Central Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson

Central Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson

Instructions/Descriptions

Central Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson

Read Chapters 7 & 8 and the information included in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson and The Master and the Mistress. Once all reading is complete, respond to the following items:

Why do you think the accusations made by Cullender were ignored during Jefferson’s lifetime and later by historians? Why do you think Madison Hemings’ assertions were ignored?

Why do you think Callender’s claims failed to hurt Jefferson politically? Do you think a similar scandal would hurt an American president or elected leader today? Why or why not?

Based on Madison Hemings’ family history, how common was racial intermixing in 18th and 19th century Virginia?

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According to Eric Foner, how and why has the work of Annette Gordon-Reed fueled a controversy over the Hemings-Jefferson relationship?

Should his relationship with Sally Hemings influence how we view Jefferson and his place in American history? If no, why not? If yes, how should they influence how we view him?

You are required to submit an initial posting (200 words minimum) that addresses the items above. You are also expected to respond to the posting of at least one other student (100 words minimum). Your response should address why you agree/disagree with their posting, support it with new evidence to bring a new perspective to the topic.

Below is the peer’s post.

I am not much of a history buff, so this is the first time that I have read that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with one of his African American slaves. I read the assigned chapters before reading the discussion board assignments and I am certainly confused. Jefferson seemed to have a negative view of African Americans stating that they were not as intelligent as white Americans and that they could not live peacefully together. He called for African Americans to be colonized back in Africa to protect the integrity of the United States.

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I think that people likely ignored Callenders’ accusations because he was viewed as a criminal seeking to blackmail the president in exchange for a powerful position. His words were likely to be dismissed as lies because of the position he was in. I think this is why Callenders’ accusations did not harm the presidents’ reputation. As we have seen in more recent presidencies, we hold presidents to a high moral standard. Clinton was ostracized because of his sexual scandal; however, the view of interracial marriage and childbearing has changed immensely. A president would not be scandalized today for fathering biracial children. The fact that the children were born out of wedlock may be seen as an issue, but again times are changing and people may be less likely to judge a person based on that situation. If it could be proven however that the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings was coerced or non-consensual in any way it would certainly be seen as Immoral (and even criminal) and would be a huge scandal. We cannot say for sure if the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson was consensual, so we cannot base our assumption on that ideal.

If one was to assess Madison Hemings’ family tree it would seem as if interracial relationships (at least sexual relationships) were very common during the 18th and 19th century in Virginia. One cannot say whether those relationships were consensual or not but racial intermixing appears to be common in Hemings’ family history.

I believe the discovery of this relationship should change our perception of Thomas Jefferson. I am unsure of how much it should actually change his reputation, but it at least shows that he was dishonest, and thus how can we trust everything he thought and did. It is also hard to know what he actually believed in since he appeared to live two quite different lives. His public and private lives do not seem to match.

Central Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson

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