Kevin
I don't think the transition between Annette Gordon-Reed’s first book
“Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings” and her current “The Hemings of
Monticello” is as seamless as you portray. The first book was a legalistic
analysis of the paternity evidence and her theme was that evidence
indicating paternity had been ignored by historians, particularly slave
“oral history” and the newspaper interview of Madison Hemings. She never
quite asserts as historical fact that paternity is proven. In her current
effort, it is correct she does make the assumption that paternity is a
historical fact. Relying heavily on Stanton’s “Free Some Day,” which is the
product of traditional research into the daily lives of the Monticello
slaves, Gordon-Reed takes it further to imagine their emotions, thoughts,
and aspirations. In constructing the book in this manner, she failed two
challenges. The first is that she proceeded on the assumption of the
Jefferson paternity so she  ignores any of the known evidence contrary to
that assumption. This is the author’s prerogative so long as the reader
understands that only one possible scenario is being developed. But this 
approach weakens the historical importance of the work. The second is the
paucity of  information about Sally Hemings and the exact nature of any
intimate relationship within the Jefferson family. She must be invented
almost whole cloth. She turns out to have the intelligence, resourcefulness
and logical command expected from one with a Dartmouth education and a
Harvard law degree. As you point out, this does not make these musings
about what Sally felt or thought a “lie.” It is however, a novelistic
approach that leaves the reader somewhat lost between historical truth
(what we know did happen) and fiction(what Gordon-Reed imagines might have
happened). 

Richard

Richard E. Dixon
Editor, Jefferson Notes
Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society

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