Jefferson's other

Quarterly Journal of Speech

Volumn 88, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 284-302

  Vivian, Bradford ^a  

^a VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Desire; Public memory; Rhetoric; Sally Hemings; Thomas Jefferson

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040669668     PISSN: 00335630     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00335630209384378     Document Type: Review

References (117)

1. See Lucia Stanton and Dianne Swann-Wright, "Bonds of Memory: Identity and the Hemings Family," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory and Civic Culture, ed. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 161-183. See also Jan Ellen Lewis, "The White Jeffersons," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory and Civic Culture, ed. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 127-160.
2. See Lucia Stanton and Dianne Swann-Wright, "Bonds of Memory: Identity and the Hemings Family," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory and Civic Culture, ed. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 161-183. See also Jan Ellen Lewis, "The White Jeffersons," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory and Civic Culture, ed. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 127-160.
3. See Eugene A. Foster et al., "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child," Nature 196 (5 November 1998): 27-28.
4. See Lewis and Onuf, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. This volume reassesses the rumors about Jefferson and Hemings in the wake of Foster's DNA tests. See also "Frontline: Jefferson's Blood," prod. Tom Lennon, 90 min., PBS, 2 May 2000. Further information is available at www.pbs.org/wghb/pages/shows/frontline/jefferson; and "Bibliography of Sources on Jefferson and Hemings Family," Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library, www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/tj/hemingsbib.html.
5. See Lewis and Onuf, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. This volume reassesses the rumors about Jefferson and Hemings in the wake of Foster's DNA tests. See also "Frontline: Jefferson's Blood," prod. Tom Lennon, 90 min., PBS, 2 May 2000. Further information is available at www.pbs.org/wghb/pages/shows/frontline/jefferson; and "Bibliography of Sources on Jefferson and Hemings Family," Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library, www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/tj/hemingsbib.html.
6. See Lewis and Onuf, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. This volume reassesses the rumors about Jefferson and Hemings in the wake of Foster's DNA tests. See also "Frontline: Jefferson's Blood," prod. Tom Lennon, 90 min., PBS, 2 May 2000. Further information is available at www.pbs.org/wghb/pages/shows/frontline/jefferson; and "Bibliography of Sources on Jefferson and Hemings Family," Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library, www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/tj/hemingsbib.html.
7. See Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997);
8. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, "American Synecdoche: Thomas Jefferson as Image, Icon, Character, and Self," American Historical Review 103 (1998): 125-136;
9. Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993);
10. Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)
11. and Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970);
12. and Benjamin Schwarz, "What Jefferson Helps to Explain," Atlantic Monthly (March 1997): 60-72.
13. James Parton, Life of Thomas Jefferson (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1874), iii.
14. Gordon S. Wood, "The Ghosts of Monticello," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, 29.
15. Stephen H. Browne, "Reading, Rhetoric, and the Texture of Public Memory," Quarterly Journal of Speech 81 (1995): 248.
16. I focus on the memory of Jefferson from 1968 forward in order to underscore the changes by which the oral histories of African Americans as well as other new ways of understanding the past have attained unprecedented significance. See Byron W. Woodson, Sr.'s A President in the Family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Woodson (Westport: Praeger, 2001).
17. See Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968).
18. See Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974). See also Norm Ledgin, Diagnosing Jefferson (Arlington, TX: Future Horizons, 2000).
19. See Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974). See also Norm Ledgin, Diagnosing Jefferson (Arlington, TX: Future Horizons, 2000).
20. Peterson, The Jefferson Image 184, 186.
21. Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville: University of Press of Virginia, 1997), 224.
22. Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, xiv.
23. The Association of the Bar of the City of New York conducted a mock trial of Jefferson in 1994, with Charles Ogletree and William Rehnquist participating. See Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 105.
24. Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 224.
25. Those who believe that Jefferson and Hemings had a sexual affair point to four pieces of circumstantial evidence: accounts of a resemblance between Jefferson and at least some of the Hemings children; the testimony of Madison Hemings that Jefferson was his father; Jefferson's residence at Monticello when each of Hemings's children was conceived; and that Hemings never conceived a child when Jefferson was away.
26. Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, xvi.
27. See Foster et al., "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child."
28. Jefferson had no surviving sons by Martha Jefferson. Because sons inherit the Y chromosome from their father, Jefferson is presumed to have shared the haplotype identified in the descendants of his uncle. See Foster et al., "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child."
29. Foster et al., "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child," 27.
30. Wood, "The Ghosts of Monticello," 27.
31. Leef Smith, "Jefferson Paternity Called Likely," The Washington Post (27 January 2000): B1.
32. A group of scholars has vociferously refuted the findings of Foster's DNA tests in The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty, ed. Eyler Robert Coates, Sr. (Charlottesville: Jefferson Editions, 2001).
33. Ellis, American Sphinx, 21. See also Ellis's Founding Brothers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) and E. M. Halliday, Understanding Thomas Jefferson (New York: Harper Collins, 2001).
34. Ellis, American Sphinx, 21. See also Ellis's Founding Brothers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) and E. M. Halliday, Understanding Thomas Jefferson (New York: Harper Collins, 2001).
35. Ellis, American Sphinx, 21. See also Ellis's Founding Brothers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) and E. M. Halliday, Understanding Thomas Jefferson (New York: Harper Collins, 2001).
36. Derrida, Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 116.
37. Eric S. Lander and Joseph J. Ellis, "Founding Father," Nature, 196 (5 November 1998): 13.
38. Jane Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, "Introduction," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory and Civic Culture, 7.
39. Richmond Recorder, 1 September 1802 .
40. Richmond Recorder, 1, 15, 22 September, 15 December 1802.
41. Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 62.
42. See John Chester Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery (New York: The Free Press, 1977), 148-161.
43. Joshua D. Rothman, "James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virginia," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, 88.
44. James A. Bear, Jr., "The Hemings Family at Monticello," Virginia Cavalcade 29 (Autumn 1979): 4.
45. Wood, "The Ghosts of Monticello," 27.
46. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson, 433.
47. Jefferson in Paris, prod. Donald Rosenfield, Humbert Balsan, Ismail Merchant, Paul Bradley, dir. James Ivory, 144 min., Merchant-Ivory, 1995, videocassette.
48. Brodie finds significant Jefferson's use of the word "mulatto" (a term he apparently disliked prior to Hemings's arrival in Paris) to describe features of the European landscape. See Brodie, Thomas Jefferson, 228-245.
49. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson, 228.
50. See Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 195.
51. Hubert McDermott, Novel and Romance: The Odyssey to Tom Jones (MacMillan Press, 1989), 100.
52. Barbara Chase-Riboud, Sally Hemings: A Novel (New York: Viking, 1979).
53. Scot A. French and Edward L. Ayers, "The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory, 1943-1993," in Jeffersonian Legacies, 437.
54. Ben Edwin Perry, The Ancient Romances: A Literary-Historical Account of their Origins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 44.
55. See French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 436-443 and Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 182-184. See also Virginius Dabney, The Jefferson Scandals (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981); Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948-1981); and Coates, ed., The Jefferson-Hemings Myth.
56. See French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 436-443 and Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 182-184. See also Virginius Dabney, The Jefferson Scandals (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981); Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948-1981); and Coates, ed., The Jefferson-Hemings Myth.
57. See French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 436-443 and Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 182-184. See also Virginius Dabney, The Jefferson Scandals (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981); Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948-1981); and Coates, ed., The Jefferson-Hemings Myth.
58. See French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 436-443 and Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 182-184. See also Virginius Dabney, The Jefferson Scandals (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981); Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948-1981); and Coates, ed., The Jefferson-Hemings Myth.
59. See French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 436-443 and Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 182-184. See also Virginius Dabney, The Jefferson Scandals (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981); Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948-1981); and Coates, ed., The Jefferson-Hemings Myth.
60. Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 184.
61. Annette Gordon-Reed, "The Memories of a Few Negroes," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, 247-248.
62. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, CBS, 13, 16 February 2000. The miniseries began as a play based on Fawn Brodie's work. See Tina Andrews, Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (New York: Malibu Press, 2001) and Wendy J. Williams, "Miniseries Tackles Jefferson 'Scandal,'" Boston Herald (13 February 2000): 66.
63. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, CBS, 13, 16 February 2000. The miniseries began as a play based on Fawn Brodie's work. See Tina Andrews, Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (New York: Malibu Press, 2001) and Wendy J. Williams, "Miniseries Tackles Jefferson 'Scandal,'" Boston Herald (13 February 2000): 66.
64. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, CBS, 13, 16 February 2000. The miniseries began as a play based on Fawn Brodie's work. See Tina Andrews, Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (New York: Malibu Press, 2001) and Wendy J. Williams, "Miniseries Tackles Jefferson 'Scandal,'" Boston Herald (13 February 2000): 66.
65. James Hemings was freed by Jefferson in 1796, further evidence of Jefferson's benevolence toward the Hemings family.
66. A French tutor was hired shortly after Sally's arrival, but for whom we cannot be certain.
67. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal.
68. "Life among the Lowly, No. 1," Pike County (Ohio) Republican, March 13, 1873, quoted in Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 246.
69. "Life among the Lowly, No. 1," Pike County (Ohio) Republican, March 13, 1873, quoted in Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 246.
70. Philip D. Morgan, "Interracial Sex in the Chesapeake and the British Atlantic World, c. 1700-1820," Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, 84, n45.
71. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal.
72. In this text, Jefferson documented his beliefs regarding the inferiority of African Americans and the dangers of miscegenation. See Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 137-143, 162-163.
73. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
74. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
75. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
76. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
77. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
78. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
79. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
80. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. For more on Jefferson, race, and slavery, see Paul Finkelman, "Jefferson and Slavery: 'Treason Against the Hopes of the World,'" in Jeffersonian Legacies, 181-221; French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418-456; Jefferson, Notes, 137-143, 162-163; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery-American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975); Peter S. Onuf, "'To Declare Them a Free and Independent People': Race, Slavery, and National Identity in Jefferson's Thought," Journal of the Early American Republic 18 (1988): 1-46; Miller, The Wolf by the Ears; Lucia C. Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves," Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-149.
81. Sally Hemings: An American Scandal.
82. Rhys Isaac, "Monticello Stories Old and New," in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, 123.
83. Lewis and Onuf, "Introduction," 12.
84. Morgan, "Interracial Sex," 74.
85. Fliegelman, Declaring Independence, 108.
86. Females of Hemings's age were thought to be eligible for romantic relationships with men; nevertheless, the idea of Jefferson courting a teenage girl is disturbing to modern sensibilities.
87. Prominent research on the asymmetrical power relations that shaped the lives of female slaves includes Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988) ; Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1972); and Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985). Isaac Jefferson, Memoirs of a Monticello Slave (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1951), offers an account of slave life at Jefferson's estate as dictated by one of his personal servants.
88. Prominent research on the asymmetrical power relations that shaped the lives of female slaves includes Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988) ; Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1972); and Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985). Isaac Jefferson, Memoirs of a Monticello Slave (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1951), offers an account of slave life at Jefferson's estate as dictated by one of his personal servants.
89. Prominent research on the asymmetrical power relations that shaped the lives of female slaves includes Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988) ; Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1972); and Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985). Isaac Jefferson, Memoirs of a Monticello Slave (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1951), offers an account of slave life at Jefferson's estate as dictated by one of his personal servants.
90. Prominent research on the asymmetrical power relations that shaped the lives of female slaves includes Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988) ; Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1972); and Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985). Isaac Jefferson, Memoirs of a Monticello Slave (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1951), offers an account of slave life at Jefferson's estate as dictated by one of his personal servants.
