Bring to you one of our most prestigious speakers and one of his cleverest biographers. Dresser and it gordon reed is the one who definitively cracked the case as our speaker on tuesday mightve said. On one of American History both conflict and now expunged stories which is the relationship between the jeffersons and the hemmings. Is theor gordon reed trolls warren professor of american legal history at Harvard Law School and professor of history at harvard university. She has a jawdropping list of honors. Fellowship from the Dorothy Lewis b Coleman Center for scholars and writers at the new york public library, a guggenheim fellowship, a , and awardellowship from the National Organization for women in new york city. On both seen and unseen americans, including a biography of Andrew Johnson in her most recent book is most blessed of the patriarchs. It comes to jefferson, were fortunate to have her here. No one knows the public and private jefferson quite as well as she does. The relationship between our third president and his own slaves is one she first exported explored back in 1997. Thats both Thomas Jefferson and sally hemming, an american controversy. She came to the subject again more than a decade later with her 2009 book the hemmings is of monticello and american family, which won both the natural book award in the Pulitzer Prize for history. Its this book and subject that bring us together tonight. It is an important topic, and for some, uncomfortable topic, to be sure. As a historian, joseph ellis said quote, Thomas Jefferson is described as a slave described his slaves of monticello as, my family. Gordon returned that description seriously. Surely more than jefferson avenue ever intended. Its not a pretty story, but its poignant beyond belief. It is indeed and is touchingly told. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, the wonderful, and at Annette Gordon reed. [applause] thank you very much. It is wonderful to be here. I was in charlottesville earlier today for the presentation of the Thomas Jefferson medal. One of my dear friends, letter loretta lynch, received a medal for loss. I stopped in charlottesville i got in the car and came here to be with you today. Im very happy to be her in a beautiful, spring day. Ive been able to enjoy the hospitality of people here command the beautiful campus. This is interesting for me. Im sort of in the middle of the book tour with my coauthor, who helped me write both Thomas Jefferson and the empire of the imagination. We have been going together so flying solo is interesting. I was used to doing it before but ive gotten used to having him here. Tonight is a hemmings story. Im glad to talk to you about this. My first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, unamerican and american controversy, i thought was about historians, the way people approach history. Particularly the way historians had handled the story about whether or not Thomas Jefferson had children with an enslaved woman, Sally Hemmings, who lives on his plantation, monticello. I was concerned about the practice related to the stories of the white families, upperclass people. Dismissing the story of enslaved. Youll who took about their life and slavery, about something that as we know now, was from the familys stories of africanamerican. We know now from the innate testing im not talking but hemmings testing geneticists have done, who shows very much the kind of mixing that was going on at monticello, was going on across the south. This was not something that was rare. It was not something that people talked about in their letters. But we could see it visibly in the faces and bodies and contour, the hair of African Americans all over the United States. I was concerned about the way of dismissing the story of africanamericans, crediting the story of the legal family. After my book came out in 1997, and dna testing followed in 1998 that cooperated corroborated what i was suggesting in my first book, it occurred to me that one of the reason that it was easy to dismiss the story of the hemmings family was because people didnt know anything about the hemmings family, other than that there was a scandal. They knew the name of sally hemming. They may have known the name james hemming come hemmings, her brother. I was thinking, if i could tell their story and a way that made people feel that they had a stake in them, then it might give people pause in the future about dismissing the story of enslaved people. I live in manhattan. But when i am in manhattan, its a big, crowded city, anonymous. When you meet somebody if i meet somebody in the neighborhood, i begin to see them after that. When you are introduced to someone, you walked past them before, but you didnt know them. Once you know them, you notice their children, when you dont see them, when you expect to see them. They become a part of you in a way. Thats what i want to sue with the hemmings family, to give people a stake in this family. This is an interesting time to be thinking about this. You may have seen an article in the Washington Post not long ago that talked about the fact that monticello now is redoing the rooms where they think Sally Hemmings may have lived. If you have been to monticello, you know or any public museum, it has to pick a particular moment in history they cant show the entire range of 50 years worth of development of monticello. This is an area where they think Sally Hemmings lived. The story appeared in the Washington Post, as i said. It got a lot of attention. The tour that they will be doing will get a lot of attention. Shes there, but not really there. The idea of actually having the room, having it as part of the tour, and interpreting that, will probably cause a lot of talk, controversy talk. Thats what you want. The museum is supposed to be an educational experience. You have to have talk, controversy and discussion to do it. Thats what you want. But i thought i was thinking about writing this book, i wanted to do something other than focus on Sally Hemmings. I was adamant that i would not talk that much about, which of course is crazy. She is the pivotal part of the family, we know the family. Thats because of the scandal the story about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. It was unrealistic for me to think i wasnt going to leave her out but i wanted to the emphasize her. Then i realized, that didnt make any sense. I had it to be realistic about this. I had to understand the pivotal role that she played in her family, try to see the hemmings as just not just as her, but seeing her as part of a web of relationships that made this story of monticello, how it made sense. Thomas jefferson and Sally Hemmings dont make sense just as the two people. Theyre part of, as i said, a web of relationships, his relationship with her brother, her mother, her brother, sisters. It flows together if you think about it. When i was working on my first book, i was puzzled by Sally Hemmings. I was doing my own version of the book to her then. People would always ask me about her and say, she was in paris with jefferson and his daughters and her brother. At one point, when he is about to come home, the story is told, that she did not want to return with him. She did not want to be reenslaved, and she did not want her children to be enslaved. The question Jefferson Madison hemmingss story, jefferson promised her, if she came back home with him, she would have a good life and monticello, and her children would be freed at 21. In france there was a possibility of becoming a free person. Every person who filed a petition for freedom in paris at this time had a petition granted. So there was a good chance she and her brother could have remained in paris as free people. It would have been difficult. But people who ran away through swamps and all kinds of hardships in the United States had a difficult time when they ran away. The fact that it was difficult did not mean it would have been impossible, or that she was crazy to think that that she could do this. I was puzzled. People always ask me when i went around to give talks, why did she come back . Why would she come back to the United States when she had a chance to be a free person . Why would she not try to get away from the jefferson family . People had ambivalent feelings about her. I have to admit, i had ambivalent feelings about her as well. While i was working on the first book i was thinking mainly about historians and what they had written. It wasnt focusing as much on the hemmings family story. I was writing about this controversy. When i decided to read the book about the hemmings is as a family, and to begin to flesh of the individuals, their particular role in the family, how they saw themselves, she saw herself apparently within this web of relationships, it began to make sense to a 16 Year Old Girl who has a chance to be a free person but would be born in a foreign country, we think her brother james, who was about seven years older than she, wouldve been there for for support as well. But she wouldve left the family behind, and mother, sisters. If you think about the way women are today, and even where then, certainly socialized to think about family, responsibilities to family, it makes sense to me. She says she implicitly trusted jefferson. That was the 1 even more so than not coming back, that was the one that gave me pause. The question would be, why would you do that . I would couldnt construct him as her enemy and see him that way for my position, writing in 1996, 97, when i was working on this book. My first book looking at Sally Hemmings, judging her, implicitly trusting him. That seemed to dubious proposition to me. But then, working as the hemmings is of monticello, and seeing the family as a whole, thinking about them as a whole, learning about how jefferson dealt with them and how they dealt with him, learning how he took this family and made them, in some ways, different than other enslaved people. They were not free. They were still slaved. But he treated differently from other people looking back as a historian, i can say that all of those perks, those things that you think are favors or whatever, youre still enslaved. They knew that. If you imagine yourself in that circumstance, how difficult it would be or how it could affect you if someone was treating you in a different way, was telling you the you are different than those other people who have the same legal status as you but are being treated very differently, it might affect the way you feel. One of the things about being a scholar of slavery, and you are looking at the situation, it is so hard to imagine being in that position. But you have to remember as well, you are dealing with people who are human beings. You are dealing with human beings who are strong in some ways, and who are weak in other ways. Every kind of personality that exist among whites during that time or now, or whatever, existed within the enslaved community. The system of slavery was the overlay of their lives. There were individuals with their own personalities, their own quirks, strengths, weaknesses treat those played out within