Reviews for Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy

The average rating for Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-10-13 00:00:00 Brandie Lawson A masterful book. Since this was written in 1997, DNA testing has confirmed that Sally Hemings was NOT the mistress of any of the men in the Carr family. And the evidence available, now that it has been examined fairly and in detail by Annette Gordon-Reed, makes clear that she was very likely the loved mistress of Thomas Jefferson. I'm glad I went to the appendices to read the memoirs of Madison Hemings, Sally's son, born in 1805 and freed by the terms of Jefferson's will in 1826. There are also the memoirs of Isaac Jefferson, another house slave at Monticello, written down in 1842 by the historian Charles Campbell, and the statement of Israel Jefferson, also a house slave, born in 1800 and thus a contemporary of Madison Hemings, made to the Pike County (Ohio) Republican. Reading these testimonies and hearing the voices of the witnesses goes a long way to enlivening Gordon-Reed's discussion of the available facts. I find it comprehensible that Jefferson specialists have bent over backward to discredit and avoid the implications of the evidence for this situation, since I grew up about an hour and a half from Charlottesville in the 1950s. As a child I visited Monticello several times and remember the official story of those days - we never even realized that Jefferson kept slaves! Some of us would have been horrified. Jefferson was presented as a scientist, interested in everything new and experimental as well as in farming. As a human being, you got little or no idea of what he was like, except that he was very intelligent and loved France and all things French. That did impress me. Gordon-Reed gives full credit to Fawn Brodie for "breaking the story," so to speak, in such a way that it couldn't be ignored - and yet it was ignored, and she was vilified, because the South would much prefer to guard myths about its heroes. Especially in Virginia, miscegenation was swept securely under the rug. Yet the facts speak clearly. Almost as distressing as the vilification of Sally Hemings (who must have been an extraordinary woman in intellect and self-control as well as beauty, and who was related by blood to Jefferson's first wife, who went with his youngest daughter to France and by all accounts was well received there) is the vilification of the witnesses to the real situation and the omission of the facts in most of the historical accounts. Dumas Malone alone struggled to reconcile the conflict, but he ended by just omitting most of it. I've tried to read his books and failed. It's much too one-sided an approach for me. Gordon-Reed tries to understand all points of view, and she respects him greatly as an historian but makes totally clear how short he fell on exploring this issue. There are lots of videos available on YouTube now, one of a long interview with Gordon-Reed which is great to watch. If I ever need a lawyer, I'd go to her. She is unstoppable and her logic and patience in unraveling evidence is without peer. I'm now interested to read more about the Hemings family - she has more books - since they were by all accounts worthy descendants of Jefferson and extremely interesting in their own right.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-05-06 00:00:00 Teck Li Andrew Koh This book was originally written before DNA testing were completed which ultimately showed that Sally Heming's children were indeed Jefferson children. It must be emphasized that although tests confirm that Sally Hemings did indeed have children which were a match to Jefferson DNA, it is not necessarily so that Heming's children were the offspring of THOMAS Jefferson. This book, although repetitious and sometimes dry, was very interesting. Dr. Gordon Reed is an attorney and therefore wrote the book as if she were presenting a case in court. I can't say, however, that she convinced me with her arguments. Her main argument which was repeated many times is that racism and the idea of 'white supremacy' are so ingrained in our society and consequently, most historians cannot look at the evidence presented regarding the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in an objective manner. I am not disputing that racism is ingrained in many levels in our society. I was just not swayed by Dr. Gordon-Reed's arguments. In the end, I found the book to be very interesting as far as the historical perspective she gave. She provided a great deal of information about the background of slavery in Virginia. And I found the little pieces of information she uncovered about Heming's children which were told in their own words to be fascinating. All in all, the book demonstrates what I (and probably MOST people)already knew.... there were ALWAYS relationships (sexual or romantic) between slave owners and the women they 'owned' as slaves. This relationship just happened to be between the third President of the United States and a woman who was his slave.