I suppose I qualify as within the category "other researchers."  I am fascinated
by the poster's use of MAY, COULD, etc.  This language of
contingency seems reasonable and prudent, except that it is
based on the almost unstated and certainly unargued premise of
Thomas Jefferson's "innocence," and by the way, his own
unproblematic parentage.
  Since we are in the realm of MAY and COULD, and since the
poster has posited that T. Jefferson's father MAY have fathered a
child or children by one of his slaves, COULD Thomas Jefferson
himself have been one of those mixed race offspring?  After all, we
have no more proof of TJ's parentage, save for legal attestation and
"oral history," than we have for the parentage of Sally Hemmings'
children.  And I have seen enough natural readhaired black people
to know that the racial amalgamation, which has been brewing in
America since the early 17th century,  is capable of producing a
"black" person who looks like any "white" person alive.
  Hey, this is easy.  If I am committed enough to my own
preconceived conclusions and use the rhetorical methods of
skepticism, I can assert almost anything and call it history.

  There is an absolutely wonderful scene in a film I saw a year or
two back--can't recall the title.  The main character, white, is at a
TV commercial shoot and the black (hip!) assistant producer is
explaining to a couple of white extras for the scene, that he had
recently read a book that showed that the Holocaust was entirely
fictional.  The Jews had just made it up.  The main character walks
up and joins the conversation, claiming that he had read that book
and that it also claimed that the whole slave trade story was a
hoax.  "Actually, the Africans were so eager to come to America to
work, they paid their own way."
  The assistant director retorted:  "Man, that shit ain't funny!"
  The main character is fired from the commercial.

Harold S. Forsythe
History & Black Studies
Fairfield University

Date sent:              Thu, 29 Mar 2001 22:53:20 -0500
From:                   Herbert Barger <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: Mr. Jefferson
To:                     [log in to unmask]
Send reply to:          Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
        <[log in to unmask]>

> Dr. Watkinson and other researchers,
>
> May I say that I wish you were as doggedly aggressive on this issue as was
> your grandfather, Virginus Dabney. We need more people who know their
> Jefferson and who have carefully studied his life. They just did not have
> the modern day DNA to back up their research that we have today. Since
> their time we HAVE found that Callender's Campaign Lies were just that.
> There was NO Jefferson/Woodson DNA match. Out of all this we find a match
> between SOME Jefferson DNA and the DNA of Eston Hemings. This is not to
> say that the Jefferson DNA in the blood of the Eston Hemings descendant
> would necessarily have to be from any known Jefferson BUT could have come
> through a slave inherited from Thomas Jefferson's father, Peter Jefferson
> (one mulatto was). who may have had "A" Jefferson father earlier. Then
> such slave could have a male descendant who COULD be the father of Sally's
> children. This is just a possibility and cited to show just how
> preposterous it is to jump at quick solutions. Yes, Thomas Jefferson, like
> the rest of us, was a human being and a great one at that, but that
> doesn't place him in a category of rapist, etc. that some historical
> revisionists would like to have the public believe.
>
> I disagree that your grandfather and Dumas Malone would be dogging Thomas
> Jefferson because their long and detailed research convinced them already
> that he was innocent of the charges. I would imagine that they all may be
> saying, "Look how today's politically correct historical revisionists are
> STILL believing in ORAL history that has scientifically been disproved by
> NO such match."
>
> As a grandson of the famous Virginus Dabney I would like to invite you to
> join those of us defending the thoughts of your grandfather and all he
> stood for.
>
> Herb Barger
> Jefferson Family Historian
>
>
> Jim Watkinson wrote:
>
> > As a historian, It never ceases to amaze me that some of those in the
> > field and the public at large are confounded when our "great men" turn
> > out to be flesh-and-blood human beings with all the foibles that
> > accompany that condition.
> >
> > As a collateral descendent of Jefferson, I do not think I could care
> > less about whether or not he enjoyed a sexual relationship with Sally
> > Hemmings. While it might make him a hypocrite in some sense, it
> > certainly does not detract from his other enormous accomplishments.
> >
> > On a lighter note, as the grandson of the man, Virginius Dabney, who
> > wrote the last "defense" of Jefferson, _The Jefferson Scandals_, I
> > suspect that if there is an afterlife, my grandfather and Dumas Malone,
> > among others, are dogging Mr. Jefferson, and asking some very pointed
> > questions.
> >
> > Jim Watkinson
> >
> > James D. Watkinson, Ph.D.
> > Library of Virginia
> > History Department, Randolph-Macon College
> >
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