the context of this system. So once i began to think about the hemmings family as a group, understanding how jefferson handle them, how and i want to use the word coopt because that judgmental, its easy for me from the safety of now to talk about it or criticize people for the ways they try to make the best deals they can for their lives in the suppressive system. I have the luxury of making that kind of judgment but i dont want to do it because its not fair. The thing is to trot that i was trying to do was to think about this family is human beings. Thats within the context of this particular system. I had to start at the beginning. Talking that the matriarch, Elizabeth Hemmings, who was the daughter of an englishman, a woman who was african. She may have actually been from africa, or her parents could have been african and she was born in virginia. Elizabeth is, therefore a myth of mixed race. She was owned by family. A man named john wales married to the ups family, had a daughter with murtha apps, who died a couple of weeks after her daughter was born he married twice after that. He lost those two wives, and at some point, took Elizabeth Hemmings is a concubine. Madison hemmings was a man who gave his recollections about his life and monticello in 1873 trade he said he was the son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. Hes telling the story of his family and grandmother. She became the concubine of john wales, and had six children by him. The youngest of those children was sarah. Sarah was sally, the nickname at sally was given to her. John wales have these six children, his daughter was martha. Thats one of the tough names about this book, they are all named martha and mary. [laughter] this family tree that i have to keep consulting to figure who was home in here. But martha grows up and mary struck Thomas Jefferson. When the john wales dies, the hemmings family and 135 other enslaved people, under the ownership of martha and Thomas Jefferson. As the husband, the blackstone quote, theres marriage the husband and wife become one, though one is him, the man. He is in control of this particular they bring the hemmings children to monticello and install the women as a Favorite Health offavored house servant martha. The boys become servants to jefferson. Jefferson had a man named jupiter, we believe his last name was evans, could been with him from the time he was a little boy. Jefferson moved him makes Robert Hemmings his manservant. Robert is 12 at the time. You have to figure up what kind of manservant he couldve been. At age 12 that is. He travels with jefferson, he is jefferson in philadelphia, he writes declaration of independence you can sense his family melding together. Not just jefferson and his wife martha, but marthas enslaved siblings. We dont know much about Martha Wales Jefferson the letters between jefferson and his wife were destroyed. We think he destroyed them. Even as an older man he was writing people letters asking if they had any of her letters so they could take command destroy them. This was not uncommon among unmarried couples, they didnt think people should know about the intimacies of their relationship. We dont know much about them. Its an interesting thing that she brought her brothers and sisters to live with her at monticello. They have them in her life on a daily basis. A lot of times in a Slave Society when the master or his sons or whatever, had children with enslaved women, the women of the household sometimes they make themselves the family members. They put them away somewhere. Its interesting that she brought them with her and put them in the house. Shes around these women. Elizabeth as well. She was not adverse to having them around. When she dies in 1782, they are around her deathbed her legal sisters, white sisters, sisterinlaw, and jefferson. They are the ones who tell the story about martha asking Thomas Jefferson not to remarry. She says, their story was that she did not want she said that she did not want another woman over her children. It wasnt like, i want thomas, i want to even in death. She may have had some difficulty with her stepmothers. And she, according to this story, did not want her children to have those problems. He promised that he would not marry again. And he never did. She died when he is 39 years old. He dies when he is 83, and he never remarried. After her death, jefferson is shattered. He decides to take a mission to paris that had been offered to him. He takes james hemmings, another person in the story, another or some in the family who, most people who read the book many people who read the books say he is the favorite member of the family jefferson takes them to paris to learn how to become a chef. Jefferson loves french cooking. He wanted a french chef. He goes to paris with james and his eldest daughter, martha, another martha. Its just the three of them for a few years that are there, until jefferson has, makes the request that a younger daughter he has left behind be brought to him in paris. He asks that his daughter, mary, the accompanied by he said, a careful negro woman such as isabel. He is talking about isabel hearn, who was 28 years old. Instead, eversons sisterinlaw, who is in this convoluted story, was actually Sally Hemmings is half sister, because she was jeffersons wife sister wifes sister. She is the aunt of the girl she is taking care of. Instead, they send a Sally Hemmings is 14 at this time, and she is the guardian, or the companion of a nineyearold girl. She is supposed to be the babysitter for this nineyearold girl. They