The renewal of the Jefferson-Hemings scandals --
or "fiasco" -- has emerged to overshadow what I, as a
professional historian, had hoped would be the larger
imapct of the DNA studies.  That is, I had hoped the
findings would focus greater attention on the
complexitities of slavery and racial categories in
early America.  So many of the issues involved in the
specific Jefferson-Hemings case appear unanswerable:
what was their relationship? (If it wasn't sexual, what
was it? why were her children manumitted? etc. -- if it
was sexual, what was the nature of that relationship?
consensual or coerced? amatory or convenience?).  DNA
will not answer such questions even if it can provide a
100% guaranteed answer to paternity.

I for one would like to see more discussion of the
complexities of race and slavery as indicated by the
Jefferson-Hemings case.  A number of people have
commented on the matter of racial mixing and mulatto
people in the South, but what we have in this case are
some extremely "white" mulattoes -- Sally Hemings
herself was at most only one-fourth of African descent;
her children then only one-eighth.  Some of Hemings'
grandchildren eventually passed into the white
community.  Doesn't this complicate a picture of white
masters and black slaves?  How many slaves were people
who looked white?  To get back to the original scandal -
- Callender's story of "Tom" who was recognized in the
neighborhood, was not the black image of his reputed
father, but probably a very white one.

I was struck by this issue lately while looking at some
photographic images from the Reconstruction period of
children in a freedman's school.  The pupils appeared
to be both black and white -- an integrated classroom.
But of course this was not the case; the children were
all freed people.

Continuing to fight over Jefferson's reputation seems
pretty unproductive in light of the bigger picture.

David Kiracofe
Texas Tech University

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