> to Nature rather than to her for her Jefferson book in progress. She
> said she asked him, Gene what is it you want, and his reply.....FAME. It
> was sad and disheartening for me and my wife to sit and listen to this
> sad story.
>
> Even though Frank thought possibly that the half-sister claim may have
> been true we now have a later version researched after his earlier
> research period, after hard and long research by the McMurrys in,
> Anatomy of a Scandal and they are quiet persuasive in their findings
> that there is no proof that it is true.
>
> Herb Barger
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Henry Wiencek
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 10:20 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] The Wayles/Hemings miscegenation "rumor"
>
> In response to Ronald Seagrave:
>
> The legal status and the movements of Isaac Jefferson are something of a
> puzzle. At age 71 and still working, he was interviewed by Charles W.
> Campbell in Petersburg in 1847; the manuscript of the memoir was not
> discovered until a century later and was first published 1951, reissued
> 1967
> by James Bear as "Jefferson at Monticello," along with the memoir of
> Edmund
> Bacon, the overseer, with Bear's scholarly apparatus. Campbell's
> manuscript
> typesetting copy is at UVA Special Collections and is online. See also a
> very valuable discussion on Herb Barger's site:
> http://www.tjheritage.org/Berkleyinterview.html
>
> We don't quite know how Isaac got to Petersburg. In his memoir Isaac
> states,
> "Isaac left Monticello four years before Mr. Jefferson died." He says
> that
> Thomas Mann Randolph wanted him to build a threshing machine at Varina.
> {Bear, pp. 18, 22.} Isaac said he lived with Thomas Mann Randolph and
> his
> wife 26 or 27 years. {Bear, p. 15-16.} An endnote by Campbell says that
> Isaac was married and had two children. Bear says that they were all
> deeded
> to one of Jefferson's daughters in 1797, but that the next year Isaac
> went
> to live with Martha and Thomas Mann Randolph.
>
> Cinder Stanton writes in "Free Some Day," pp. 51, 24: "Some time in the
> 1820s Isaac Jefferson made his way to Richmond and then to Petersburg,
> Virginia, evidently as a free man. . . . Thomas Mann Randolph may have
> manumitted him or he may have purchased his own freedom." Perhaps Isaac
> became quasi-free in the same manner as Jupiter's son Phil Evans. In
> his
> memoir TJ Randolph wrote that Evans "hired himself from me at a nominal
> hire." Perhaps Isaac Jefferson was allowed to do the same thing.
>
> Actually, Jefferson did record the deaths and the transfers/sales of
> many of
> his slaves. See the Plantation Database at Monticello.org, and the Farm
> Book, which is online in a magnificent, searchable transcription at the
> Mass. Historical Society site.
>
> Isaac does make some errors, noted by Bear, but nothing that completely
> discredits his account. He describes Sally Hemings and her family but
> says
> nothing whatever on the Hemings/Jefferson question. His account is one
> of
> the most important sources we have for life at Monticello.
>
> Henry Wiencek
>
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