The Truth About Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

HISTORY This Week

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History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

November 5, 1998. Using DNA evidence, the scientific journal Nature publishes findings that put to rest a centuries-old mystery: Was Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman at Monticello, the mother of six of Thomas Jefferson’s children? Until then, the historical consensus had been this: “The Jefferson-Hemings relationship can be neither refuted nor substantiated.” Jefferson’s white descendants were more categorical: they flatly denied it. But now the truth was out. Why was this story denied for so long, and what does that say about whose version of history is believed? And how did it revise our understanding of America’s third president?

Special thanks to our guests: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family as well as the book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: an American Controversy. And Gayle Jessup White, a descendant of Thomas Jefferson

and Sally Hemings and author of the book, Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for her Family’s Lasting Legacy.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:04.8	History this week, November 5, 1998.
0:13.2	I'm Sally Helm.
0:16.2	I asked Daddy about it. He said, well, that's what they say.
0:20.4	And he said a little more than that.
0:22.6	This is Gail Jessup White. She's the public relations and community engagement officer
0:28.3	at Monticello, the historic home of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.
0:37.2	But her connection to Jefferson goes deeper than that.
0:40.8	I looked at my dad. My dad was six, two, had red hair in his youth, freckles,
0:48.9	and very light skin, a white-looking man. And he had a straight nose, a side from just this
0:57.5	little hump in the bridge of his nose. I would learn years later, was the Jeffersonian nose.
1:04.2	So I'm looking at my dad. And I'm thinking, well, wait, Jefferson was tall. Jefferson had red hair.
1:12.0	Gail Jessup White is very interested in news that breaks on December 5, 1998.
1:19.2	On that day, the scientific journal Nature publishes the results of a DNA study,
1:24.6	showing a genetic link between the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings,
1:31.0	a woman whose life was owned by Jefferson when they lived at Monticello.
1:35.8	A woman who was, it is now confirmed the mother of at least six of his children.
1:42.6	It reminded Gail of her early conversations with her father.
1:47.9	I used to watch television with daddy. Specifically Monday night football, Sunday,
1:54.2	football. This is what we did together. And during those conversations, we're just kind of
2:00.4	easing and cozy out and saying, daddy, what about this Jefferson thing?
2:05.4	When Gail was a girl, the line from most historians had long been this.
	...

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