Thomas Jefferson: The Face of a Rapist
Americans
look at Thomas Jefferson and see the one of the authors of the
Declaration of Independence, a statesman, a former president and one of
the founding fathers,’ however; when I look at him, I see the face of a
rapist.
When Jefferson first met Sally Hemings, his slave through
inheritance, she would have been no more than 15 or 16 years old. It is
rumoured that when she returned from France with him, that she was
already pregnant with his child.It was widely suggested
within his own life time that he kept a light skinned negro concubine.
You see, Sally was 3/4 white and was described as a handsome light
skinned woman with long dark hair in one of the few known descriptions
of her. Jefferson’s children through his wife Martha Wayles Skelton
Jefferson, denied the relationship, however; Jefferson himself did not
publicly answer the rumours. The only slaves that Jefferson freed were
the children of Hemings and he petitioned the government for two of her
sons to stay in Virginia after emancipation. At the time, a slave had to
leave the state within one year of manumission.
There are those
that to this day vehemently deny that Jefferson fathered Sally’s six
children despite the DNA evidence. It is my belief that such denial is
not based in the simple fact that it would prove that he was a lecher
but that he chose a woman of color.
On the other side of the coin
are those that believe the oral, written, and DNA evidence. They often
refer to the relationship as an illicit love affair, citing that Sally
had the opportunity to stay in France where slavery was outlawed, rather
than returning to the United States with Jefferson. Assuming that Sally
had chosen to stay in Paris, what would an uneducated 1/4 negresss do
with no money to support herself and her unborn child? She chose to
return because Jefferson gave his word that he would free her children
and offer her a life of comfort relative to the other slaves at
Monticello.
Jefferson may have felt love for Sally but how can we
possibly term this relationship a love affair? Once they returned to
the US, he had the power to have her flogged, or even put to death. At
anytime he could have sold her children away from her. For a
relationship based in love to exist, both parties must be equal and due
to the power differential between Jefferson and Hemings what occurred
cannot be described as anything other than rape. Some have even had the
nerve to refer to Hemings as the first Black first lady of the United
States as a way of further legitimizing the relationship between the
two, however; to sanitize it and call it anything other than rape, is to
once again violate her spirit.
Jefferson was not the first or
last White man to sneak into the slave cabins. One of the reasons White
women argued so vehemently for the abolition of slavery, was to save the
poor overwhelmed White man from the negro temptress. It was not
uncommon to see near white or light skinned children resembling the
master working on the plantation. The Black woman was and still is
blamed for her own rape. Victim blaming began with women of color and
continues to this day.
No matter how many times Black women have
angrily contested the use of the term love affair between Hemings and
Jefferson, it continues to be the most common descriptor by those who
believe the DNA evidence. This assumes that Hemings actually had the
power to deny Jefferson sexual access, or that Jefferson had a right to
Sally’s body for the purposes of sexual gratification. Both suppositions
are erroneous. Due to the patriarchal nature of gender relations, many
men believe that they exist with the right to access women’s bodies and
that is specifically grounded in the power imbalance between the
genders. If we can acknowledge in a modern context that a power
imbalance exists between men and women, how much more likely is it that
this same imbalance existed between Jefferson and Hemings?
Some
may look back at Jefferson and simply claim that he was a man of his
time and that he should not be judged outside of historical context,
however; in my mind a rapist is a rapist. What he did at the time may
not have been considered a violation due to current race and gender
relations, however; today we can correctly name his actions. Sally did
not have the power to consent to his advances even if she was so
inclined; this simple fact must be affirmed not only to honour the
memory of Hemings but to change the social understanding that Black
women’s bodies are unrapeable. We are not naturally licentious whores
who exist to fulfill the sexual fantasies of depraved racist men. We are
women that must be accorded the right to control over our bodies
without punishment for any decisions we make in that regard.
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief AccountThe
claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, a
slave at Monticello, entered the public arena during Jefferson's first
term as president, and it has remained a subject of discussion and
disagreement for two centuries. Based on documentary, scientific,
statistical, and oral history evidence, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation
(TJF) Research Committee Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
(January 2000) remains the most comprehensive analysis of this
historical topic.
Ten years later, TJF and most historians believe
that, years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson was the father of
the six children of Sally Hemings mentioned in Jefferson's records,
including Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings. Historical BackgroundIn
September 1802, political journalist James T. Callender, a disaffected
former ally of Jefferson, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson
had for many years "kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves." "Her
name is Sally," Callender continued, adding that Jefferson had "several
children" by her.
Although there had been rumors of a sexual
relationship between Jefferson and an enslaved woman before 1802,
Callender's article spread the story widely. It was taken up by
Jefferson's Federalist opponents and was published in many newspapers
during the remainder of Jefferson's presidency.
Jefferson's
policy was to offer no public response to personal attacks, and he
apparently made no explicit public or private comment on this question
(although a private letter of 1805 has been interpreted by some
individuals as a denial of the story). Sally Hemings left no known
accounts.
Jefferson's daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph
privately denied the published reports. Two of her children, Ellen
Randolph Coolidge and Thomas Jefferson Randolph, maintained many years
later that such a liaison was not possible, on both moral and practical
grounds. They also stated that Jefferson's nephews Peter and Samuel Carr
were the fathers of the light-skinned Monticello slaves some thought to
be Jefferson's children because they resembled him.
The
Jefferson-Hemings story was sustained through the 19th century by
Northern abolitionists, British critics of American democracy, and
others. Its vitality among the American population at large was recorded
by European travelers of the time. Through the 20th century, some
historians accepted the possibility of a Jefferson-Hemings connection
and a few gave it credence, but most Jefferson scholars found the case
for such a relationship unpersuasive.
