I’ve recently made a foolish mistake. I expected a tour guide at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to actually talk about Thomas Jefferson. I know, how silly of me.
Yes, rather than give any new information, the young woman giving the tour decided it was the time to tell me that Thomas Jefferson, in fact, owned slaves. I already knew that, as does everyone over the age of 8. Now, I have no issue with learning about the slaves who worked at Monticello, but I do have a problem with their stories being prioritized over Jefferson himself. Believe it or not, I visited Thomas Jefferson’s home to learn about Thomas Jefferson, and you would think a woman whose job is to guide you through his home would be able to tell you more about him than your average 5th grader. However, it seems the only acceptable topic of discussion was slavery.
Thomas Jefferson was an incredibly interesting man with a multitude of ideas and interests a tour guide could discuss. I mean, I would have loved to hear about his views on science, philosophy, and don’t get me started on his inventions. Even the architectural inspirations for Monticello alone could have made for a fascinating tour. But no, these topics were glossed over as nothing more than a footnote in favor of a long-winded speech about the Jefferson-Hemings scandal.
This controversy, for those that are unaware, surrounds a rumor that Thomas Jefferson fathered the 6 children of his slave (and sister-in-law), Sally Hemings. It was started publicly by James T. Callender in 1802, but the majority of arguments made today are based on a 1998 DNA study, where the Y chromosome of Jefferson’s paternal uncle was discovered to be the same as that of the descendants of Sally’s youngest child. (If you would like a more comprehensive discussion of this controversy, I recommend you watch the Abbeville Institute’s video, The Jefferson Hemings Myth.) Based on the evidence, all we know is that one of the Jeffersons fathered one of Sally’s children—we do not know which Jefferson, nor do we know if there was only one father. There were, if I’m not mistaken, 20 or so Jefferson men living in Virginia at the time, many of them in close proximity to Monticello.
We have no way of knowing if Thomas Jefferson fathered any of Sally Hemings’ children. We don’t have access to DNA from Thomas Jefferson or anyone other than the two listed in the original study. And it should be mentioned that there has not been a single shred of evidence since 1998, yet the people at Monticello have decided that it must be true. In their eyes, he must be the father, because the big bad slave owner can’t be anything more than a one-dimensional villain. In fact, I ask you to go to the Monticello website right now, scroll for a bit, and read through the articles surrounding this controversy. You will see exactly what I’m talking about.
It’s become a trend in recent years to destroy the legacy of the men in our history, specifically those from the South. And, as a Southern woman with a deep love of history, this type of defamation truly angers me to no end. I am not here to say Jefferson was a saint, nor am I here to say there is no possibility the Jefferson-Hemings scandal could be true, but I refuse to sit and watch as speculation is portrayed as fact.
-By Miss Sirius Lee
II Thess. 3:17
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
No, we know if Jefferson fathered Hemings children. He did not. He with certainty did not father the child upon which the myth was founded. Mathematically, there is a 15% chance he fathered any others. If the man, his manner, his manners, his home life, his travels and his correspondences are known, it’s beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not the father of slave children. It takes a lot of study. At the risk of getting yelled at, a most concise and convincing brief about the possibility is from a column by Ann Coulter, entitled “Was Thomas Jefferson On The Duke Lacrosse Team?”, July 3, 2019. I refer to it as a “brief” because of Ms. Coulter’s first profession as a lawyer. More comprehensive is DID THOMAS JEFFERSON REALLY FATHER SALLY HEMING’S BLACK CHILDREN; A Scholarly Analysis of the Historical and Genetic Evidence, by Mark A. Holowchak, a modern Jefferson scholar.
Boy, you’re right about Monticello. July 3, 2022, I stuck it out for the guided tour, told the guide it was an embarrassment, visited Tom at his grave on way to the parking lot, and listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd while waiting three hours for my friend who was less bothered.