arrive in london. Abigail adams who is there to greet them is aghast. She basically says, you have a kid looking after another kid. Shes very upset about this. They go on to paris. At some point, and we dont know when, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings began heres the difficulty. The Washington Post article, one of the things that got people really really really upset was that they used the word relationship. Because what are we describing here . A situation where a person is enslaved and, presumably cant say no not presumably, actually, cannot refuse consent. Do you call that a relationship . We can talk about it afterwards when you ask me questions. But its difficult to know how to describe it. We are not talking about a situation where they had a sex and had a kid and thats it. What we are talking about is a situation that starts at some point in the end of the 1780s, and ends when he dies in 1826. We are talking about 38 years of whatever this is. How do you discuss this . How do you handle this particular question . I try to handle it in the book thats why the book is so long. [laughter] there is no easy answer. To me, theres no easy answer. There are people who take the position that any sex between a master and enslaved woman is right rape, because we dont know that the woman could refuse consent. Then you have the situation of Sally Hemmingss older sister, not a wales sister. She is and lives with a man on main street in charlottesville when jefferson is a way in france. When jefferson comes back, she asks to be sold to this man, who becomes her legal owner. They live in this house, they have children. When he dies, he leaves the property. He frees his children. He never frees the woman. But presumably she has control , over the house. Theres long and the book and on the ground. As long as Community Acts like she is the owner, as long as the Community Acts as if she is they refer to her later years as his commonlaw wife. Of course she couldnt have been because she couldnt have been his legal wife. She was an slaved. Enslaved woman who killed her master after years of sexual abuse. Comes to the house to have sex with her and she refuses and she hits him over the head, kills him, takes his body, burns it up in her fireplace, and then the next morning, asks his grandson, saying i have a lot of ashes in my fireplace, would you help me clean it out . Him, the kid goes in is basically throwing his grandfathers ashes out back in the woods. Celia of course gets in trouble. Many were sympathetic to her. They know about the way he had been abusing her. She is eventually executed though. But you look at these three situations. Is there a difference between sell me to this person sought can live with him and have children, and i will hit you over the head and kill you and burn unifier . Earn you up in a fire. Are the qualities of us to womens lives exactly the same . It strikes me that they are not. I could make a statement about slavery, writes that happens to think most enslaved women. The most common situation was celia dan than mary, obviously. But in writing about mary, i cant, to make my mind a political point, act as if i dont notice the difference between those two situations. But what about Sally Hemmings . Is she closer to celia or mary . We will not have an answer to that, because jefferson didnt write about this. Unlike celia, whose story gets told because she enters the legal world, people describing what happens, we dont know what Sally Hemmings felt about this. All that we know all the action we know that she took was she decided to come back with them. And she did. Once she gets there, shes completely that is to say virginia, she is completely under his control. If at some point she didnt want to if her job was to take care of his room and his wardrobe essentially asked to go and to so and look after the children, that basic if she wants to have anything to do with him, she couldnt say no. People have pointed out to me that jeffersons wife couldnt have said no, either, once again. There was no such thing as marital rape, rules against marital rape until well into the 20th century. But he could not sell his wife. He could have sold Sally Hemmings. He couldve sold her children or, their children. But he didnt do that. The children left monticello as free people. Thats one of the things its a subject now that i have a feeling monticello will be dealing with quite a bit. Thats now that they have decided they have people there talking about this. The second part of the book, after he gets her talking about Elizabeth Hemmings and setting things up, the second section of the book is about the beginnings of this connection, relationship on what we will call it with jefferson. The third part of the book tries to do what i said i was originally going to do. If you have been to monticello, you know the story of john hemmings. John hemmings was the master carpenter at monticello. He is responsible for some of the furniture there that is on display, even now. He did the floors for jefferson. He was also a surrogate father to jeffersons son, Beverly Madison eston hemmings. They were put under the tutelage to become carpenters. I want to discover this, but i did make anything of it i wasnt really thinking about the story of a hemmings is in the same way. When he retired, it seems like the world descended on him and monticello and stayed for weeks in time. He left. He left it im leaving it to you. He would go to popular forests and for long periods of time. There is a series of letters where he writes