Paul's point raises an interesting question of memory, accuracy, and oral history. In my class on seventeenth century rebellions, we were just discussing whether, in reading a document, we should be more willing to accept an oral history w/ some known error than a written source with the same....
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Finkelman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, December 7, 2012 7:03:11 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] (VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
What Mr. Barger shows is exactly what I have suggested about memory and discussions of what happened a long time ago. We may not be able to trust "micro" details, such as the date of a visit many years earlier, especially in this case, since the person describing the event was just born when the event took place. This does not mean other aspects of the memory -- larger issues -- are not correct. So Madison Hemings may have the wrong date for a visit by Dolley Madison decades earlier. This does not mean he was not named for James Madison, or that his father was not Thomas Jefferson. It only means that he was wrong about the date of something that took place right after he was born.
I note for example, that Mr. Barger spells the name of Madison's wife as "Dolly" in the 4th line of the email and later as "Dolley" -- should I conclude from this that anything Mr. Barger says is wrong because he does not know, or cannot decide, how Mrs. Madison spelled her name? Or should I conclude that his micro-error really does undermine all of his arguments? (I may still think his arguments are wrong, as in fact I do, but not because he cannot decide how to spell Mrs. Madison's name.)
----
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208
518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)
[log in to unmask]
www.paulfinkelman.com
________________________________
From: Herbert Barger <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, December 6, 2012 5:53 PM
Subject: [VA-HIST] (VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
The Pike Co, Ohio newspaper referenced earlier and used by Monticello as a
factual research tool is defective in several ways. I did a deep research
into one major claim that was false. Madison Hemings claims that he was
named for James Madison while Dolly Madison was visiting Monticello on
Madison's birth date, Jan 19, 1805. A little checking we find that this an
INCORRECT statement and if this one statement is incorrect what can we
believe about his other outrageous claims. The history of the Madisons is
that they never visited Virginia from Washington during winter. To add
insult to this lie he states that like all white people, Dolley did not
follow through with a promised gift. This article was the work of an
abolitionist writer. This is a trumped up attempt to revise history,
"setting aside questions of historical accuracy", see pg 280, Jeffersonian
Legacies, by Monticello sponsored historian Prof. Peter Onuf for details.
Herbert Barger
Founder, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (www.tjheritage.org)
Assistant to Dr E.A. Foster on the Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hardwick, Kevin - hardwikr
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 4:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
In general, a primary source speaks most authoritatively to the time in
which it was written. There are all sorts of reasons why someone repeating
a story might embellish or change details, as the story is told and retold.
(Some members of this list may recall the difficulties into which historian
Joseph Ellis was embroiled some years ago, when he fabricated important
elements of stories about his own life, in order to enhance his teaching).
If the story is one told often, and with a strong contemporary moral to
it--if it conveys a contemporary lesson, for example--the raconteur relating
the story may even become convinced of its truth, despite evidence to the
contrary. We cannot be at sure that many of the events remembered in the
WPA narratives ever happened, and in those cases where we can make educated
guesses about the validity of the narratives, based on other evidentiary
sources, the elderly person telling the story very often got details wrong.
Psychologists who study memory suggest that recent events almost always
color the way older memories are processed and sorted--what gets remembered,
and what gets reconstructed based on subsequent events. When we assess the
validity of accounts like those in the WPA slave narratives, in my view we
are best off treating them not as literal truth, but rather as indicative of
life strategies, developed over the course of many years of living, both as
slaves and as free persons
I don't know enough about the Madison Hemings account to say much about the
particulars of it. But a priori, I don't know at the present any reason to
exempt it from the same broad principle--as a primary source, it speaks best
to the time at which it was written.
All best wishes,
Kevin
___________________________
Kevin R. Hardwick
Associate Professor
Department of History, MSC 8001
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
________________________________________
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Paul Finkelman
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 4:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "The Monster of Monticello"
the difference I suppose is that level of detail. Saying you were owned by
someone; or who your parents were, is pretty likely to be remembered. Giving
micro details of life as some of the narratives do, is more complicated. In
any event, I did not say the slave narratives cannot be used, only that they
require some care. I cannot remember how old Madison H. was when he gave the
interview. That also affects the level of memory. My mother, in her late
80s, is good on who her parents and children were, where she grew up, and
stuff like that, but not good on micro details
----
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208
518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)
[log in to unmask]
www.paulfinkelman.com
________________________________
From: Herbert Barger <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
Paul,
Would not the Pike Co article by Madison Hemings not fall into this
category? His article was used by the Monticello DNA Study by Chairman,
Dianne Swann-Wright and Annette Gordon-Reed who accepted it as fact. All of
it was not fact as we well know.
