| Episodes |
Testing the Expert in the "Madison Hemings" Chapter
Here are examples of identifying charges that Jefferson defenders have made and sketching out Gordon-Reed's responses.
The Historians' charge (1): The memoir is suspect because of the motivation of the publisher S. F. Wetmore
• The series of memoirs was part of an effort to create sympathy for the blacks (8)
• An attempt to win better treatment for the freedmen (8)
• SFW must have been a "fanatical abolitionist" (8)
• The memoirs of MH and of Israel Jefferson too were "solicited and published for a propagandistic purpose" (10)
But, says AGR, there are two problems with the historians' focusing on SFW's motivation: one dealing with substance and the other with stereotypes
Response 1 -- The substance of the memoir must be considered as well:
1) There is a "responsibility to consider the specifics of what has been said" (10)
• "Establishing a motive . . . does not destroy the statement's worth as evidence" (10)
2) Why, say the historians, would MH lie?
• SFW's rival newspaper editor John A. Jones: "to lay claim to illustrious parentage" (12-13)
• Burstein: "to provide an otherwise undistinguished biracial carpenter a measure of social respect" (18)
• The implication is that he "yearned for the love of Chillicothe's white residents" (17)
3) AGR's response:
• The notion that it would be "normal for a black man to want to gain the approval of whites" and to do so by making up a story, "most likely would be taken as a sign of Hemings' madness" by the average black person (19)
Response 2 -- The historians' argument is based on stereotypes:
1) The specific stereotype: "the feeble-minded black person as pawn to a white man" (11)
• "the certainty that all blacks want to ingratiate themselves to whites" (18)
• AGR admits, however, that there is no doubt that there were blacks who were used by whites in this way (11)
2) AGR's response:
• We must ask whether MH was that kind of black (11)
• MH had been free for 47 years at this time: is he a likely candidate to be a pawn? (11)
• MH was a black man in an environment hostile to blacks: was he likely to make up or participate in the fabrication of a race-sensitive story that would enflame neighbors? (12)
• People will risk suffering to tell the truth, but lying is "more often done to avoid pain and suffering or to achieve some fairly certain gain" -- it is not clear that MH would realize either of these goals (12)
• The rumor of MH's paternity (and EH's too) was known as long ago as 30 years before the memoir was published and apparently accepted by some whites in the community (14)
• The Hemings brothers were "well known" in their community, MH as a carpenter, EH as a musician
• "Both men were viewed as exceptional and impressive individuals" (16)
• In fact, MH probably felt it was "safe" for him to talk about his life story because of this respect and because others had heard it before (16)
3) The historians' mistakes
• using JAJ's editorial
• JAJ's editorial is patently racist (13)
• JAJ's other writings show him "pathological" in racial matters (14)
• JAJ was "nigger-baiting" (14)
• The historians who use JAJ do not comment on "the tenor of [his] remarks" when they use him as evidence (13)
• They "did not bother to try to find out" anything about MH's life, accepting the stereotype and not doing their research (14)
• No historians "made any use of what is known about Hemings and his family" (19)
• The historians' assumption that life would be better by declaring your father was white "does not comport with the actual experience of black people" (19)
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The Historians' charge (2): The memoir could not have been written by MH because of its language and style and because of factual inaccuracies
AGR asks, initially:
• Does it follow that a person dictating memoirs is "presumptively lying"? (19)
• Does it follow that a person writing his or her own memoirs is "telling the truth"? (19)
Point 1 -- Language and Style
1) The historians' charge: MH would not know the word "enciente" for pregnant (20)
• Dabney: the word must have come from the mind of a "newspaper editor or some other college educated individual"
• Dabney: "if all [MH] learned was to read and write, where did that word enceinte come from?"
• Miller: a man with a "rudimentary education" would not have used overblown literary language
• Daniels: doubtful that a "small town carpenter" would have used such a word
2) AGR's response: MH got the word from mother Sally, who lived in France for about two years (20)
• "What is the picture of black people painted" by the above critics?
• "Why would it be so implausible that a man whose mother had spent some of her formative years in France would know a French word?"
• "Wouldn't one expect a mother to talk to her children about this time of her life?"
• "Isn't it common for people who learn a language" to use it?
• "Why would it be inconceivable that Sally Hemings would have done this both in and out of the presence of her son?"
3) AGR's reason for the charges: racial insensitivity (20-21)
• The historians have "no conception of slaves as human beings"
• They recognize "no human processes of communication and love" between slave mother and child
• They believe that Sally was so dull that after living there two years, she brought back "not one word of French"
• They believe that slaves have no more "capabilities, knowledge, and feelings" than a "rocking chair"
4) AGR's additional response: why assume that the word (which is misspelled) in more likely SFW's than MH's? (21)
• MH has a demonstrated connection with the French language, SW doesn't
• The weakly educated MH would be more likely to misspell the word than the college-educated SFW
Point 2 -- Factual Inaccuracies
1) The Historians' charge: It is inaccurate to say that TJ was more interested in mechanics than agriculture (21-22)
• MH says, "It was his mechanics [TJ] seemed mostly to direct, and in their operations he took great interest"
• Dabney: All evidence from his books and letters shows the contrary -- when one thinks of TJ, one thinks of agriculture
2) AGR's response: there's a "duty" to consider how MH came to his conclusion (22)
• We must see TJ as MH saw him
• At the time MH came of age, TJ was engrossed in building the University of Virginia
• "At the precise moment that Madison Hemings would have been old enough to pay serious attention to him, Jefferson was obsessed, not with his farm, but with building his university"
• MH was not writing a "sketch" of TJ the whole man but an eyewitness "snapshot" of a "particular time"
