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Thomas Jefferson DID NOT have children with slaves
0:00 Pop Media Clips
0:41 Introduction
2:00 Mainstream Narrative
3:13 Sally Hemings
5:39 Jefferson Background
7:33 DNA Study
9:51 TJ Foundation Report
10:44 Scholar's Commission
12:11 Callender Article
14:16 Thomas Woodson
16:48 Contemporary Testimony
19:56 Pro-paternity Bias
21:06 Madison Hemings Testimony
25:44 Jefferson in Paris
30:13 Hemings' and Jefferson's Testimony
33:52 Who was the Father?
36:26 Motivations
38:43 Conclusion
you probably heard that story told in such a way that Jefferson ends up being a prolific abuser of these women having dozens of different children by multiple women. what's more I bet that 99 of you have just believed this claim without knowing a single detail about the case.
so is there any truth to this what kernels of historical accuracy if any is this story? drawing on my goal with this video is threefold firstly to clear up the cartoonish image of Jefferson as a slave abuser and rapist which neither side even those who are certain that he had children with his slaves believes secondly to discuss the racial element of the story a vital element in today's
political climb and third although we may never know for certain I want to show you why it's much more reasonable to believe that Jefferson didn't have
any children with any of his slaves now if you're not familiar with the story The Clay May it is not that Jefferson
regularly abused his slaves which although this of course happened on occasion in the South Jefferson held to
be the epitome of detestable behavior and nobody modern or historical ever accused him of such Behavior anyhow even
the single most important piece of testimony that says Jefferson did have children with the slaves only says that it was by one woman not many the claim
made rather is that Jefferson long after the death of his wife fathered at least one but as many as six or seven of the
children of one of his enslaved women named Sally Hemmings this is the clan that has been distorted into the slander
that we hear repeated so often these days the controversy at least in its modern form really came about in 1974
Mainstream Narrative
with the publication of Fawn Brody's Thomas Jefferson an intimate biography and it received renewed interest in 1997
when Annette Gordon Reed one of the foremost voices on the pro paternity side published her book titled Thomas
Jefferson and Sally Hemmings one year later in 1998 a DNA study was conducted and published in the scientific journal
Nature which linked Thomas Jefferson to the youngest son of Sally Hemmings named Esten Hemmings the study was published
with the attention grabbing title Jefferson fathered slave's last child two years later the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation that is the group
that maintains Monticello as Museum published a report that said Thomas Jefferson likely fathered at least one
but likely all six of Sally heming's children the combined authority of these scientific findings in the Thomas
Jefferson experts was enough for the media to run wild with the story publishing hundreds of Articles which spread the word that Jefferson had
children with a woman he enslaved and this is where we are today a point where I think it's fair to say that most people hold the idea that Jefferson had
children with his slaves as an obvious truth without knowing a single detail about the case so let's delve into all
the details of the matter as if this were a court case and let's see if we can't get to the bottom of one of America's oldest scandals let's begin by
Sally Hemings
discussing Sarah AKA Sally Hemmings Hemmings was an enslaved woman who lived and worked at Jefferson's Monticello
estate Hemmings was born to a half-black slave woman and while who her father is is officially unknown it is strongly
suspected that John Wales that is the father mother of Jefferson's wife Martha fathered her in any case the father was
white as Sally Hemmings was only one quarter black possibly a little bit less and right off the bat I think it's important that we discuss her race in
the four written mentions that we have of Hemmings she is described in one as light colored and decidedly good looking
and in another as mighty near White with long straight hair down her back and these by the way are the only quotes in
existence that we have mentioning her physical appearance additionally in at least one census in which we find her listed Hemmings is marked as white
meaning that she must have been white passing or at least very near to it this already paints a very different picture from what is popularly imagined of
Hemmings for reference here are some people that are one quarter black and three quarters white I think it's fair to say that these people are all far and
away from the image of the alleged relationship that has been presented to the masses because interestingly every
single time that Sally Hemmings has been depicted in popular media or art she is portrayed by a woman who is half black
or more I'm not exaggerating here here is a collage of every single instance of hemings being portrayed visually in
popular media according to Wikipedia and I can confirm that all of these women are at least half black unfortunately
I'm left to assume that this is done so that the relationship can be given a racial element so that it may be politicized if the alleged relationship
was portrayed accurately then Jefferson would be involved with a woman who by all accounts nearly passed as white and
the story wouldn't be as politically useful now of course the fact that Hemmings was Jefferson's slave is still important and examining that power
dynamic between the two would be interesting but without fail the story of Sally Hemmings is told with a pronounced racial element that in
reality was small enough for the vociferously anti-miscegenation Jefferson to ignore if indeed the
relationship did occur at all I also suspect they make her black just so that they don't have to show a white passing person as a slave which although of
course more rare did happen quite frequently anyways while living at Monticello Hemmings would give birth to six or seven children and I'll note
again that all of these children were born long after the death of Jefferson's wife so even if there was a relationship
Jefferson wasn't being unfaithful now everything that I've said above represents most of what we know about
