>Looks like the speculation is over............Enjoy! Carmen >From: VA1833@aol.com >To: THROWERVA@aol.com, tusca@vvi.net >Subject: T.J. & Sally > >DNA Tests Offer Evidence That Jefferson Fathered a Child With His Slave > >By DINITIA SMITH and NICHOLAS WADE > > > DNA tests performed on the descendants of Thomas Jefferson's family and of >Jefferson's young slave, Sally Hemings, offer compelling new evidence that the >third president of the United States fathered at least one of her children as >has long been speculated, according to an article in the next issue of the >scientific journal Nature. > > The report is based on blood samples collected by Eugene A. Foster, a >retired pathologist who lives in Charlottesville, Va. The finding undercuts >the position of historians who have long said that Jefferson did not have a >liaison with the slave some 28 years his junior and confirms, but with a >surprising twist, the oral tradition that has been handed down among Sally >Hemings' descendants. > > The new evidence is likely to send historians scurrying to re-evaluate >Jefferson, particularly his role in the anti-slavery movement. It may also >have a wider resonance. The accusation of an affair with Hemings, one of >several charges considered in a mock impeachment trial staged by the >Massachusetts state Legislature in 1805, was indirectly denied by Jefferson. > > "Now, with impeccable timing," the historian Joseph Ellis and the geneticist >Eric Lander write in a joint commentary on the new report, "Jefferson >reappears to remind us of a truth that should be self-evident. Our heroes -- >and especially presidents -- are not gods or saints, but flesh-and-blood >humans." > > Foster's finding rests on analysis of the Y chromosome, an unusual geneti c >component because, except at its very tips, it escapes the shuffling of the >genetic material that occurs between every generation. The only changes on the >Y chromosome are rare sporadic mutations in the DNA that accumulate slowly >over centuries. Male lineages can therefore be distinguished from one another >through the characteristic set of mutations carried in their Y chromosomes. > > Foster said he began his research almost on a whim, at a friend's >suggestion. He soon grew more serious, and with the help of many colleagues, >has tracked down four male lineages that bear on the paternity of Sally >Hemings' children. They are Jefferson's lineage, derived from his paternal >grandfather; the lineages of Tom Woodson and Eston Hemings Jefferson, Sally >Hemings' oldest and youngest sons; and the lineage of the Carrs, two of >Jefferson's nephews on his sister's side. > > Sally Hemings had other children, but they left no surviving male heirs. The >Carrs come into the picture because of the story spread by Jefferson's heirs >that one or the other of the nephews fathered Hemings' children, explaining >their pronounced resemblance to the Jeffersons. > > Foster's samples were analyzed by Christopher Tyler-Smith, a population >geneticist at the University of Oxford in England, and his colleagues. They >found that the Jeffersonian Y chromosome had a distinctive set of mutations, >unmatched in any of 1,200, mostly European, men who were analyzed by the same >method. > > The set of mutations on the Y chromosomes of three descendants of John Carr >were almost identical to one another and different from the Jeffersonian >chromosome, ruling out the Carrs as possible fathers. > > The Y chromosome of a descendant of Eston Hemings Jefferson made a perfect >match to Jefferson's, but those of five descendants of Thomas Woodson were >completely different. > > "The simplest and most probable explanations" for the findings, Foster and >colleagues report, "are that Thomas Jefferson, rather than one of the Carr >brothers, was the father of Eston Hemings Jefferson, and that Thomas Woodson >was not Thomas Jefferson's son." > > Lander, a DNA expert at the Whitehead Institute in Boston, said Foster's >evidence showed there was a less than 1 percent chance that a person chosen at >random would share the same set of Y chromosome mutations that exist in the >Jefferson lineage. > > "The fact that Eston Hemings' descendant has this rare chromosome, together >with the historical evidence, seals the case that Jefferson fathered Eston," >Lander said. > > The evidence that Thomas Woodson was not Jefferson's son is surprising, >Foster said, because of the particularly strong oral tradition that has come >down independently in the five lines of the Woodson family. Woodson, born >shortly after Jefferson's return from his service as minister in Paris, was 12 >when James Callender, a journalist, published accusations in a Richmond >newspaper that Jefferson was Hemings' lover. Shortly afterward, Woodson was >sent off to live with a relative. > > One of the blood samples in the study was taken from John Jefferson, 52, of >Norrisville, Pa., who is believed to be a direct descendant of Hemings through >Eston Hemings Jefferson. John Jefferson's Y chromosome matched blood samples >taken from the lineal descendants of Jefferson's uncle, Field Jefferson. > > In a telephone interview, Jefferson said he was not particularly surprised >at the news that he was descended from a president and his slave. "I've known >it practically all my life," said Jefferson, who is disabled and does not >work. "I guess I was happy about it, but not really surprised since I've >believed it all along." > > Jefferson's sister, Julia Jefferson Westerinen, 64, had a more ebullient >reaction. "Isn't that wild," said Ms. Westerinen, who lives on Staten Island >and sells furniture