Here again, Mr. Barger accuses long-dead people -- Madison Hemings and
Samuel Wetmore -- of "lying" without any evidence whatsoever about their
mental state. A false statement is not necessarily a lie; it may just be
a mistake.
It seems that Mr. Barger is very free with his accusations of dishonesty.
KG
Kevin R. C. Gutzman, J.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Western Connecticut State University
See _Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World
War I to George W. Bush_ on Amazon.com!
Herbert Barger <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
<[log in to unmask]>
05/05/2008 01:11 PM
Please respond to
Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
<[log in to unmask]>
To
[log in to unmask]
cc
Subject
Re: [VA-HIST] Jefferson's Overseer
Stephan,
I am reporting to everyone about the past.....not the future. For the
future we can only hope that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation will
appoint a successor to Dr. Jordan, upon his Nov. retirement, that will
"take the bull by the horns" and try to solve this controversy,
otherwise any reporter or author seeming factual information about the
controversy will be misled, in my opinion.
As a scientist and historian this falls exactly into your expertise. Do
you not agree that the test was simply a test of a "known" Jefferson DNA
carrier, thus a match was guaranteed? Dr. Foster kept this from Nature
just as Dan Jordan kept the original Minority Report from the public in
his original release.
Do you not agree that Madison Hemings or Samuel Wetmore was lying in the
Pike Co. article when Madison claims he was named by Dolley Madison upon
his birth Jan. 19, 1805 at Monticello? He WAS NOT, she wasn't there. She
was in Washington and the Madison Papers indicate that the Madisons
NEVER traveled to Virginia during the winter from Washington. Just One
among many scientific and historical glitches in this controversy. After
all of this the political correctness boy and girls enter the picture
with their slavery stories, etc.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stephan A. Schwartz
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 8:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Jefferson's Overseer
Herb --
You have issues about the past, which we cannot change. I have faith
in the future. I have this because, as an experimentalist and
scientist, as well as an historian, I have watched issues like this
melt away in the bright light of more sophisticated science. Your
post, below, is all about academic politics, which can be very
hurtful, to be sure, but this is tactical and transitory, not
strategic and ultimately substantive.
-- Stephan
On 4 May 2008, at 19:52, Herbert Barger wrote:
> Stephan,
>
> I disagree that it will be science that settles this. What could
> possibly settle this is for Monticello President Dr. Daniel Jordan, to
> convene a new panel of researchers from ALL interested parties and not
> just his own employees as in the past. Much recent research from
> our own
> Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (www.tjheritage.org), could clear it
> up if he would just cooperate. There was nothing wrong with DNA
> AFTER it
> was collected that I can detect. Decisions on who to collect from,
> John
> Weeks Jefferson, an Eston descendant, whose family oral history was
> already defined.........just had to be a match under these conditions
> NOT revealed by Dr. Foster to Nature. They thought they had TJ himself
> "nailed" BUT they were denied my research from Dr. Foster, thus
> enabling
> them to make a false headline, one which they told me, Dr. Foster saw
> before publication. Mishandling the research results by Monticello
> further added to the confusion. When anyone, including the media,
> wants
> to do a study or article, naturally they consult Monticello for the
> story, assuming this is a "level playing field" of current
> research.....IT IS NOT, in my opinion. Don't we normally go to "the
> horse's mouth" or what we perceive to be the source of all Jefferson
> research?
>
> Herb Barger
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stephan A. Schwartz
> Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 11:48 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Jefferson's Overseer
>
> Historical data, absent the discovery of some as yet unknown but
> definitive documentation, will not get us to an answer. On that we
> should, surely, all agree at this point. Only science will settle
> this and, based on my reading of that literature, I believe it will,
> within the next 10-15 years. Personally, I think it is a question we
> should put aside until some new factor is introduced into the
> equation.
>
> -- Stephan
>
> On 4 May 2008, at 09:03, DFM wrote:
>
>> In a little book called Jefferson at Monticello. The private life
>> of Thomas Jefferson, the author addresses the question of TJ and a
>> slave-girl lover and he says that he often saw someone else, never
>> Jefferson, leaving that slave's abode in the early morning.
>> The author of this little book was Jefferson's overseer for many
>> years and he saw a lot of what went on around the place. He does
>> not say precisely who it was that he saw darting out of her room
>> but he says that it was not Thomas Jefferson.
>> It seems to me that just like there are those who refuse to believe
>> that TJ fooled around with the slaves, there are those who refuse
>> to consider that he did not.