Sally Hemmings unfortunately as an enslaved woman the details of her life weren't considered important enough to commit to writing Sally Hemmings exists
now mostly as an idea which is why I think that she as a white passing mixed race woman has been made into an icon
Jefferson Background
for blacks today so that's Sally Hemmings now a bit about Jefferson himself and importantly for this story
his view on blacks Jefferson of course did own slaves through inheritance but he unlike most of those around him
wanted to get rid of them he was essentially an abolitionist a very rare specimen in the South shortly after
graduating Law School Jefferson represented a runaway slave pro bono in the courts Jefferson did go on to lose
this case but then he gave that man money so that he could run away his views on slavery are expressed throughout his Works in private
correspondences in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence Jefferson included a paragraph condemning slavery plainly and strongly
This was later removed when some Southern delegates who were involved in the slave trade objected in his large compendium titled notes on the state of
Virginia Jefferson condemned slavery as quote the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submissions
on the other he then goes on to note the negative effects that these relationships would have on the Master's children this should make you wonder if
he would write this and then be so bold as to conduct a 39-year sexual relationship with one of his slaves
while living with or at least regularly being visited by his daughters and 11 grandchildren so while Jefferson
unwaveringly recognized the humanity common to all he was still willing to recognize that which he viewed as
uncommon in short Jefferson believed in inherent natural differences between the races and identified blacks as less
intelligent among other shortcomings these negative views on blacks combined with his abolitionist beliefs LED
Jefferson to conclude that blacks absolutely must be freed from slavery and also that once that had been
accomplished they must be expelled from the United States and given ample supplies and support in order to create
their own country so as to avoid creating a multi-racial society which he viewed as potentially destructive now be
your opinions what they may on these beliefs of Jefferson but I think if anything for our purposes they are a point in favor of throwing doubt on this
alleged relationship with Hemmings because of his views on how abusive slavery was in the first place but also because of his views on miscegenation
limited though that concern may have been with the mostly white Hemmings so with that bit of background knowledge established let's turn to the evidence
DNA Study
of the case and we'll begin with perhaps the most important piece of modern evidence the 1998 DNA study which was
conducted in order to shed light on the Jefferson paternity question in the study DNA samples were taken from known
descendants of Jefferson's male line as well as descendants of Sally heming's youngest son eston Hemmings the
descendants of heming's other children were not tested so the study can't conclude anything in regards to their paternity the main finding was that
Jefferson's and eston heming's male descendants share the same Y chromosome now this doesn't at all suggest that
Jefferson must be esten's father only that he could the essence father because all males in the same line will share
and pass on the same Y chromosome as per the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society there were at least 25 Jefferson men in
Virginia and at least eight in the area of Monticello at the time of eston's conception so all that the study truly
accomplished was narrowing down the potential pool of fathers to 25. and frankly even the Jefferson family had
long suspected that it was some Jefferson that had fathered Henning's children so this didn't actually come as a surprise to anybody now we'll talk
about these other potential fathers later but suffice it to safer now that they were much much stronger candidates for esten's father than Thomas Jefferson
funny enough though the authors of this study chose to ignore these facts not even mentioning these men in their paper
so that they could title it the most attention-grabbing name possible Jefferson fathered slave's last child
the study in its bogus title received immediate backlash from other scientists and in a follow-up publication in 1999
the original researchers acknowledged their mistake saying that quote the results could not be conclusive and that
the title is quote misleading that it only represented what was in their mind the simplest explanation which at least
in my estimation is far from the truth again there are much stronger candidates for esten's father than Thomas Jefferson
unfortunately as is often the case long before anybody saw this correction the damage was already done the story went
viral in the media being covered by every mainstream press outlet and receiving an entire episode of the Oprah
Winfrey show where she repeated the false claim that the DNA study definitively proved that Jefferson was
the father and we have just learned that there is proof that at least one of them a son named Esten was indeed through DNA
testing has been proven that he was the son of Thomas Jefferson this study it's sensationalized and false headline and
the shoddy reporting by the news is a large part of why the Jefferson paternity story is popular today all the
TJ Foundation Report
mainstream attention on the issue led the Jefferson authorities to take action the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation assembled a team of nine of their own
members to work on a report to answer once and for all the Jefferson paternity question in January 2000 the team
published their findings stating that quote 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 Hemmings and that he was likely the father of all six of Sally hamming's children as the Thomas
Jefferson Memorial Foundation runs the museum at Monticello this is now what is presented as truth to all visitors so
this seems like the definitive take on the matter a panel of experts agree and the science seems to support their conclusion and so this relatively new
idea became the Orthodoxy now anybody casually Googling the matter will be sure to receive these sources first and