Over the years, however,
belief in a Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings relationship was perpetuated
in private. Two of her children--Madison and Eston--indicated that
Jefferson was their father, and this belief has been perpetuated in the
oral histories of generations of their descendants as an important
family truth.
DNA Evidence and ResponseThe results of
DNA tests conducted by Dr. Eugene Foster and a team of geneticists in
1998 challenged the view that the Jefferson-Hemings relationship could
be neither refuted nor substantiated . The study--which tested
Y-chromosomal DNA samples from male-line descendants of Field Jefferson
(Thomas Jefferson's uncle), John Carr (grandfather of Jefferson's Carr
nephews), Eston Hemings, and Thomas Woodson--indicated a genetic link
between the Jefferson and Hemings descendants. The results of the study
established that an individual carrying the male Jefferson Y chromosome
fathered Eston Hemings (born 1808), the last known child born to Sally
Hemings. There were approximately 25 adult male Jeffersons who carried
this chromosome living in Virginia at that time, and a few of them are
known to have visited Monticello. The study's authors, however, said
"the simplest and most probable" conclusion was that Thomas Jefferson
had fathered Eston Hemings.
The DNA testing found no genetic link
between the Hemings and Carr descendants, refuting Jefferson’s
grandchildren’s assertion that his Carr nephews fathered Sally Hemings’s
children.
Additionally, the DNA study found no link between the
descendants of Field Jefferson and Thomas Woodson (1790-1879), whose
family members have long held that he was the first son of Thomas
Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Madison Hemings, Sally's second-youngest
son, said in 1873 that his mother had been pregnant with Jefferson's
child (who, he said, lived "but a short time"
when she returned from France in 1789. There is no indication in
Jefferson's records of a child born to Hemings before 1795, and there
are no known documents to support that Thomas Woodson was Hemings's
first child.
Shortly after the DNA test results were released in
November 1998, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation formed a research
committee consisting of nine members of the foundation staff, including
four with Ph.D.s. In January 2000, the committee reported that the
weight of all known evidence--from the DNA study, original documents,
written and oral historical accounts, and statistical data--
indicated
a high probability that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston
Hemings, and that he was likely the father of all six of Sally Hemings's
children listed in Monticello records--Harriet (born 1795; died in
infancy); Beverly (born 1798); an unnamed daughter (born 1799; died in
infancy); Harriet (born 1801); Madison (born 1805); and Eston (born
1808).Since then, a committee commissioned by the Thomas
Jefferson Heritage Society, after reviewing essentially the same
material, reached different conclusions, namely that Sally Hemings was
only a minor figure in Thomas Jefferson's life and that it is very
unlikely he fathered any of her children. This committee also suggested
in its report, issued in April 2001 and revised in 2011, that
Jefferson's younger brother Randolph (1755-1815) was more likely the
father of at least some of Sally Hemings's children.
From the Historical RecordThe following summarizes what is known about Sally Hemings and her family.
Sally
Hemings (1773-1835) was a slave at Monticello; she lived in Paris with
Jefferson and two of his daughters from 1787 to 1789; and she had at
least six children.
Sally Hemings's duties included being a
nursemaid-companion to Thomas Jefferson's daughter Maria (ca.
1784-1787), lady's maid to daughters Martha and Maria (1787-1797), and
chambermaid and seamstress (1790s-1827).
There are no known images of Sally Hemings and only four known descriptions of her appearance or demeanor.
Sally Hemings left no known written accounts. It is not known if she was literate.
In
the few scattered references to Sally Hemings in Thomas Jefferson's
records and correspondence, there is nothing to distinguish her from
other members of her family.
Thomas Jefferson was at Monticello
at the likely conception times of Sally Hemings's six known children.
There are no records suggesting that she was elsewhere at these times,
or records of any births at times that would exclude Jefferson
paternity.
There are no indications in contemporary accounts by
people familiar with Monticello that Sally Hemings's children had
different fathers.
Sally Hemings's children were light-skinned,
and three of them (daughter Harriet and sons Beverly and Eston) lived as
members of white society as adults.
According to contemporary accounts, some of Sally Hemings's children strongly resembled Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas
Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings's children: Beverly and Harriet
were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were
released in Jefferson's 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other
nuclear slave family.
Thomas Jefferson did not free Sally
Hemings. She was permitted to leave Monticello by his daughter Martha
Jefferson Randolph not long after Jefferson's death in 1826, and went to
live with her sons Madison and Eston in Charlottesville.
Several
people close to Thomas Jefferson or the Monticello community believed
that he was the father of Sally Hemings's children.
Eston Hemings changed his name to Eston Hemings Jefferson in 1852.
Madison Hemings stated in 1873 that he and his siblings Beverly, Harriet, and Eston were Thomas Jefferson's children.
The
descendants of Madison Hemings who have lived as African-Americans have
passed a family history of descent from Thomas Jefferson and Sally
Hemings down through the generations.
Eston Hemings's
descendants, who have lived as whites, have passed down a family history
of being related to Thomas Jefferson. In the 1940s, family members
changed this history to state that an uncle of Jefferson's, rather than
Jefferson himself, was their ancestor.
According to Madison Hemings,
Sally's mother Elizabeth Hemings (1735-1807) was the daughter of an
African woman and an English sea captain. By Madison Hemings's and other
accounts, Sally Hemings and some of her siblings were the children of
John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law, making her the
half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748-1782).
Elizabeth Hemings and her children lived at John Wayles' plantation
during his lifetime.
Questions remain about the nature of the
relationship that existed between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings;
whether she had a child at Monticello shortly after they returned from
France in 1789; and whether there is anything to connect Jefferson,
Hemings, and Thomas Woodson.
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