Good points, Henry--and good to have you back!

It seems to me that the post-DNA-test clincher in this hydra-like  
debate (which I hesitate to mention for fear of causing another head  
to sprout, one way or the other) is the fact that yes, other  
Jeffersons COULD have been Hemings's lover.

But there is no contemporary evidence that any other Jefferson WAS.

Therefore, if you combine
(1) the contemporaneous historical evidence--i.e., the testimony from  
those alive and in the vicinity during Hemings's childbearing years-- 
with
(2) the new scientific (DNA) evidence,
the only candidate for paternity who fits both sets of data is TJ.

For myself and for many of us, I suspect, that really does settle the  
logic of the matter, and hence the presumptive historical facts,  
pending the (unlikely) emergence of additional contemporaneous  
historical material.

One might think it high time to redirect the zeal, resourcefulness,  
minutia-mindedness, and energy that this matter has elicited toward  
some other problem of Virginia history, or American history, or world  
history, or even Jeffersonian history, instead.  But of course, the  
relentless resilience of the debate is an interesting subject of  
history in its own right, down to and including the present, as Ed  
Ayers and Scot French demonstrated to us some years ago.

--Jurretta, promising to stomp on all hydra heads on her way out


On Aug 27, 2007, at 10:07 AM, Henry Wiencek wrote: -

> A belated answer to Richard Dixon's query (I have been in Ireland  
> the past
> week on a "find my roots" trip, which led me to a remote cemetery  
> in the
> rocky fields of Connemara--an extremely emotional experience).
>
> There is no question that Jefferson's overseer Edmund Bacon was an
> "exaggerator." James Bear made that point in his introduction to  
> his edition
> of Bacon's memoir (p xiii). I believe that Jeff Randolph tried to  
> refute
> some things Bacon said in his memoir, but I don't have Jeff's  
> letter in
> front of me.  Bacon despised the Randolphs and mocked them  
> mercilessly in
> his memoir. Clearly he had been irritated by the meddling of the in- 
> laws.
> He said the Randolphs were "all strange people" and said (p 89)  
> that Thomas
> Mann Randolph, Jefferson's son-in-law, "would often do the most  
> strange and
> laughable things." It is also abundantly clear that Bacon adored  
> Jefferson
> and would say almost anything to protect and enhance his old boss's
> reputation. We must sort through what Bacon said very carefully to  
> extract
> the truth from the puffery. There's a lot of truth there, along  
> with many
> errors. It's very hard, for example, to verify what Bacon said  
> about his
> trips to Washington during Jefferson's presidency. And clearly,  
> Bacon was
> not at Monticello when Harriet Hemings was conceived--as Bacon  
> claimed.
> Perhaps he got Harriet mixed up with Eston Hemings; perhaps he made  
> it all up.
>
> As to inter-racial sex being acceptable--Jefferson and others  
> railed against
> it, but Jefferson staffed his household with mixed-race people, so  
> obviously
> he easily accepted the results of racial mixing. A great many elite
> plantation households had servants who were "mighty near white."   
> If the
> white Virginia elite was so appalled by racial mixing, why didn't  
> they ship
> all the mulattoes and their law-breaking parents to the West  
> Indies?  Some
> of Jefferson's white workmen had children with enslaved women, and  
> to my
> knowledge Jefferson never fired a workman for these illicit  
> relationships.
> He countenanced these relationships.  Slave masters said one thing,  
> did
> another, and followed the law when it suited them.
>
> The UVA Magazine article is a useful summary of the Hemings/Jefferson
> debate. All the historical testimony in this matter, on both sides,  
> is full
> of holes, biases, deceptions, faulty memories, etc.  One problem  
> with the
> article is that it's all "one the one hand, and then on the other  
> hand."
> This is the fundamental fault in all so-called "objective"
> reporting--authors give space to dissenting views purely to have  
> "balance."
>  Thus the author gives space to the claim that other Jeffersons  
> aside from
> Thomas could have fathered Sally's children.  Maybe so, but to my  
> mind no
> one has yet advanced any credible evidence that another Jefferson  
> could have
> been the father, and that needs to be said.
>
> Henry Wiencek
>
>
> On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:55:16 -0400, Heritage Society
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> In the current issue of the UVA Magazine, there is an article  
>> "Anatomy of a
> Mystery" which addresses the issue of Jefferson's alleged paternity  
> of slave
> children. In the article, Lucia Stanton is quoted as saying that  
> Edmund
> Bacon (the overseer at Monticello who asserted he knew the father  
> of Sally
> Hemings' daughter and that it was not Thomas Jefferson) had a  
> reputation
> among Jefferson’s grandchildren as "a great tale teller and  
> exaggerator."
> Also, in the article, Peter Onuff was quoted as saying that, "What  
> we take
> as the big taboo—crossing the racial boundary—was the norm in this  
> period.
> What we think is the worst was then probably the most acceptable  
> behavior.
> It happened all over the place." Does anyone have any references  
> that Bacon
> was known as "a great tale teller and exaggerator"? As to whether
> interracial sex was the "norm" I guess depends on how "norm" is  
> defined.
> However, there were laws against it, so how was it "acceptable"?
>>
>> Richard E. Dixon
>> Editor, Jefferson Notes
>> Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
>> 703-691-0770
>> fax 703-691-0978
>