to send opinions are buried in the search results and very rarely seen but the problem is there are just as many
Scholar's Commission
scholars if not more who completely disagree with the conclusion that Jefferson fathered any children with slaves namely those at the similarly
named Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society so that's the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation which agrees that Jefferson
had the kids and Thomas Jefferson Heritage society which disagrees so the Heritage Society in 2001 assembled a
team to publish their own report on the Jefferson Hemmings controversy the group known as the scholars commission was
made up of 13 independent researchers of various ethnic backgrounds all of whom were experts in their field and nearly
all of whom had phds these experts were not members of the society and were not paid for their research nor were they
told what they must conclude the study went on for a year and culminated in the 560-page scholars Commission report in
which all but one of the 13 experts agreed that the claim made against Jefferson is almost certainly untrue
with even the one dissenting member saying simply that there isn't sufficient evidence to make a positive claim one way or the other if you'd like
to read more about this matter after watching this video I would recommend this report furthermore the members of the Monticello Association that is the
group of Jefferson's descendants who own and maintain the graveyard at Monticello overwhelmingly disagreed that Jefferson
had any children with Hemmings after a review of The Evidence they agreed in a 67-5 vote that heming's descendants
would not be permitted to be buried to the Monticello graveyard because the evidence for them being related was so shoddy and of course their opinions on
the matter weren't painted by modern evidence alone they had to be informed by the history so let's turn to the written record and see what we can find
Callender Article
out now the story of Jefferson's Secret Love Affair began perhaps unsurprisingly in the Tabloid press with one James T
calendar a political journalist writing for the Richmond recorder and a former Ally of Jefferson's turned bitter rival
calendar was a known Mudslinger in the press his political Publications in his native Scotland saw him run out of that
country leaving behind his wife and children to flee to the United States while here he enjoyed a career in journalism publishing pamphlets defaming
his political Rivals including accusing Adams in Washington of seeking to impose aristocratic title positions in the US
government among many other patently false claims these actions saw him arrested on May 27 1800 and tried under
the Sedition Act which earned him nine months in prison calendar eventually died after falling and drowning in a
river while drunk although many suspect that given his reputation this may not have been an accident now concerning his
article we should note that calendar had reason to dislike Jefferson to make a long story short they had a series of
professional interactions in which calendar felt insulted by Jefferson on multiple occasions now believe me Jefferson was totally blameless here but
it did get very heated one man close to Jefferson published an accusation that calendar had killed his own wife from a
venereal disease look at the details in the citation if you want to see how ugly it got between these two things seemingly came to a head in 1802 when
calendar was denied the position of postmaster by the then President Jefferson a few weeks thereafter calendar published in the newspaper the
rumor that Jefferson quote kept as his concubine one of his own slaves and that he had several children by her to show
how crass calendar was willing to be in his expose he wrote of Sally Hemmings in a follow-up publication that she was
quote a common as the pavement and romping with half a dozen black fellows and had 15 or 30 gallons that is sexual
partners of all colors after this article was published the rumor of Jefferson's paternity was firmly
established some of his political opponents and the Federalists would continue to resurface the allegations throughout the years in order to harm
Jefferson but even many of them discounted its validity entirely given its source and calendar so the article of course was political and motivated by
the hate that counter had for Jefferson and by all accounts he was an untrustworthy fellow however does this necessarily mean that the contents were
untrue well if we're being completely Fair perhaps not let's look into the details of the article and see if we can't find anything out in the same
Thomas Woodson
expose calendar referred to a boy living at Monticello as Tom said that he was around 10 to 12 years old a
light-skinned slave child and said that he bore a striking resemblance to Thomas Jefferson obviously implying that this
boy was the son of Thomas Jefferson by Sally this Tom was thought by historians for years to be a man named Thomas
Woodson who was perhaps the first child of Sally Hemmings now Woodson is confirmed to have been born either at or
near Monticello but was adopted by different family hence his last name being different he then lived his adult life as a farmer near Monticello his
family maintained an oral history that they were descended from Jefferson so many thought that perhaps he was born at
Monticello but sent off for one reason or another now this Tom was the only child that calendar referred to in his
article so for the idea of Jefferson's paternity to be true he would have to be the child of Jefferson but here's the
problem with that idea in the 1998 DNA study the descendants of Thomas Woodson were also tested and it was found that
they do not carry the Jefferson Y chromosome meaning that it is impossible that Jefferson was Thomas Woodson's
father furthermore there is no other candidate for atom of the right ethnicity in the right age living at or
near Monticello at the time so this Tom almost certainly is Thomas Woodson so the singular piece of evidence that
calendar provided in a story the white slave that looked like Jefferson is rendered completely pointless by the
1998 DNA study in light of this some argue that Thomas Woodson was in fact not heming's child at all he was just a
man born in the area totally unrelated to Jefferson he didn't even live at Monticello but this would bring up two questions if there really was no white
