One may doubt paternity in any case. As the old saying goes: "Papa says,
Mama knows." That the white Jeffersons would be so sure of their
own paternal descent from the great founder, but so doubtful about
the often mocked paternity of self-described black descendants of
Thomas Jefferson, has always seemed to me about everything but
actual descent.
As Joel Williamson so powerfully depicted in The Crucible of
Race and New People, the increasing number of mulattoes in the
ante-bellum South was a subject often remarked upon. No one
claimed that black men were responsible for this mixing, given who
they would have to have reproduced with to produce mulattoes.
Now, in the antebellum South, elite white men had the most ready
access to enslaved women of African (and Native American)
descent. They, after all, owned these women.
I really do not want to offend descent people, who have believed in
the purity of an ancestor. I do not want to undermine the moral
consciousness of present day southerners. But what this debate
constitutes, to my mind, is a denial of what slavery and a slave-
based society really was. It was a system where the wealthiest
and most honored men and women in the society owned the
bodies and labor of another entire class of people. This
implications of this ownership claim are staggering: involving
ownership of offspring, accumulated fruits of labor, and quite often
of total sexual access. This latter was not a privilege necessarily
extended to the 3/4 of the white population who did not own slaves;
as the southern folklore often implies. Sexual access, like control
over labor and ownership of children, was a privilege of
slaveownership.
Face it!
Harold S. Forsythe
History & Black Studies
Fairfield University
Date sent: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:45:16 -0600
From: Judy Baugh <<[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Jefferson-Hemings-Woodson DNA Study
To: [log in to unmask]
Send reply to: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
<<[log in to unmask]>
Times New RomanI believe "fiasco" refers to the widespread conclusion, based on
the findings of the
initial Jefferson DNA study (as reported in 'Nature', 1998), that
TJ sired one or
more of Sally Hemings' children. That conclusion simply doesn't
meet common
scientific standard, or as we say in Texas, that dog won't hunt.
No matter how
interesting, whether it/they be pro or con, the circumstantial
evidence, the oral
histories, the informed opinions, et al., do not change that fact.
These are subjective
factors - open to interpretation. The DNA is not, and the only
valid conclusions that
can be drawn from it are that Eston Hemings' lineal descendants
have the same
Y chromosome as the descendants of Thomas Jefferson's uncle,
and that Y
chromosome is not found in the lineal descendants of Thomas
Woodson.
Despite the truths of the matter, the popular literature on
Jefferson and/or Hemings is
increasingly dominated by works founded on the "fact" that
Jefferson was the father
of one/all of Hemings' children - including Thomas Woodson. The
mere fact of their
publication may to some be powerful encouragement to accept
myth and legend as
indisputable reality. Any publication which interdicts that process
should be most welcome.
Rgds.,
Judy Baugh
leftI am sure we all look forward to the report from the "'Blue
Ribbon Commission'" of
"'volunteer...unbiased'"
experts. But precisely what "fiasco" is referenced in this
message?
Harold S. Forsythe
History & Black Studies
Fairfield University
Date sent: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 00:05:10 -0500
From: Herbert Barger
Subject: Jefferson-Hemings-Woodson DNA
Study
To: [log in to unmask]
Send reply to: Discussion of research and writing
about Virginia history
The Scholars Commission (composed of over 16 well
known professors) will
> be releasing their unbiased findings in a report around
Thomas Jefferson's
> birthday, April 13, 2001. This Blue Ribbon Commission,
all volunteers and
> NOT Monticello employees, are giving freely of their
time to give the
> public the benefit of their unbiased research into this
fiasco, known as
> the Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study.
>
> Herbert Barger
> Jefferson Family Historian
>
>
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