to his overseer and says, i am coming i will be arriving on such and such date. I will bring Johnny Hemmings and his two assistants for jump Johnny Hemmings and his apprentices. His apprentices and assistance are either beverly learned harris, Beverly Madison and eston. So he is coming with the rest of the carpenters will come another day he says he he is traveling with these boys because they are boys at this if youve never been, its a big place. He is around some quite a bit. I hadnt really thought about it that much. You think of madisonhemmings and his red cloud should says, she was not in the habit of showing the impartiality of fatherly affection. So you read that and think that he is distant. I thought of physical distance. But these letters suggest that they are together quite a bit. These people, these young men actually would have known jefferson very well. They spent a good amount of time with him in his retirement. Thats gave me a different window into jefferson, the lives of the hemmings family, and how these connections benefited other members of the family, collateral numbers. There is a story about another not the chef james hemmings, but his nephew. The name their children after one of the two. Gets beat by jeffersons overseer. He runs away to richmond. Jefferson sends somebody to find him. Once he finds them once he is found, he tells them to come back. Jamie says, im not coming back unless you promise me that i can work with john hemmings. That i dont have to go back and work under the overseer could beat him. Jeffersons artisans were not under the control of the overseer. This is to jefferson, not the overseer. Jefferson says, ok. If you come back, you can work with john hemmings. The jamie decided, he doesnt want to come back at all. He just doesnt come back. And jefferson take some off the slave role. He essentially lets them go. No james hemmings, this jamie is Sally Hemmingss nephew. His wife half nephew, hes john waless grandson, that connection says something. James hemmings was james hubbard, another enslaved man at monticello who ran away, and jefferson hadnt brought back and kept running away and jefferson didnt come back, they bring them back Josh Jefferson had him whipped. He was whipped and sold because he kept running away. So the difference between james hubbard, who has no Family Connection to jefferson, and james hemmings, who has all of these Family Connections, and when he runs away he told jefferson, im not coming back and jefferson says, im not coming back unless you commander he issues basically, a condition. Jefferson abides by it. Then when he runs away, jefferson just lets him go. He appears in other records. Jefferson is paying him later on to get some instruments some scientific instruments for richmond. So he is contacted the family but that can only happen because of a Family Connection. Jefferson wouldnt except that from another enslaved person. So this connection that, in my mind, when i think about it looking at my first book it seemed, whats the purpose of this . Why would she come back . You wonder if there was not some sense, that that was probably the best deal him she might build to get, she would be with her family. Not necessarily coming back for him, but coming back to the United States as a way of being with family. In some ways having a connection that protected her family in some fashion. We will never know the answer because we dont have Sally Hemmingss letters. Looking at the family, the things that happened to them, theres a story about this. There is a way of thinking, that i did not really it didnt make as much sense to me when i was thinking about it the first time. The story ends not very well. Jefferson dies bankrupt in 1826. He has to sell things are sold to pay the debt. Enslaved people are sold. Some of them are bought back. Its a very very murky situation. But some members of the hemmings family and up on the auction block. I end the story of the hemmingses, not talking about Sally Hemmings and her children, but talking about a man named Peter Fossett is a little boy who is sold from his family. It takes many years before they are reunited. Peter fossett ends up in ohio as a minister and prominent cater er. He does get reunited with his family after many years. It shows you the real tenuous nature of this notion of privilege. Peter fossett was the grandson of mary hemmings, the person who is living on main street with thomas bell, the white man. He described his life is a little boy as privileged. The real shock to him was when he was sold. The thing that slavery was about came brutally to his reality. Profits, property, people as property who can be bought and sold. That was a thing that many members of the hemmings family, despite whatever privilege Sally Hemmings into children might have had, they all lived with the possibility that that could happen because the law construed them as property. Jefferson construed them as property. Thats the difficulty that we have in thinking about him in relation to this family, thinking about jefferson as a person. We could talk about that in the questionandanswer. What to make of the situation . Hemmings is a sin as privileged members, people who lived on the mountain of enslaved people. But they were enslaved, couldnt leave, despite their talent, their capabilities despite their capabilities they were still legal property. However better he treated them, that was the reality that shaped their lives. Thats the message i got most forcefully and thinking about this family and writing about them, spending so much time