slave child named Tom living at Monticello at the time then why didn't any of the dozens of people who sought
to defend Jefferson in this matter ever simply say that he doesn't exist in fact we even have one person who defended Jefferson who said that Tom did exist so
it's very likely that he did and number two the Woodson family oral history maintained for years that they were
descendants of Jefferson again this was proven Impossible by the 98 DNA study but to me this indicates some strong
likelihood that Thomas Woodson had a connection to Monticello likely that he was raised there and probably was the
child of Sally Hemmings with this calendar story we're left to assume one of two things either that calendar is just a total liar not necessarily
unlikely but then this doesn't explain the existence of Tom or number two if we give calendar any credit and his story
is mostly true if sensationalized then there was a 1 8 black slave child named
Tom living at Monticello who could not have been Jefferson's son any way you look at it the story that essentially
kicked off The Jefferson paternity rumor is verifiable nonsense to the point that many on the pro paternity side now
amusingly argue that Hemmings only had six children instead of seven but still they believe the paternity case is
strong so they must have the reasons let's look deeper into the case by seeing what others were saying at the time the rumors were being spread
Contemporary Testimony
beginning with the groundskeeper of Monticello Edmund bacon who made a plain denial of the accusation saying of one
of hammock's children quote she was not Jefferson's daughter she was blank's daughter I know that I have seen him come out of his mother's room many a
morning when I went up to Monticello very early the name by the way was intentionally left blank when these Memoirs were published so as to not
incriminate the culprit John Adams a credible Source if ever there was one denied the accusation as well Adams was
Jefferson's longtime friend turned bitter political rival in fact this defense of Jefferson came after calendar
who was hired by Jefferson had published articles referring to Adams as a fat ugly hermaphrodite I am paraphrasing a
bit here but all of those words were used suffice it to say the two were not on great terms but even still Adams
wrote on the matter that quote I believe nothing that calendar said any more than if it had been said by an infernal Spirit Jefferson's daughter Martha
Jefferson Randolph is known to have denied the allegations private in letters Jefferson's granddaughter Ellen
Randolph Coolidge who lived at Monticello during most of the periods in which Hemmings conceived would testifying a letter to her brother on
October 24 1858 that not a single person Among The Jeffersons living at Monticello ever so much as suspected any
impropriety on Thomas Jefferson's part and it would have been difficult to never suspect anything in a relationship that went on for 39 years in a household
that regularly had as many as 50 people visiting and staying over and this isn't just a case of a loving granddaughter
saying this it truly is the case that none of the hundreds of people who ever visited Monticello throughout the year
sometimes for months at a time ever made any accusations against Jefferson Ellen goes on to mention that Jefferson's room
only had entrances and exits completely visible to all in the household in the end she writes that she considers the
relationship to be a moral impossibility which I know many of those on the pro paternity side at least the ones who are
still listening will scoff at when they hear but it's really not that crazy where my father implicated in such a case I could tell you without getting
into any of the details that he did not do it he probably wouldn't know that a woman were trying to come on to him if they were we all all have a relationship
in our lives we know the person deep enough that we can all but rule out certain behaviors so this claim of a moral impossibility really isn't that
crazy and given what we know about Jefferson's life this would be strong testimony in a court moving on Thomas Jefferson Randolph that is Jefferson's
grandson reported that he was told by Peter Carr a son of Jefferson's sister that he had fathered children by
Hemmings now because the Carr brothers are the children of Jefferson's sister that means that they are not part of the Jefferson male line and do not carry the
same Y chromosome this means that the DNA study which found a y chromosome match between esten's descendants and
the Jefferson males absolves Peter Carr of esten's paternity some will mistakenly say that this absolves Peter
Carr entirely but remember that the descendants of heming's other children were not tested so there is nothing
saying that Peter Carr couldn't have also fathered children with her and it's not exactly unlikely that Hemmings would have had children with multiple men her
mother for instance is thought to have had children by four different men and if we lend any credibility to calendar then he reported that she had 15 to 30
sexual partners now you will of course note that most of these testimonies come from people that are close to Jefferson and you may be thinking that this is
just a case of them defending a loved one well first off they're not all close to Jefferson take Adams who again at
this point was his rival but secondly of course the people who are most intimately familiar with his Affairs are going to be close to him this is almost
the necessary evil of these types of testimonies and if we admit to any bias on their side then we need to recognize
Pro-paternity Bias
the potential bias on the opposite side that heming's children have great incentive to be related to Jefferson not
just the personal aggrandizement but the racial incentive we'll touch on this more later but it has been stated Time and Time Again by black Scholars that to
them the Jefferson Hemmings matter is one of great importance to the standing of black people in America now I frankly
don't understand why but if this is what they say then we can't discount this potential motivation in someone making
an accusation against Jefferson amusingly if we go back to that Oprah segment there's one black woman whose family claimed for years that they were
descended from Jefferson yet the DNA study that the show was discussing proved that to be impossible still though this lady claims that she is
