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Blinded by Bias [AGR 51-58]

Jennifer Markham

[1] The goal of Annette Gordon-Reed's Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy is to redress the fallacies of prior Jefferson scholarship. To do this, she attempts to use her lawyerly roots and take an objective look at the likelihood of a Jefferson-Hemings affair. In "From Jefferson to the Hemingses" Gordon-Reed looks at the possible explanations of why Jefferson freed the four Hemings children (51-58). She then goes on further to analyze why two of the Hemings children, Beverly and Harriet, ran away while the other two, Madison and Eston, were formally freed by Jefferson. Her propositions initially seem convincing; however, it cannot be ignored that like all other Jefferson scholars, Gordon-Reed brings not only her own set of evidence but also her own set of interests to her work. Writing from the other side of the color divide, she has her own agenda about race. Although it may be opposite from that of her predecessors, it equally permeates her arguments and taints the account.

[2] From the beginning, vestiges of Gordon-Reed's bias are traceable. At the opening of the chapter she states, "While it is true that Thomas Jefferson means more to American history than the Hemings family, it is important to try to learn as much as we can about the lives of the people who were held in slavery in this country" (51). Her focus then shifts as she emphasizes how peculiar the freeing of all four Hemings children was in an attempt to persuade readers that there must have been some deeper motivation behind Jefferson's actions: "They all went free in what could be considered the prime of their lives, as young adults with long futures ahead of them. This happened to no other person or group of slaves he owned" (52). Her bias becomes clear when she presses readers to "Think of what an enormous victory this was for a slave mother, to see all her children freed. Think of this good fortune and remember that when one does something for the children of a mother, one is doing something for the mother herself" (52). At this point, it is obvious that Gordon-Reed strongly believes Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson shared a deeper relationship than merely slave and master, a relationship that explains his compassion.

[3] Continuing on, Gordon-Reed's arguments seem equally troubling. For example, she alternatively proposes that Jefferson may have freed the Hemings children based on their whiteness, regardless of any sort of personal connection he may have shared with them. She tries to dismiss this theory with such flimsy counter-arguments as Jefferson would not have been inclined to do this because it would have undermined the existing Virginia slave law. With this blind assumption, Gordon-Reed is making the same mistake as her predecessors by confidently asserting what Jefferson would do in a given situation. All Jefferson scholars unanimously agree that the founding father was a man full of contradictions, from his presidency to his religious beliefs to his position on slavery. Therefore, one could never accurately guess what Jefferson may have done in a situation because he was so ambivalent. Based on this pattern, how can Gordon-Reed so surely assume that it would have been out of Jefferson's character to dismiss Sally Hemings's children for this reason? She can't, yet she allows her bias to shield her better judgment.

[4] Next Gordon-Reed tries to address why two of the children were legally freed while two of them ran away, and when the opportunity arises, she does not refrain from launching an attack against Jefferson. She begins by evaluating the situation of Beverly and Harriet, the two runaways. By allowing Beverly and Harriet to run away, Jefferson essentially provided them their freedom. However, the law considered them fugitives because they did not have official citizenship, and therefore they could at any time be recaptured. In order to petition for their citizenship, Jefferson would have needed to create a document that would have become part of the public record. Gordon-Reed alerts readers to a potential flaw in his character, saying that "If Jefferson was truly concerned about the issue of keeping white people as slaves, and if Beverly and Harriet Hemings were not his children, choosing to allow them to run away over formally freeing them seems a staggering example of cowardice on Jefferson's part" (56). She claims his actions "would have deprived these two young white people of the chance to enjoy the benefits of citizenship in order to protect himself from the resurgence of gossip about an allegation that he knew to be false" (56). Making readers aware of Jefferson's weakness was not essential in the proposition of her argument. Despite this, Gordon-Reed readily went out of her way to do so, discrediting him while at the same time illuminating her partiality.

[5] Lastly, Gordon-Reed examines why Madison and Eston were legally freed. She proposes that during the time period during which Madison and Eston were coming of age, Jefferson's health and finances both were rapidly declining. He needed to take action in order to fulfill his promise to Sally of freeing her children, but if Madison and Eston were to runaway, because of his poor credit they would likely be pursued, as the money garnered from their sale upon Jefferson's death would go towards paying off his debt. With Jefferson's exorbitant debt, creditors needed every cent they could get. Gordon-Reed asserts this left Jefferson with only one choice: appealing to his creditors to allow the freeing of these two slaves upon his death to ensure they wouldn't be sold. However, this scenario seems illogical. Around Charlottesville people were buzzing about his alleged affair with a slave woman, and Jefferson was fully aware of this, so why would he fuel the gossip by drawing this type of attention to himself? There were many slaves at Monticello, certainly people would wonder why these two were to be freed and make the connection that they could be his childrenâ€"whether it was true or not. Also, if Jefferson were such a coward when it came to formally freeing Beverly and Harriet, why would he decide to take action in this case? Regardless of whether the affair was fact or fiction, this seems like publicity Jefferson would have wanted to avoid.

[6] In her conclusion of this section, Gordon-Reed declares she is undecided about the existence of the Jefferson-Hemings affair, stating, "depending upon the time of day, I might agree with either position" (58). However, the presentation of her evidence does not reflect this supposed neutral viewpoint. Although it may be taboo to claim that African Americans and Caucasians look at the scandal from two different viewpoints in this time of racial equality, it is undoubtedly true. The civil rights era may have happened long ago, but hundreds of years of history simply can't be forgotten. Annette Gordon-Reed, being a black woman, more thoroughly considers the black side of the narrative than her white predecessors. Her work contains an equal amount of bias as the works of other Jefferson scholars, just slanted to the other side, making it liable to similar blind spots.