I am the white Jefferson descendant who first invited my Sally Hemings cousins to the family reunion at Monticello in 1999 and pursued for four years thereafter the goal of getting our Hemings cousins welcomed into the white side of the family. We failed, but in championing the cause of the descendants of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson to be accepted as great grandchildren of Jefferson the same way I am, I got to know dozens and dozens of my cousins on the Hemings side of the Jefferson family. Reading these two takes, one by my good friend Annette Gordon Reed, I was reminded that there are almost as many opinions on the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson as there are descendants of that union who are alive today. Some thing that over the 36 years they were together at Monticello before he died that they were in love. Some see Sally as a victim of rape. And there are many opinions in between. As Annette points out about what happened between them in Paris, only two people know what went on between them: Jefferson and Hemings. Annette is right that there are many hints -- Jefferson made sure Sally's brothers and their children were educated -- there are letters between Jefferson and John and Peter Hemings, for example, and certainly of their offspring it's obvious that Madison was educated. And this from the man who wrote at such length in "Notes on the State of Virginia" about the inferiority of the Black race. You could call Jefferson by the time of his death the King of Irony. At his bed when he died was my 5h great grandmother, his daughter Martha, and Sally Hemings -- clearly the two most important women in his life.
Little factoid for your interest in AI. I queried Google using AI to generate an answer to find out "when did Tocqueville meet Jefferson" It came back with 1781. Tocqueville was born in 1805. Of course I tried a couple of other search terms but this was striking.
I am the white Jefferson descendant who first invited my Sally Hemings cousins to the family reunion at Monticello in 1999 and pursued for four years thereafter the goal of getting our Hemings cousins welcomed into the white side of the family. We failed, but in championing the cause of the descendants of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson to be accepted as great grandchildren of Jefferson the same way I am, I got to know dozens and dozens of my cousins on the Hemings side of the Jefferson family. Reading these two takes, one by my good friend Annette Gordon Reed, I was reminded that there are almost as many opinions on the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson as there are descendants of that union who are alive today. Some thing that over the 36 years they were together at Monticello before he died that they were in love. Some see Sally as a victim of rape. And there are many opinions in between. As Annette points out about what happened between them in Paris, only two people know what went on between them: Jefferson and Hemings. Annette is right that there are many hints -- Jefferson made sure Sally's brothers and their children were educated -- there are letters between Jefferson and John and Peter Hemings, for example, and certainly of their offspring it's obvious that Madison was educated. And this from the man who wrote at such length in "Notes on the State of Virginia" about the inferiority of the Black race. You could call Jefferson by the time of his death the King of Irony. At his bed when he died was my 5h great grandmother, his daughter Martha, and Sally Hemings -- clearly the two most important women in his life.
Thx for fighting the good fight!
Little factoid for your interest in AI. I queried Google using AI to generate an answer to find out "when did Tocqueville meet Jefferson" It came back with 1781. Tocqueville was born in 1805. Of course I tried a couple of other search terms but this was striking.
Wow. Did not expect something like this. In my opinion, these pieces are valuable contributions to understanding Jefferson and strike me as valid.
I would have liked to have had Jane Austen's take on all of this.