going to go around claiming that she is descended from him well this is Michelle her family also maintained for 200 years
as they they are relatives of Thomas Jefferson and the recent DNA test proved inconclusive for for your side of the
family but what does that make you feel now it makes me feel no less related to Thomas Jefferson Sally Hemmings we were
100 certain before the DNA testing came out and even afterwards there's always going to be such a strong incentive
social personal and political to claim a venerable Heritage and this seemingly goes double for the descendants of
enslaved people so then if these were the testimonies of the people who defended Jefferson who made testimony against him well the examples are
Madison Hemings Testimony
actually very few and their reliability is doubtful the testimony which those on the pro paternity side rely on the most
comes from one of Sally heming's Sons named Madison in 1873 Madison dictated an article to a journalist in Ohio
writing for the Pike County Republican in this article Madison tells a brief version of his life story and relates
that he and all of his siblings were fathered by Jefferson he tells the story of how the relationship started in France when Jefferson was serving as the
American Minister how Sally became pregnant with his child there and negotiated special privileges and the freedom of her children upon their
return to Monticello if you're curious for more details you should read the article yourself it's fairly short again this testimony is far in a way the most
important piece of evidence for the pro paternity side Annette Gordon Reed again the most prominent Pro paternity scholar
identifies Madison as quote the most important historical witness in this story and you can see why they hold it
to be so important without this testimony the case for Jefferson's paternity rests entirely on the 98 DNA
study which again makes Jefferson just one of among 25 men who could have been esten's father so we're going to spend a
good deal of time looking at Madison's testimony to put my conclusion up front I will tell you that in my opinion there is no good reason why we should put any
faith into Madison's testimony to tell you why let's begin by discussing the circumstances of the article's publication first the author of the
article Samuel Wetmore was a Republican party activist and was a virulent anti-southerner a fact attested to by
Annette Gordon Reed he detested Jefferson in his way of life in due recall that this was in 1873 just a few
short years after the Civil War had ended so that conversation between North and South was still very much ongoing this transcript was recorded when
Madison was an old man 45 years after he had last been at Monticello he had been living in Ohio for 35 years at this
point and importantly most of the people who could confirm or deny his story were long since dead Jefferson died in 1826
Sally Hemmings in 1835. we should note too that most of the important pieces of information he discusses which pertained
to the paternity question happened before he was born meaning this is a secondhand account despite this fact
however Madison talks about them as if he experienced them firsthand and the article is referred to by experts as
Madison's Memoirs or Madison's remembrances what's more he never says or suggests even where he got this
information from meaning that in the courts this would be considered hearsay from an unnamed Source said by one man
as opposed to the several first-hand testimonies which directly contradict his story the pro-paternity scholars
will often say that he got this information from his mother but if that's the case then why was Madison the only one of heming's children to ever
speak out about this moving on we have reason to believe that the article is not representative of the exact
dictation that Madison made but rather it was created whole cloth or at least heavily edited by Wetmore first the
style of the writing is very similar to other articles written by Wetmore a point again conceded by Annette Gordon
Reed second the writing is far more sophisticated than writings by other self-educated former slaves at the time
here are just a few of the phrases that stood out to the scholars commission an intimacy sprang up between them which ripened into love slave masters had no
compunctions of conscious which restrained them from parting mother and child of however tender age as soon after her internment as he could attend
to and arrange his domestic affairs in accordance with the changed circumstances of his family in consequence of this Misfortune
furthermore there is reason to believe that this article was heavily inspired by the original calendar article it
includes many of the same very specific words that calendar used and it includes the same misspelling of a name as was
published when the rumor first showed up so the article was likely written by Wetmore not dictated by Madison as
acclaims which then downgrades at two third hand testimony from an unnamed Source but of course this doesn't mean that the content still couldn't be true
let's dig a Little Deeper looking first at some of the non-paternity related claims in the story you should further
make us question Madison's trustworthiness at one point Madison says that he was named by the wife of the fourth President of the United
States James Madison Who quote begged Sally Hemmings to name the child after her this in addition to obviously being
another case of second-hand testimony is almost certainly not true Not only would it be extremely odd for a woman of Mrs
Madison's position to beg a slave to name her child after her the slave in question being the notorious Sally Hemmings no less but the evidence
suggests that the medicines were not even at Monticello at the time of Madison heming's birth or any time thereafter for months they did visit on
occasion but only during the Summers and Madison was born in January now to be fair to Madison Hemmings he might not be
lying here he may have been told the story and now he's just repeating it exactly as he heard it but if that's the case then we should seriously question
whatever his sources for his other secondhand claims sometimes though he just gets facts plain wrong for instance
he says that all four of heming's surviving children were freed in Jefferson's will yet only two Madison
and Esten were even mentioned in his will we can't be sure if these are instances of intentional lies or just