and office equipment to architects and corporations. > > "I've known for about 15 years, but I thought I was related to Jefferson's >nephew," she said. > > Robert Gillespie, a lawyer in Richmond who is the head of the Monticello >Association, which includes the descendants of Jefferson's two daughters, >said, "We've always agreed with mainstream historians that Jefferson wouldn't >have fathered Sally Hemings' children." But, Gillespie said, the DNA results >are "changing my attitude." > > Gillespie said he had always believed that "Jefferson would have shown the >second set of children love and affection just as he did the first set. >Apparently he was a product of the 18th century, and had a double standard." > > Ellis, author of "American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson," >(Knopf, 1997), and other Jefferson scholars like Dumas Malone have long said >that Jefferson did not have a relationship with Hemings. Ellis once dismissed >the possibility as "a tin can tied to Jefferson's reputation." > > Now, he said, the DNA tests have changed his mind. "This evidence is new >evidence and it seems to me to be clinching," he said. Ellis said >circumstantial evidence, including a quotation attributed to another of >Hemings' sons, James Madison, also pointed to a liaison. "It includes the >timing of her pregnancies, the physical resemblance of her children to >Jefferson and Madison saying late in life that his mother told him." > > Well before Y chromosome testing entered the picture, a minority of >historians were asserting that Jefferson had the affair, notably Fawn Brodie, >in her book "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History." Another scholar, Annette >Gordon-Reed, an associate professor of law at New York Law School and author >of "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy" (University >Press of Virginia), said she felt vindicated by the DNA tests. "If people had >accepted this story, he would never have become an icon," Professor Gordon- >Reed said. "All these historians did him a favor until we could get past our >primitive racism. I don't think he would have been on Mount Rushmore or on the >nickel. The personification of America can't live 38 years with a black >woman." > > The new DNA evidence is likely to renew questions about Jefferson's position >on slavery, Lander and Ellis believe. "Jefferson's stated reservations about >ending slavery included a fear that emancipation would lead to racial mixing >and amalgamation," they wrote in their commentary in Nature. "His own >interracial affair now personalizes this issue, while adding a dimension of >hypocrisy." > > Sally Hemings, who was born in 1772 or 1773, was the illegitimate half- >sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha, the offspring of a relationship between >John Wayles and Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings, a slave. Sally became Jefferson's >property when he inherited the Wayles estate in 1774, and arrived at >Monticello as a little girl in 1776. She was later described by one of >Jefferson's slaves, Isaac Jefferson, as "mighty near white . . . very >handsome, long straight hair down her back." Jefferson's grandson, Thomas >Jefferson Randolph, described her as "light colored and decidedly good >looking." > > In her early childhood, Hemings probably acted as a "nurse" to Jefferson's >daughter, Mary, a custom in slave culture. Then in 1787, Jefferson, a widower, >who was then the U.S. ambassador to France, summoned his daughter Maria to >live with him. Maria was accompanied by her young attendant, Sally, who was >then about 13. Sally's son Madison, who was born in 1805, at the end of his >life said that his mother became Jefferson's "concubine" in Paris. > > In 1789, Sally Hemings returned with the Jefferson family to Virginia. By >then, Sally was 16 or 17, and pregnant, according to Madison Jefferson. > > Her first child, Thomas, who the new studies say was not genetically linked >to Jefferson, was born soon after her return. > > Jefferson's grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, said later that the boy >looked like Thomas Jefferson. "At some distance or in the dusk the slave, >dressed in the same way, might have been mistaken for Mr. Jefferson," he said. > > The evidence of Jefferson's relationship with Hemings will only add to a re- >evaluation of Jefferson that has been going on among historians for some time, >Ellis said. "The take on Jefferson for 30 years or so has become more and more >critical," he said. "Increasingly, he is a window in which race and slavery >are the panes." > > Jefferson, as portrayed by Ellis and others, was an ambivalent figure. "He >plays hide and seek within himself," Ellis said. > > But most Americans, he predicted, would have a kinder reaction to what he >called "the longest-running mini-series in American history." > > "Within the larger world," Ellis said, "the dominant response will be >Jefferson is more human, to regard this as evidence of his frailties, >frailties that seem more like us. The urge to regard him as an American icon >will overwhelm any desire to take him off his pedestal." > > > > >Sunday, November 1, 1998 ><A HREF="aol://4344:104.nytcopy.6445375.574106743"> Copyright 1998 The New York >Times</A> > >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >- African Ancestored Genealogy Discussion >- To unsubscribe, email: Majordomo@MsState.Edu >- In body of message: unsubscribe afrigeneas >- >- Afrigeneas archives: http://www.msstate.edu/listarchives/afrigeneas/ >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >