I said I wasn't interested in engaging in a back-and-forth, but I feel compelled to respond to your comments.
Your stated "belief" that brother Randolph Jefferson fathered Sally's children, despite the fact that Randolph rarely ever visited Monticello, and wasn't there each and every time Sally conceived her children, had his own farms and slaves to manage, while Thomas Jefferson was present each and every time Sally Hemmings conceived her children (fact), trumps this and all other circumstantial and DNA evidences available pointing to the relationship?
Why is this?
First of all, the absence of evidence is not proof of anything. The fact that not every visit Randolph made was documented by Thomas is not proof that Randolph wasn't there. (It's also not proof that he was there.)
Secondly, no one was at Monticello when Jefferson wasn't there except for the slaves and overseers. When Jefferson was not at Monticello, the main house was locked up. So, the fact that Jefferson was there every time Sally conceived is not proof that Jefferson is the father. It's proof that someone who was there when Jefferson was there was.
Jefferson was known to entertain a large number of guests whenever he was at Monticello, so any male descendant of his grandfather is a potential candidate for paternity.
That doesn't eliminate Jefferson as the potential father, but it also doesn't exclude any other Jefferson descendant.
There are six reasons that I believe Randolph was the father. (And it can only be in the realm of belief because we simply don't have any proof.)
1. Randolph's Y-DNA would be the same as Thomas'
2. Randolph was known to "play the fiddle and dance half the night" among the slaves at Monticello.
3. Randolph was known to visit Monticello when Jefferson was there.
4. Randolph's time as a widower exactly corresponds with all of Sally's known children's births.
5. Jefferson's overseer, who was in a position to know, stated that he frequently saw a man, not Thomas Jefferson, leaving Sally's quarters in the early morning.
6. The oral tradition of Eston Heming's family was that "Jefferson's uncle" was their ancestor until Fawn Brodie convinced them it was Thomas. Randolph was known as "uncle" by Jefferson's slaves.
You infer that the (more) recent independent research performed by the Thomas Jefferson Scholars Commission must be taken as equal to or more credible than the decades of in-house research of the historians at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, the non-profit organization that operates his home, and conducts the most current and rigorous research on his life and times. Why?
Because there are serious flaws in the research that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation did. Those flaws have been exposed by several scholars. They don't get the same recognition or media attention that the Foundation does, but that doesn't make them less credible.
Jefferson once expressed the importance of following the truth, wherever it may lead.
I completely agree with Jefferson. Unfortunately, some aren't interested in the truth. They're interested in arriving at a foregone conclusion. Ever since the despicable James Thomson Callender hurled his accusations at Jefferson (now conclusively disproven by DNA) the mystery, as you call it, has lived on.
Why is it that Thomas Jefferson, slave owner, and a relatively young man when he wife died, must be denied his part as willing participant all his life in a system that commonly produced mixed children, when there was an economic incentive to produce children for it, and denied his manhood, as other historians have expressed, at the same time?
I'm not even certain I understand your question, so let me state my position unequivocally. Jefferson was a slave owner. A conflicted one, for sure, but a slave owner nonetheless. His ownership of slaves, while understandable in the context of his time, is reprehensible and inexcusable.
If Jefferson did not father Sally Hemings's children, then he clearly concealed his knowledge of who did. That is also reprehensible. I will not speculate on his reasons for doing so because he never addressed it.
Why, of all historic figures, is Jefferson, who was still interested in pursuing romantic entanglements with women, when he re-encountered the beautiful Sally in Paris, but is not known to have pursued romances with other women post encounter, exempt from having relations with a woman his own grandson described as "decidedly good looking," and whose body and reproduction Jefferson owned as a property right?
There is precious little evidence of Sally's life at all. Most of what you read is made up by writers who seek to romanticize her and ascribe to her abilities that she likely never had.
For example, when she traveled to Paris, two credible sources, Abigail Adams and the ship's captain wrote that she was "quite a child" and "wanting more care" than Jefferson's eight-year-old daughter Polly. It's difficult to believe that Jefferson would have taken advantage of a slave girl so young and childlike while she was working as a maid to his own daughter.
And, in fact, it has been proven that the so-called Thomas Hemings who was claimed to be the child of their encounter in Paris by Callender may never have even existed and if he exists, the DNA of his descendants does not match Jefferson, excluding him as the so-called first child of Sally and Thomas.
It is not my desire to carry on a debate about these issues. This is why I provided links and encouraged people to visit them if they wanted to see a more careful examination of the extant evidence.
Why does your stated "belief" of 2023 trump the 1873 testimony Sally Hemmings's son Madison gave about his own parentage?
First, we have no "testimony" from Madison. The writer of the article was a known Jefferson-hater, and he never directly quoted Madison. For all we know, he made up the entire interview. Furthermore, the things that Madison "testified" to occurred before he was born and he, therefore, could not have had any first-hand knowledge of them.
This, again, is a reason to be very cautious about attributing the parentage of Sally's children to Thomas Jefferson.
And I want to go on record here. Any sexual activity between a female slave and a slave owner or relatives of a slave owner is a crime - rape, and assault - and is disgusting beyond comprehension. Every man who committed such an offense was fully knowledgeable of his culpability. That's why such relationships were never spoken of and considered taboo (although they were often "winked at".)
Every child Sally bore was the result of criminal activity, and she cannot bear any of the blame, regardless of how she may have felt about it. She was never in a position to consent to it and was taken advantage of because of her inability to refuse such activity.
I feel I must respond to this.
That body you mention was composed of men and women brought together by a white male lineal descendant of Thomas Jefferson, who stated his interest in keeping the Hemmings family out of the family association of Jefferson descendants, or the Monticello Association. The Scholars' official own stated mission was to protect Thomas Jefferson's reputation, which already made it a biased organization.
I am well aware of their biases, as I am of the biases of Fawn Brodie, Annette Gordon-Reed, and others who have been all too eager to jump to the conclusions that they have. When I read scholarly arguments, I try my best to ignore the biases of the writer and focus on the strength of their evidence and arguments.
Lastly, you ask.
The rest of the world, minus Jefferson's most ardent (and mostly white and male) defenders, who never knew him, or Sally Hemings, personally, have moved on from ye olde mystery of history.
Why does this history-mystery bother you today?
The primary reason it bothers me is that I am an ardent advocate for truth. And the truth is, we do not know (yet) who fathered Sally's children. Short of exhuming Jefferson and (hopefully) getting DNA from his remains, and comparing that to living descendants of Sally (who have so far refused such comparisons unless Jefferson's remains are exhumed) we may never know.
I hope I've answered your questions satisfactorily, and I'd be happy to engage in a dialog with you offline if you so desire. Hopefully, I've clarified my position well enough that you understand why it bothers me.
Again, I highly recommend that you read the Scholars Commission report as well as some of the other scholarly responses to the Foundation's conclusions. You may choose not to do that, being completely satisfied with the Foundation's conclusions. That's certainly your right.
