We weren't there and we don't know. I have documents showing that one of my 
direct ancestors, was related to the Monroes. These are court records, not 
hearsay, or oral recountings. So what?

Anita


>From: Jurretta Heckscher <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history         
>      <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)
>Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 10:28:21 -0400
>
>Dear colleagues:
>
>Today's Washington Post contains at article at
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/
>AR2007061001404.html on this past weekend's Montpelier Slave
>Descendants Reunion at Madison's Montpelier in Orange County.
>Unfortunately, it tells little about the reunion, the people who
>attended, or their ancestors, choosing to focus instead on the
>intriguing claim of one family, based on oral history, to be direct
>descendants of Madison himself.
>
>At the same time Matthew Reeves, director of archeology at Montpelier,
>is quoted as dismissing oral histories depicting Madison as a "good"
>slaveholder because "most oral history comes back with that."  (A
>questionable statement, I think.)  Instead, he castigates Madison
>because "when it comes down to the end, his slaves are all sold."
>
>Reeves knows far more than I do about Madison as a slaveholder, but it
>seems to me his words considerably oversimplify the situation: it's my
>understanding that Madison left his slaves to his wife, and she ended
>up selling them some years later in order to cover the debts incurred
>by her son, an alcoholic and gambling addict, which was an outcome
>Madison did not foresee.  Madison's struggles to decide the fate of his
>slaves are discussed with great sensitivity by Drew McCoy in his
>remarkable study The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the
>Republican Legacy.
>
>The Post article is accompanied by a photo of, among others at the
>reunion, Gladys-Marie Fry: some of you may know her work as a
>folklorist/historian.
>
>--Jurretta Heckscher

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