with them. To think about the precarious nature of their lives, even under power of a person who thought of himself as benevolent. With that, im finished. [laughter] [applause] the question and answer is always the best one. Plenty of time. It is difficult for me to stand. You mentioned that sally was 14 when she joined jefferson and paris. How was jefferson . Jefferson was 30 years older than she, so 44. Yes, quite an age span. Thats one thing i did a talk before, to middle school students. People came to ask me to come to talk to him about it. I said, how my going to do this . Talking to middle school students. I shouldnt have worried, i got their people said, kids said, i dont want know why theyre calling this an affair. An affair is when youre having sex with somebody other than your husband or wife. I said, yeah, thats right. Theyre quite knowledgeable people. [laughter] then they said, whats the big deal here . If he is her master, he can do it he wants. I said yes, thats right. They said, why do people not see that . I said, they have difficulty because they dont like the idea of jefferson doing this. They said, what are the problems . I mentioned, they were not the same race so that other people. That didnt get to them. And then one young girl raised her hand and said, how old was she . I said, she had her first baby when she was 17. She was probably about 16 years old the only evidence of the beginning of sexual activities, she had a baby when she was 17. When i mentioned she was years 16 old, they went, oh. [laughter] they began to look at how old they were and counted up and think about it. The racial thing really didnt get them. The powered and get to them. It was the age that give them pause. But the age of consent in virginia was 12. No, it was 10, then it was raised to 12 in 1820. A 15yearold girl have not would not of the thought of thats a baby. We have prolonged childhood now its 35. [laughter] whatever. It is sort of gone on, dragging this out for quite a bit. Still, im writing this at the time i had a teenage daughter. I was pulling my hair out just thinking about this. But thats not how they wouldve thought about this. You brought to light something was totally unaware of, is there a sense is there a sense that jefferson like surrounding himself with people who were so young as a way to be a father figure, or for some other reason to have young people around him that he could easily converse with or have an interplay with . Think robert is brought in because this is the novelistic wants to be novelist coming up. He made broke his mancertainty servant is a show of solidarity with his wife. Robert and james we dont know sally robert and james could read and write. One who taught them how to read and write. Its possible that martha could have done that. I could see the hand of martha in this this is totally speculative. But this in a historical novel, i dont put this we are we dont have any way of proving this. I think robert is attached to jefferson because he is married roberts sister. I think its really important to keep that in mind, these relationships. Other historians would read about the hemmings is in the past, and would not they would say james, or slave they might use their name or not. I think its important to keep that relationship in mind. Robert is jeffersons wife, half brother. And what better way for him to get education, to see the world, other things, than to be hanging out with jefferson . So i dont know that i dont think he took them picking him because he is young, think hes picking and because of his connection to his wife, evidence of late evidently wanted her half sitting siblings to be helpful. Get out good and favors to those particular people as opposed to others. It seems to me that you have tacitly assumed that jefferson is the father of her children, but you never say it. So as i understand it, he has brothers, or a brother who possibly im not sure that does dna say Thomas Jefferson or someone else . The dna supported what i said, but its not a paternity test. The reason i believe its jefferson, not just the dna its other information that i compiled in my first book. Its the totality of the circumstances. The brother has no written connection to Sally Hemmings. You cant thats not historical to say if you have a situation where jeffersons friends are writing about him in their diary, people who visit monticello are writing about them and their letters the names of the children are up on them for his best friends and favorite relatives. Its the kind of thing that he genealogist would do. Look at the totality of the circumstances, then you put the dna on it. The family basically the jefferson family basically made up a story about who was the father of the children. The dna killed that. If they would have known that it was jeffersons brother, they wouldve known that and wouldve picked him. But they didnt know that there would come a day when you could differentiate between maternal relatives and paternal relatives. They picked the wrong relatives. Thats with the dna says. So no. The dna test is not a paternity test. But the dna other information that has been compiled. Thats what historians do. You compile information. Thats the foundations conclusion that monticello, thats the story that they tell now. I want to thank you. Youve reached your minds and understanding milder professors [inaudible] the president of the university of virginia ought to be able to quote jefferson. When it is appropriate. [applause] the caveat is this. Every time theres side parking or some kind of myth