The Other End of the Telescope: Jefferson through the Eyes of His Slaves

Abstract

I N November i998, an assortment of historians hopped off the fence on to solid ground, joining a lonely band already there and joined by a few who had seemed firmly rooted on the other side. Since the results of Dr. Eugene Foster's DNA study became known, the staff at Monticello, too, have been shifting their positions on the issue of Thomas Jefferson's paternity of Sally Hemings's children. A deceptively simple genetic diagram excited the believers, disconcerted the nonbelievers, and galvanized many of Monticello's own fence-sitters to reexamine the evidence. A few months after the revelations, an informal telephone survey of almost forty employees (one-third of them guides) revealed that many were reading or rereading Annette Gordon-Reed's Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. It also showed that, before November I, i998, these staff members had been about equally divided among those who accepted the Jefferson-Hemings relationship, those who discounted it, and those who were undecided. After DNA, believers almost doubled, a lone individual stated continuing disbelief, and the rest are hedging their bets. The interpretation of Jefferson's Monticello has always relied heavily on primary sources, with which we are richly supplied-from Jefferson's own monumental archive of 65,ooo documents to the abundant written testimony of family members, overseers, neighbors, and visitors. Each eyewitness account of life at Monticello is treated as a kind of sacred reliquary, from which small gems are extracted to enhance the presentation of Jefferson's daily habits, domestic character, or cultural interests. When, very rarely, a new narrative surfaces, it is immediately plundered for colorful tidbits to embellish the stories told on the mountain. Now, because of the almost seismic effect of a scientific test, we will never again read the words of Jefferson and the members of his household in quite the same way. The core feature of the Jefferson family