the result of trying to remember something from over half a century ago now moving on to the main claims made about Jefferson's paternity Madison says
Jefferson in Paris
that the two began their relationship while Jefferson was serving as the American minister to France in Paris Sally was brought along to serve as a
maid for Mary Jefferson's daughter well there Sally supposedly became pregnant with Jefferson's child he says that Sally intended to remain in France where
she could be freed from slavery but Jefferson got her to agree to come back to Monticello on the condition that she would be granted quote extraordinary
privileges and that any children that she had would be freed at the age of 21. these claims made by Madison are Far and
Away the most absurd part of the story at no point do they follow any thread of logic but this is the main creation myth
of the Jefferson Heming story so let's break down its failings first let's paint a picture about who Sally Hemmings
was at the time when she came to Paris she was 14 years old and Jefferson was in his mid-40s Jefferson didn't ask for
her to come in particular he asked for an older woman to look after his daughter but as Sally was the only one
inoculated against smallpox she was sent instead on the boat ride over the captain wrote Jefferson to tell him that
Sally would be of no use to him but because of her immaturity and that she should be sent back but no action was
taken on the matter their boat first arrived in London where Sally stayed with a family of John Adams second U.S
president well there a letter written by John Adams wife Abigail reported also that Sally was incredibly immature
saying that she was quote quite a child and said that she was quote wanting more care than Jefferson's eight-year-old
daughter these are some of the only written mentions that we have of Sally hemings and they do not at all depict her as the type of woman who would
Garner the sexual attention of one of the most intelligent men in the world while in Paris Jefferson lived at the
relatively small three-bedroom hotel de langec along with several servants and AIDS and a constant flood of visitors
hardly the best setting for a romantic Affair meanwhile Sally was living in a different building altogether and was
charged with taking care of Jefferson's daughter so he likely very rarely saw Hemmings at all and when he did his
daughter would have been present if they had begun the relationship here which would have been bold for Jefferson to pursue to say the least it's surprising
that no reference has ever been found to it in any Diaries or Publications written by any of the dozens of people
around nor was any note taken by the French secret police who were confirmed to have been watching Jefferson intensely during his stay and taking
meticulous notes on his actions now like I said earlier Madison also tells us that Hemmings very much wanted to stay
in France first because she was beginning to master the French language and secondly because slavery was illegal
there so she could be free but these plans to stay are interrupted because Jefferson seemingly begs her to come back but if Sally really wanted to stay
in France why in the world would Jefferson not let her it would have saved him the embarrassment of having followed a slave child and the trouble
of the blackmail that Sally was apparently able to extort him with if the story of his paternity got out and was proven true it would have destroyed
his political career but no according to Madison's Story Jefferson really wanted her to come back for some reason also is
it even reasonable that Hemmings would have wanted to stay in France she was 14 years old pregnant one quarter black and
had no skills with which she could support herself meanwhile Becca Monticello was all of her family and
everything she ever knew and France too was on the verge of an extremely violent revolution at the time which he thinks
she would have caught wind of if she was fluent in French next there is some confusion about the child that was said to be born to Hemmings after her stay in
Paris according to Madison the child Hemmings gave birth to after arriving back at Monticello was a boy named
Thomas but he died not long after he was born could this possibly be the same Tom that calendar had said was walking
around Monticello in 1802. again we can say for a near certainty that there was a 1 8 black slave boy named Tom about
the right age too living at Monticello at the time but obviously this can't be the same Tom that Madison said died as
an infant as far as I can tell there is no real explanation from the pro paternity side on this Paradox whereas
the anti-paternity side can easily explain it away by saying that Sally did indeed get pregnant in Paris and gave
birth to Thomas Woodson at Monticello but that the father simply wasn't Thomas Jefferson as proven by the 98 DNA study
so in the end the testimony made by Madison Hemmings is simply unreliable it was very likely heavily edited by the
political activist I could say propagandist Samuel Wetmore the sources are unnamed it was likely informed by
previous pieces of political propaganda namely Calendar's article if reports to have firsthand knowledge of events which
happened before Madison's birth it was recorded more than half a century after the events in question and it is
directly contradicted by several independent people all of whom had first-hand knowledge of the events this
testimony would not hold very much if any weight in court and you know I've actually heard it said that anybody who denies Madison's testimony must be doing
it because they're racist obviously ignoring the fact that Madison Hemmings was 7 8 white his sister who was also 7
8 White married a white guy and that guy never suspected anything the story is simply unreliable for all the reasons
listed above and race hardly plays a role in it to finish up with the testimonials though we need to ask what
Hemings' and Jefferson's Testimony
did the only two people who knew for certain the details of the relationship have to say on the matter well Sally
Hemmings seemingly never commented on it if she did talk about it we can assume that it wasn't often as nobody else
including any of her children save Madison ever commented on it either in any case there isn't much that we can get from Sally as far as Jefferson is
concerned he seemingly maintained a policy of never commenting on political controversy not just the Hemmings