>> Deane Mills
>> Yorktown, VA
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Mark Wilson" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 1:37 AM
>> Subject: Re: DNA In Jefferson-Hemings controversy
>>
>>
>> Is it not possible that TJ had a secret sexual relationship with
>> another (or
>> others over the years?) rather than with apparently the relatively
>> convenient SH?
>>
>> On the other hand, TJ was already among an extremely small
>> percentage of
>> humanity at one end of the Bell curve in certain human
>> characteristics. He
>> was not your run-of-the-mill ordinary guy. Could he not have also
>> have been
>> among those fewer numbers of men tending to be mostly sexually
>> inactive in
>> later life - whether for medical or other reasons? For example,
>> although
>> "people will be people" most Popes, especially recent ones, appear
>> to have
>> been people who were celibate - even though over the centuries not
>> all have
>> been found to be so - and even though maybe more than we know were
>> not so.
>>
>> We may project certain characteristics upon the masses of humanity
>> with some
>> degree of accuracy, but when trying to say the same things about
>> one man or
>> one woman we run a much greater risk of inaccuracy. Some are
>> willing to
>> make such leaps - other are not. I believe the wiser choice is to
>> not make
>> such leaps.
>>
>> Of course some folks die before the answers ("truths") are known.
>> Some of
>> us may go that route before any new DNA methods or evidence
>> "proves" which
>> beliefs about TJ were correct. (I hate it when humans pass from
>> the scene
>> before knowing the answer "for sure" because it means that I may
>> eventually
>> be among them in things I'd really like to know - but "C'est la
>> vie," eh?)
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 7:49 PM, Stephan A. Schwartz <
>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Herbert --
>>>
>>> Thank you for this lengthy exegesis on this subject. Much of it I
>>> knew,
>>> but some I did not. Let me reduce my thinking to a parsimonious
>>> essence. The
>>> present day DNA data is highly suggestive but not despositive.
>>> However, the
>>> science of genetics is advancing now with a speed that is
>>> reminiscent of
>>> laser development - in the 1960s and 70s - when they had to
>>> publish the time
>>> and date the paper was submitted because there was a chance it had
>>> been
>>> super-ceded by the time it was through the peer-review and
>>> publication
>>> cycle. There is much more we are going to learn from DNA inquiry.
>>> Of that, I
>>> think, we can be sure. There will be new and better tests yielding
>>> clearer,
>>> deeper insights. Who did what in the beginning of this approach,
>>> a decade
>>> from now will become a not terribly important part of the
>>> narrative, except
>>> as it reveals various prejudices of the day. We must be patient
>>> until new
>>> data emerges. This is like discussing a baseball game in the
>>> seventh inning.
>>>
>>> One thing I do know. People do not live in a Tolstoian village like
>>> Monticello without all of the people in the household having a
>>> relationship,
>>> and Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson had to have had one. Her
>>> status as
>>> his chambermaid assured that.
>>>
>>> So I guess it gets down to whether you think he would be capable
>>> of such a
>>> relationship? People today have sexual relationships all the time
>>> with
>>> individuals with whom they are far less involved than Jefferson
>>> was with
>>> Sally. And the same was true in the Elizabethan Age. Between 1558
>>> and 1603,
>>> in the Country of Essex, which had approximately 40,000 adults,
>>> almost 38
>>> per cent - 15,000 - were cited for sexual misbehavior. And it will
>>> be true
>>> 50 years from now. People are people, and I think Jefferson no
>>> different. Do
>>> you think he was a celibate? Was it coercive? By definition. But
>>> while I can
>>> see Jefferson as a man with secret sexual relationship, I cannot
>>> see him as
>>> a serial rapist, so some accommodation was reached.
>>>
>>> Does this make him evil. I don't think so. Thomas Jefferson, no
>>> less that
>>> the other Founders, with the exception of Franklin, was a man of
>>> his time,
>>> status, and culture. What has always amazed me about these
>>> individuals, is
>>> that they risked everything and, in the end, rose above who they
>>> were to
>>> craft what they bequeathed us. Their modernity and relevance, lies
>>> in the
>>> question they eternally pose: Would I, could I, do the same?
>>>
>>> -- Stephan
>>
>> - - - s n i p - - -
>>
>> ______________________________________
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the
>> instructions at
>> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>>
>> ______________________________________
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the
>> instructions at
>> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the
> instructions
> at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the
> instructions at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions
at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions
at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|
