A reader who prefers to remain anonymous e-mailed yesterday regarding the minor Jefferson & Hemings brouhaha that has erupted on these pages:
It’s funny, I was sort of put off by [Annette Gordon-]Reed’s statement about white people and race at first, especially the notion that “Jefferson could buy and sell people, separate mothers from their children, and that would not appall people, but the thing that says that now his image is tarnished is that he got into bed with a black woman.”
Because to me, his image was tarnished when I became old enough to understand that he owned slaves, and he became more human/interesting to me when I first heard about the Hemings thing, and then he became pretty appalling when I read that he could both have this romantic relationship with Hemings and also be a fairly relentless slave owner/breeder. But to me, racial purity has never played a role in my opinions of him, as far as I can tell.
However, some of the reactions on the blog really seem to prove Reed’s point. It’s eerie. The idea that Jefferson could be somehow vindicated because he may not have fathered children by Hemings is laughable. He was still a SLAVE DRIVER. Christ.
That seems to be the key word in all of this: vindicated. Herbert Barger directs us to read Jefferson Vindicated and rails against bias, political correctness, and histories that he says are marked only by “MISSTATEMENT” and “NO PROOF.” But he stubbornly refuses to say what exactly Jefferson’s “vindication” means.
If the DNA proves he did not father children by one of his slaves, does that mean he was a better man? A better Founding Father? A better slave owner? Is it important for some reason not to admit black people into the Jefferson family? And what is it about the arguments that Mr. Barger doesn’t agree with that are biased and politically correct? And how is it that his all-caps investment in this issue—so perfectly encapsulated in that single word, vindicated—is not biased?
My bias, for what it’s worth, is not in favor of Jefferson’s paternity or Annette Gordon-Reed’s sainthood. It’s in favor of admitting what we have at stake in a certain issue and being honest about it.
NOTE: On the question of anonymity and commenting, here’s Encyclopedia Virginia‘s policy: You’re welcome to comment anonymously but only if your comment is substantive. That is not code for “you must agree with the opinions expressed on these pages”; rather, it means that you cannot use your anonymity to engage in taunting or ad hominem. You have to actually add something to the conversation or your comment will not be approved.
IMAGE: A detail of Sally Hemings (Thomas Jefferson) from the series All the Presidents’ Girls by Annie Kevans (oil on paper, 50 x 40 cm; 2009)
2 responses so far ↓
1 Bridge // Nov 29, 2011 at 5:04 pm
I’ve been writing a very extensive paper on Thomas Jefferson. He’s not what you should consider a slave driver. His best friend throughout his life was a black man named Jupiter. He bought slaves to reunite them with their families. He educated some of them and did not harshly punish them. He believed that he and his slaves were victim’s of history’s failures. He wanted them to be free but he knew that this wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He could not escape his time period and that was not his fault.
2 Henry Wiencek // Nov 30, 2011 at 8:46 am
The regime at Monticello was a lot harsher than you have been led to believe. Before you finish your paper I would suggest you take a look at the video of a TJ talk I gave in Charlottesville last spring. It has a lot of new information about slavery at Monticello.
Here’s the link:
http://vimeo.com/23603679
I would not call Jupiter the “best friend” of Jefferson. Jupiter was one of the high-ranking slaves at Monticello but he was never more than a slave. Yes, Jefferson sometimes united families, but he split them also. Jefferson did not educate any slaves. They educated themselves. Madison Hemings persuaded one of Jefferson’s grandchildren to teach him to read and write. He did have some slaves trained in skills that were useful on the plantation. Jefferson never wanted slaves to be free unless they could immediately be sent out of the country. Of course he could escape his “time” — he was a revolutionary! He changed his time utterly. In the matter of slavery Jefferson always cast himself as the victim, but that was just one of his strategies of rationalization. In truth, he had no intention of getting rid of slavery — it was too profitable.
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