controversy but anything that is political Rivals accused him of he was willing to let the Press say anything that it wanted to about him so as to
prove the validity of the idea of a free press that the people could judge for themselves the truth of a story based on
the character of the man and how he lived his life this stance set him apart from his Federalist opponents who used
the Sedition Act to silence political dissidents indeed they were the ones who tried James calendar under that law here
are two quotes which illustrate this mindset of Jeffersons conscious that there was not a truth on Earth which I feared should be known I have lent
myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment which was to prove that an Administration conducting itself with integrity and common understanding
cannot be battered down even by the falsehoods of a licentious press I have never therefore even contradicted the
thousands of colonies so industriously propagated against myself it has been so impossible to contradict all their lies
that I have determined to contradict none for while I should be engaged with one they would publish 20 new ones many
of these charges would have required only a simple denial but I saw that even that would have led to the infallible inference that whatever I had not denied
was presumed to be true because of this we have no surviving documents from Jefferson which directly addressed the
Hemmings controversy but even if you were of a mind to deny the false accusations made against him he still may not have bothered to address the
Hemmings controversy because it was far from the most serious allegation made against him throughout his political career Jefferson was accused of all
sorts of falsehoods including supporting the violent French Revolution favoring monarchism being half Indian being an
atheist running away during a battle in the revolution wanting to promote prostitution wanting to free all the
slaves although as we've said before this was likely true this was never a policy that he was going to pursue and lastly having an affair with a married
woman when he was in his 20s now this one actually is partially true when Jefferson was 20 years old he didn't
have an affair but he did make an advance at a married woman the wife of a friend who was out of the country at the time we only know this to be true
however because while he was President he admitted it in a private letter to the Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith
in this letter he also writes that he acknowledges that it was wrong and that quote it is the only one founded in
truth among all their allegations against me now while this isn't a direct denial of the hammock's controversy it
was one of the larger controversies that he was caught up in at the time so this is viewed by many as a tacit denial of
it and we should know that this was a letter written in private by Jefferson to one of his cabinet members he didn't have to admit to this action that he was
deeply shameful of but he chose to anyhow which I think should speak to the honesty of the man as to Jefferson's
actions they do not hint at any special relationship between himself and Hemmings the circumstantial evidence suggests that Hemmings was never treated
preferentially while living at Monticello we have surviving documentation from Monticello which shows the distribution of clothing
blankets and other supplies to the slaves and these shows that Hemmings was treated exactly the same as every other
slave furthermore in the tens of thousands of letters that we have of Jefferson's he never makes any special
mention of Hemmings she's only ever mentioned in his letters three or four times and then just as a matter of circumstance the totality of these
references include one which he is mentioned as Mary's maid Mary being Jefferson's daughter two where Jefferson says that if her children came down with
measles then they should be temporarily removed from Monticello so as not to infect other people and another where he
mentions that he is shipping the mattress of Mary's Dead Brother this is purely administrative sort of stuff by
all accounts and by all surviving records we must come to the conclusion that Hemmings was somebody that Jefferson rarely ever thought about in
Who was the Father?
his day-to-day life so if I'm saying that Jefferson is blameless in this who then was the father of eston Hemmings
and all of Sally heming's other children well we do still have the claim made by Jefferson's grandson that Peter Carr
admitted to fathering some of her children of course the DNA studies seemingly ruled that out as Peter Carr is not a carrier of the Jefferson Y
chromosome but remember that the DNA study only tested the descendants of Aston Hemmings Sally heming's youngest
child all of the other children of Hemmings whose descendants were not tested still could have been born to Peter Carr or his brother Samuel but
then what about eston Hemmings the one with the Jefferson Y chromosome could Thomas Jefferson be his father well yes
but it is extremely unlikely now this is always going to be a fraught question because we have to rely almost entirely
on circumstantial evidence to answer it that being said though there is far in a way more circumstantial evidence to
suggest that Thomas Jefferson's younger brother Randolph fathered eston Hemmings let's find out why first we have the
testimony from a Monticello slave named Isaac Jefferson his last name by the way wasn't actually Jefferson but he changed
it because well it turns out that slaves often like to misrepresent their lineage anyways Isaac is quoted as saying bold
Master's brother Master Randall was a mighty Simple Man used to come out among black people play the fiddle and dance
half the night hadn't much more sense than Isaac in other words we have testimony that says that Randolph Jefferson would often party with the
black slaves at Monticello for another Point Randolph is confirmed to have been at Monticello when estin was conceived
and for many weeks before and after also with Randolph during this visit were his five sons all of whom were in their
mid-teens to early twenties and all of whom would have been carriers of the Jefferson Y chromosome for another point
the family oral history of esten's descendants had maintained for years that they were descended from a man
referred to as Uncle Randolph and if you have any uncertainty that this Uncle Randolph is indeed Randolph Jefferson he