Herb Barger
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Finkelman, Paul
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 5:27 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
Jeff is right on the slave narratives, but they are tricky to use since most
were interviews done in the 1920s and 1930s when the people being
interviewed were very old, if they had grown up in slavery, or they were
still quite old but had only been very young children in slavery. As anyone
knows who does an interview with someone years and years after the event,
the memory is not always the best
*************************
Paul Finkelman
John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History
Duke University School of Law
210 Science Drive
Box 90360
Durham, NC 27708-0360
919-613-7038 (o)
518-605-0296 (c)
[log in to unmask]
www.paulfinkelman.com
********************
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jeff Southmayd
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 5:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
As I love to interject in these slavery debates, the "Slave Narratives"
should be carefully studied for what they seem to disclose about the
experience during and after slavery of many of the actualy "participants."
Jeff Southmayd
SOUTHMAYD & MILLER
4 OCEAN RIDGE BOULEVARD SOUTH
PALM COAST, FLORIDA 32137
386.445.9156
888.557.3686 FAX
[log in to unmask]
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> Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 16:50:19 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: "The Monster of Monticello"
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Mr. Barger,
> Paul Finkelman is indeed a "slavery expert:" a careful scholar and clear
and cogent writer of history on this subject.
> I for one did not read the "Monster" essay as particularly pursuing the
argument about Jefferson's possible paternity of the Hemings children but
rather the "monstrosity" of Jefferson's thorough embrace of this inhumane
practice. As Professor Finkelman has argued over the years, this is an
indictment springing not from present day concerns, but from Jefferson's own
day and from his own contemporaries. Jefferson early on decided that he
enjoyed the lifestyle that slavery afforded him and he never seriously
reconsidered that position. Others --- and others surely of less
intellectual and philosophical bent than Jefferson -- saw the wrong in
slavery and acted; Jefferson claimed to see that wrong but wouldn't act.
> Dragging up arguments about the suggestion that Jefferson may have
fathered children by Sally Hemings -- and the DNA study no more disproves
that possibility than it proves it -- strikes me as a red herring when
compared to the fact that the man bought, sold, and owned human beings.
That we as a nation -- and including even teachers of history -- perpetuate
myths about kindness and paternalism of masters or supply relativistic
rationalizations of the practice of slavery is the true disgrace.
> So I thank Professor Finkelman for his brutal honesty in addressing this
past.
>
> David Kiracofe
> History
> Tidewater Community College
> Chesapeake, Virginia
> ________________________________________
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Herbert Barger
> [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 2:09 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: "The Monster of Monticello"
>
> Finkelman is another of those "slavery experts" including Monticello,
> Peter Onuf (financed by Monticello),(Finkelman studied under him at
> UVA I believe). Onuf edited the Oct 92 edition of Jeffersonian
> Legacies of which Finkelman was a chapter author. The aim of this
> group (writers were Onuf, Finkelman Monticello President, Dan Jordan,
> Jan Lewis, Lucia Stanton, Monticello Chief Researcher, Gordon Wood,
> Scot French, Edward Ayers and
> others) is according to a Prof. Richard Rorty on page 280, "setting
> aside questions of HISTORICAL ACCURACY AND PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION
> (my caps), in order to sustain the present-day cause of international
human rights."
>
> Now do we understand why Monticello would remove "Memorial" from their
> title, associate with such people as Onuf and Paul Finkelman and
> continue to "instruct" other historians at the Smith Thomas Jefferson
> Research Center at Monticello on the slavery issue and the mishandling
> of the DNA Study that DID NOT prove that Thomas Jefferson fathered any
slave child.
>
> That NYT Prof. Paul Finkelman article is a disgrace to Mr Jefferson
> and Monticello.
>
> Herb Barger
> Founder, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society www.tjheritage.org
> www.jeffersondnastudy.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ron Roizen
> Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 12:05 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
>
> In the great tradition of "Let's you and him fight," what did list
> members think of Paul Finkelman's NY Times opinion piece:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/opinion/the-real-thomas-jefferson.ht
> ml?src
> =recg&_r=0 ?
>
> Ron Roizen
> Wallace, Idaho
>
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