that doesnt have anything to do with it, you get jefferson into it its whatever day jefferson would have said i dont think that. Jefferson said a lot of things that were terrible, but jefferson said a lot of things that were wonderful. If its appropriate to use his words, think they ought to be used. He was the founder of the university of virginia. You cant pretend that that didnt happen. So yes. I think jefferson ought jefferson, when its appropriate thing to do. You cant get rid of jefferson. I mean, you cant. Theres things you have to live with, you deal with the problems, the flaws, the good points and bad points. People ask me about this all the time. Hes not john calhoun, right . Theres a difference between a person who helped found the United States of america, and the person whose ideology help people think that they should destroy the United States of america. Thats a different type of person altogether. So i think we are stuck with him. I mean weve got the declaration of independence, the library of congress, west point, the jefferson grid, just on and on and on. He is injected himself into all aspects of life. You just have to deal with that. A think its a good thing to deal with it. It helps you talk about the most difficult aspect of american life. The best and the worst. I say in the book, that its fitting to talk about this story. Monticello has been the best of the work and the worse. She should quote jefferson, yes. [laughter] when its appropriate. Just to throw it out there she wouldnt do that. Presumably, she is doing this for a reason. You cant take him out of the university. Calhoun was not worth it. I talk to people at yell about this, when they were trying to decide what to do. They will do without calhoun. The university is jeffersons university. To know how that where the hemmings name came from with regard to this family . No i dont. We dont. Ive tried to figure that out. That was one of the things that i tried to see, try to see if there was an good antecedents to it. Hemmings is an england. But no. The captain who was supposed to be captain hemmings, they mention him. But i dont know where he came from. The antecedent is the captain, the person who was the father of elizabeth. I do not know anything beyond that, i dont know his first name. Its difficult to track down if you dont have a first name. There are hemmingss but i havent been able to make the connection beyond just the captives hemmings. The gentleman took my first question so heres the second. Where are you . In the back. [laughter] disembodied voice, there you are. On my last trip to monticello, someone mentioned that upon jeffersons death, that three of his three of sallys children were put into a carriage and driven to d. C. And released without papers. They told you that . I will have to talk to them. Go ahead. [laughter] the assumption was that they were so fair skinned that they could just blend into the population. Is that true . Its a mix of stories. The eldest son, beverly hemmings, and harriet to tell it to live as white people. Jefferson put harriet on the stagecoach. Gave her money, said her away from monticello. He says in his farm book that they ran away. But they left. Beverly left a couple of months before harriet. The thinking is, he went to prepare, instead of sitting her by herself up by yourself. We dont know what happened to them. It was said that beverly married a woman in good circumstances in washington and had a daughter. She said harriet married a man who was well off as well and had multiple children, that they did not associate with the family after a particular time. When you pass into the white world you cant keep going to see your relatives who are not passing. Beverly is described at one point as having as being like a hot air balloon. I tried tracking that down in petersburg. I found a record of a balloon ascension during the 1830s, but i havent been able to find anything else about him. Im doing a second volumes of the hemmings family story. I will try to figure that one out. People periodically appear claiming to be the descendents of beverly and harriet. We havent been able to confirm that. The two eldest leaves, they dont want paper. People know that they were enslaved. If they were enslaved, that means they are part black. The couldnt live with white people. They were actually, by virginia law, white. Virginia and at that time was, if you were 7 8 white, you were white. The one drop rule is a product of the 20th century. So technically, they were white. But the difference between technical whiteness and actual whiteness people have known it wouldve been a problem for them. The two eldest live as white people, the two youngest are freed in jeffersons will. They stay with their mother until she dies. Then they leave and go to ohio. The youngest one, epson, at some point finds it really difficult for his family in ohio where they had settled. He was there are stories written about him because he made his living as a violinist in ohio. There are stories about his daughters piano recitals and so forth. Ohio began to crack down on blacks. He has some point decides to take his family, he moved to madison, wisconsin. He changes his name from extant hemmings to aston hemmingsjefferson or eh jefferson. The children changed their names to jefferson. And they live as white people. They tell a story that when people ask them, are you related to jefferson, they say, oh, we are related to a jefferson uncle, or jefferson a collateral. Everybody knew that jefferson had no legitimate white sons. Thats the family story