was often referred to as such in contemporary it was his nickname further we know of Randolph that he was often
described as dim-witted especially as compared to his brother he also was confirmed to have had many friends who
also hung around the slaves and had children by them this all stands in contrast to Thomas Jefferson who by all
accounts was absolutely pure he never hung around the slaves and saved for the faulty accusation by Madison Hemmings he
was never once accused by any of the thousands of people who lived at or visited Monticello of carrying on a
sexual relationship with a slave and yes by the way that includes calendar the guy from earlier in the video who wrote
the article that kicked off this rumor in the first place he never actually visited Monticello he wrote his article
from hearsay to examine all this circumstantial evidence and not conclude that Randolph or one of his sons was far
in a way more likely to have fathered eston Hemmings is absurd so now that's the evidence all dealt with I've read
Motivations
the entirety of the reports done by both competing commissions read dozens of Articles watched every video on the topic and examined every primary
document and I can tell you that in my opinion this case isn't even close adhering to the standard of the reasonable man would have us conclude
that the case for Jefferson's paternity is shaky resting on secondhand accounts from uncited sources and drawing false
conclusions from scientific papers why then to some Scholars and those who run the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation
choose to believe the story then again if you go to Monticello right now the informational signage around the
plantation will tell you in no uncertain terms that Jefferson fathered all of heming's children well frankly I'm not
really sure but there is a strong case that can be made for a conflict of interest on their parts in short they
see the story of Jefferson and Hemmings as inextricably linked up with the racial struggle of blacks in America and
as they are unwilling to capitulate in that struggle they will do whatever they must to tell their lie with certainty
regardless of the evidence they have to warp or ignore Annette Gordon Reed regularly says that the paternity story
has great symbolic significance quote symbolically it's tremendously important for people as a way of inclusion Nathan
Huggins said that the Sally Heming story was a way of establishing black people's birth rate to America if you look at the
flip side of it rejecting the story is a part of the rejection of black people's Birthright and claims to America in
another quote Madison hamming's mother Sally Hemmings has come to be seen as a metaphor for the condition of blacks in
American society and another some people come to Monticello and say I didn't come here to a slave plantation to hear about
slavery there's nothing to do but keep pushing back now to me these quotes betray Gordon Reed's objectivity and it
should at the very least make us question her trustworthiness the Jefferson paternity story much like the 1619 project is a way to shoehorn in for
right of or wrong the story of black people into the story of America in places where it just doesn't belong they
will talk about Jefferson the racist rapist despite the fact that by their own admission they can't prove that
Jefferson was the father of any of heming's children and frankly the evidence that he fathered even one is very weak rather than pretend to some
intellectual honesty and couch the conversation in uncertain terms say that Jefferson may be the father which even
I'm willing to admit however unlikely instead they drag his name through the mud and make sure that when you hear the
name Jefferson your first thought isn't the brilliant Enlightenment thinker but a child molesting slave owner say that
what it may about the country he founded so in the end what can really be said on the matter well like I said at the start of this video I intended to serve three
Conclusion
purposes number one to show that the cartoonish image of Jefferson as a rapist and abuser is utterly false not
only does his character betray such actions nobody ever accused him of any such Behavior anyhow number two to discuss the racial element of the story
and show why it is overplayed and three to show that although we don't know for certain and we may never know it is much
more reasonable to believe that Jefferson fathered none of heming's children the primary pieces of evidence on the pro paternity side are two
newspaper articles one of them written by a drunken dishonest rival of Jeffersons and the other one written by a northern political activist who hated
Jefferson based on the era written testimony of a man more than 60 years after the fact and indeed there was a
fourth purpose that arose while making this video that was to question the motive of those who are pushing this story in the cases of both calendar and
Wetmore we know that there were political motivations and for modern Scholars it seems that race is a primary
motivating factor these motivations at times male Island have had very real impacts on our nation's perception of
itself most conspicuously in the removal of statues of Jefferson from public spaces in the case of this particular
statue removed from a New York City Council Hall slavery in the children that they believe Jefferson to have been
the father of were cited as reasons for its removal and that would bet my life that none of those officials who voted
to remove it knew any of the details of the Jefferson heming's case or knew that Jefferson fought for abolition and
indeed freed many of his own slaves often illegally by letting them run away and giving them Provisions to do so with
I view this primarily as an attack on American history a way to destroy the philosophical underpinnings of the nation by attacking
those figures through slander who could serve as pillars of moral guidance for us this is of course just one small
instance of this larger attack and I am just one man speaking out against it but I believe that truth being orders of
magnitude more powerful than falsehood allows anybody who wields it to defeat lies spread by those with far more power
than themselves so I will continue to do all that I can to speak out against those who would attack truth improve
their efforts futile
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