91. John Wayles, Martha Jefferson's father, owned the Hemings family prior to Martha and Thomas Jefferson's marriage. Sally Hemings was the child of an affair between John Wayles and Betty Hemings; Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemings, therefore, were half-sisters. Rumors that Hemings closely resembled Jefferson's late wife survive in historical documents and have been cited as one explanation for Jefferson's alleged attraction to Hemings.
92. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), I 10, 36.
93. Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, I 10, 36-37.
94. Henry S. Randall to James Parton, June 1, 1868, quoted in Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
95. See Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 80-82.
96. According to Jefferson's own formula, any children by Sally Hemings would have been legally white. Jefferson once "wrote out an algebraic equation demonstrating that after 'three crossings' with whites, the black person was legally white. By this definition, Sally Hemings's children were, in fact, Caucasian. Their father, whoever he was, was white, their grandfathers were white, and their great-grandfathers were white. Jefferson went on to say that if such a person were to be emancipated, that person would become a 'citizen of the United States for all intents and purposes'" (Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 53).
97. Even before the period of Jefferson's alleged affair with Hemings, visitors to Monticello reported encountering white slaves at his estate. In 1796, the Due de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt described the sight of slaves with "neither in their color nor features a single trace of their origin, but they are sons of slave mothers and consequently slaves." During the same period, the Comte de Volney recorded seeing slaves at Monticello "as white as I am." Quoted in Stanton, "'Those Who Labor For My Happiness,'" 152 (La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt) and 173, n.18 (Volney). Apparently, then, Jefferson at least tolerated a practice that Philip Morgan explains was common on plantations: "Young white men were expected to sow their oats in the slave quarters" (63).
98. Various similarities between Jefferson and Hemings's children have been established. All three of Hemings's sons played the violin, an instrument that Jefferson played. The sons also were apprenticed to the best slave artisan at Monticello instead of working in the plantation's nail factory; some interpret this as proof that Jefferson wanted them to learn a trade prior to their emancipation. Others find significant the possibility that Beverly Hemings attended a balloon ascension on July 4, 1834, in Petersburg, Virginia; Jefferson attended balloon ascensions both at home and abroad. See Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 51, 151-152, and 218.
99. Steve Erickson, Arc d'X (New York: Henry and Holt, 1993), hereafter parenthetically cited as Arc d'X in the text. Gore Vidal's novel Burr (New York: Random House, 1973) also depicts Jefferson provocatively.
100. Steve Erickson, Arc d'X (New York: Henry and Holt, 1993), hereafter parenthetically cited as Arc d'X in the text. Gore Vidal's novel Burr (New York: Random House, 1973) also depicts Jefferson provocatively.
101. I retain this problematic term for the United States throughout this section in order to preserve the irony with which Erickson uses it. "America" in Arc d'X is less an actual place than a noble idea whose implementation has, in many ways, proved tragic.
102. See Morgan, American Slavery.
103. French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 436.
104. Jefferson, Notes, 162-163.
105. Jefferson, Notes, 162.
106. See also Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll.
107. Jefferson, Notes, 162.
108. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 117. Genovese also uses Hegel in his study of slave life, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 66-7, 86, 88, 89, 281, 465, 684, n5.
109. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 117. Genovese also uses Hegel in his study of slave life, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 66-7, 86, 88, 89, 281, 465, 684, n5.
110. French and Ayers, "The Strange Career," 418.
111. See Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) and "Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist," Atlantic Monthly (October 1996): 53-74; Onuf, Jeffersonian Legacies; and Schwarz, "What Jefferson Helps to Explain."
112. See Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) and "Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist," Atlantic Monthly (October 1996): 53-74; Onuf, Jeffersonian Legacies; and Schwarz, "What Jefferson Helps to Explain."
113. See Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) and "Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist," Atlantic Monthly (October 1996): 53-74; Onuf, Jeffersonian Legacies; and Schwarz, "What Jefferson Helps to Explain."
114. See Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) and "Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist," Atlantic Monthly (October 1996): 53-74; Onuf, Jeffersonian Legacies; and Schwarz, "What Jefferson Helps to Explain."
115. These thoughts on the nature of memory are inspired by Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).
116. Browne, "Reading, Rhetoric, and the Texture of Public Memory," 237.
117. Charles E. Scott, The Time of Memory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 7.