Thank you sending this e-mail.  Your comments express several accurate
thesis.
-----Original Message-----
From: Harold S. Forsythe [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 2:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Jefferson-Hemings-Woodson DNA Study



One may doubt paternity in any case. As the old saying goes: "Papa says,

Mama knows." That the white Jeffersons would be so sure of their own
paternal descent from the great founder, but so doubtful about the often
mocked paternity of self-described black descendants of Thomas Jefferson,
has always seemed to me about everything but actual descent.

As Joel Williamson so powerfully depicted in The Crucible of Race and New
People, the increasing number of mulattoes in the ante-bellum South was a
subject often remarked upon. No one claimed that black men were responsible
for this mixing, given who they would have to have reproduced with to
produce mulattoes. Now, in the antebellum South, elite white men had the
most ready access to enslaved women of African (and Native American)
descent. They, after all, owned these women.

I really do not want to offend descent people, who have believed in the
purity of an ancestor. I do not want to undermine the moral consciousness of
present day southerners. But what this debate constitutes, to my mind, is a
denial of what slavery and a slave- based society really was. It was a
system where the wealthiest and most honored men and women in the society
owned the bodies and labor of another entire class of people. This
implications of this ownership claim are staggering: involving ownership of
offspring, accumulated fruits of labor, and quite often of total sexual
access. This latter was not a privilege necessarily extended to the 3/4 of
the white population who did not own slaves; as the southern folklore often
implies. Sexual access, like control over labor and ownership of children,
was a privilege of slaveownership.

Face it!


Harold S. Forsythe

History & Black Studies

Fairfield University



Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:45:16 -0600

From: Judy Baugh <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: Jefferson-Hemings-Woodson DNA Study

To: [log in to unmask]

Send reply to: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history

<[log in to unmask]>


I believe "fiasco" refers to the widespread conclusion, based on the
findings of the initial Jefferson DNA study (as reported in 'Nature', 1998),
that TJ sired one or more of Sally Hemings' children. That conclusion simply
doesn't meet common scientific standard, or as we say in Texas, that dog
won't hunt. No matter how interesting, whether it/they be pro or con, the
circumstantial evidence, the oral histories, the informed opinions, et al.,
do not change that fact. These are subjective factors - open to
interpretation. The DNA is not, and the only valid conclusions that can be
drawn from it are that Eston Hemings' lineal descendants have the same Y
chromosome as the descendants of Thomas Jefferson's uncle, and that Y
chromosome is not found in the lineal descendants of Thomas Woodson.

Despite the truths of the matter, the popular literature on Jefferson and/or
Hemings is increasingly dominated by works founded on the "fact" that
Jefferson was the father of one/all of Hemings' children - including Thomas
Woodson. The mere fact of their publication may to some be powerful
encouragement to accept myth and legend as indisputable reality. Any
publication which interdicts that process should be most welcome.

Rgds., Judy Baugh


I am sure we all look forward to the report from the "'Blue Ribbon
Commission'" of "'volunteer...unbiased'" experts. But precisely what
"fiasco" is referenced in this message?

Harold S. Forsythe History & Black Studies Fairfield University

Date sent: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 00:05:10 -0500 From: Herbert Barger Subject:
Jefferson-Hemings-Woodson DNA Study To: [log in to unmask] Send reply
to: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history


The Scholars Commission (composed of over 16 well known professors) will >
be releasing their unbiased findings in a report around Thomas Jefferson's >
birthday, April 13, 2001. This Blue Ribbon Commission, all volunteers and >
NOT Monticello employees, are giving freely of their time to give the >
public the benefit of their unbiased research into this fiasco, known as >
the Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study. >

> Herbert Barger > Jefferson Family Historian > >


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