Dear List,
Watching this discussion unfold, I hope that you all will tune in to
BackStory's interview with Annette Gordon-Reed, who has just finished a
new book on this subject: The Hemingses of Monticello--An American
Family (not yet released). She has some very interesting things to say
about why this debate is still so interesting to Americans. She is a
guest on our history of interracial mixing show, which will air in
Virginia on July 26th (WMRA) and 27th (Radio IQ). Out-of-staters will be
able to listen to the show online by audio stream or podcast at
www.backstoryradio.org. "BackStory With the American History Guys" is a
new public radio show that brings historical perspective to the events
happening around us every day.
Catherine Moore
Research/Production Assistant
BackStory, VFH Radio
Charlottesville, VA
434-924-4403
[log in to unmask] wrote:
> I think the point is the exact opposite. Why are academic types insistent
> on proving that a founding father had sex with some Black female. I think the
> interracial sex aspect must titillate you all.
>
>
> In a message dated 7/17/2008 9:24:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> Ins't Herb's "theory" simply that it was anyone but Jefferson? The logic
> escapes me.
>
> Jefferson was a man with normal, even high level, sex drive. As young man he
> propositioned his neighbor's wife; his own wife was constantly pregnant.
> When she died Sally was soon available. Sally was his wife's half-sister and
> probably looked somewhat (much) like his late wife. Jefferson lived in a
> culture where slaveowning men had free and easy access to their slave women.
> Elite slaveowners, like Jefferson, lived in a culture where sex with slaves was
> common and unexceptional. As a widower Jefferson was not even subject to
> raise eyebrows for cheating on his wfe. While some modern scholars are shocked
> at the olded Jefferson having a relationship with the teenaged Sally, this
> was not shocking at the time. Madison was courting a girl in her early teens
> when he was in his late 20s or early 30s and no one thought anything of it.
> President Tyler married a much much younger woman after his first wife died.
> This was not uncommon. Nor were most of the Founders "prudes" or
> "Victorians" about sex (John Adams and perhaps John Jay are notable exceptions).
>
> So, the real issue is why are people like Herb so invested in asserting that
> TJ could not, would not, did not, have sex with Sally, when all the evidence
> (timing of her the birth of her children, access, etc.) was there before the
> DNA came along? Why would we expect anything else from a slaveholding
> widower isolated on his mountain top? Do we think Jefferson in his 40s became a
> monk?
>
>
>
> Paul Finkelman
> President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
> and Public Policy
> Albany Law School
> 80 New Scotland Avenue
> Albany, New York 12208-3494
>
> 518-445-3386
> [log in to unmask]
>
>>>> Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]> 07/17/08 9:05 AM >>>
>>>>
> Unless I am mistaken, Herb's theory (and this is a new theory) that the
> French servant Adrien Petit fathered children with Sally Hemings at
> Monticello does not hold water. Adrien Petit worked for Jefferson in
> Philadelphia and he returned to France in January 1794, a year before Sally
> Hemings conceived Harriet 1, who was born in October 1795. Petit was across
> the sea when Hemings conceived children at Monticello. If there is a record
> that states otherwise I will be glad to see it.
>
> Henry Wiencek
>
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