![]() ![]() Eugene Foster, emphasized in letters to the editor of both “Nature” and the New York Times, the DNA tests merely linked Eston Hemings to one of more than two-dozen Jefferson males known to have been in Virginia at the time. This conclusion will come as a surprise to many, who will recall the prestigious science journal “Nature” published a 1998 story entitled “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child,” suggesting the relationship had been confirmed by DNA tests. With but a single mild dissent, the scholars concluded the story is probably false. ![]() ![]() I had the honor of serving as chairman of the commission and as editor of the new book.Ĭontaining more than 400 pages and 1,400 footnotes, it is by far the most comprehensive analysis of the issue. Entitled “The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission,” it presents the conclusions of a yearlong inquiry by more than a dozen senior scholars from around the country. The exhibit opened in June 2018.(This article first ran in The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, VA on December 11, 2011.)Ī new book raises serious doubts about the allegation that Thomas Jefferson had a sexual relationship with the enslaved Sally Hemings that produced one or more children. In 2018, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation of Monticello announced its plans to have an exhibit titled Life of Sally Hemings, and affirmed that it was treating as a settled issue that Jefferson was the father of her known children. However, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society commissioned a panel of Scholars of History in 2001 that unanimously agreed that it has not been proven that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings' children. The Foundation asserted that Jefferson fathered Eston and likely her other five children as well. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation hired a commission of scholars and scientists who worked with a 1998–1999 genealogical DNA test that was published in 2000 that found a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Hemings' youngest son, Eston Hemings. Following renewed historical analysis in the late 20th century, two different societies dedicated to preserving the legacy of Jefferson hired commissions which reached opposite conclusions. The historical question of whether Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children is the subject of the Jefferson–Hemings controversy. ![]() Hemings died in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1835. Four of Hemings' children survived into adulthood. Whether this should be described as rape remains a matter of controversy. Multiple lines of evidence, including modern DNA analyses, indicate that Jefferson impregnated Hemings over the span of many years, and historians now broadly agree that he was the father of her six children. At some time during her 26 months in Paris, Jefferson and she began having intimate relations.Īs attested by her son, Madison Hemings, she later negotiated with Jefferson that she would return to Virginia and resume her slave status as long as all their children would be emancipated upon turning 21. There she was a legally free and paid servant as slavery was not legal in France. In 1787, when she was 14, Sally Hemings accompanied Jefferson and his daughter to Paris. Therefore, she was half-sister to Jefferson's wife and approximately three quarters white. Sally's father was John Wayles who was also the father of Jefferson's wife Martha. Hemings's mother Elizabeth (Betty) was biracial, the child of Betty Hemings, an African woman and Captain John Hemings. Enslaved woman who had children by Thomas Jefferson ![]()
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