 Cover of 1998 Vintage paperback edition. | |
| Author | Joseph Ellis |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | History |
| Publisher | Knopf |
Publication date | 1996 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | 0-679-44490-4 (first edition, hardcover) |
| OCLC | 34934008 |
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, is a 1996 book written by Joseph Ellis, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College. It won the 1997 National Book Award for Nonfiction. [1]
Ellis' approach to explaining the character of Thomas Jefferson begins on June 20, 1775, with Jefferson's arrival in Philadelphia as the Colony of Virginia's delegate to the Continental Congress and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. He follows through to the president's retirement at Monticello. Central to the book are Jefferson's contradictions and inconsistencies. Ellis covers Jefferson's career as ambassador to France, Secretary of State, planter and president.
He did not always speak exactly as he felt, either towards his friends or his enemies. As a consequence, he has left hanging over a part of his public life a vapor of duplicity..., the presence of which is generally felt more than it is seen.
Ellis showed how Jefferson shied away from public attention. According to Ellis, Jefferson gave just two public speeches as President of the United States. [3] Thomas Jefferson felt far more comfortable writing, to which the Declaration of Independence attests, than public speaking. He worked extensively behind the scenes with other politicians to accomplish his political programs and create alliances.
Ellis praises Thomas Jefferson's first term as one of the most successful of any US presidency in terms of achieving stated goals; in his first term, Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, which would so affect the character of the United States, and significantly reduced the federal budget. [4] But what sets Jefferson apart from other U.S. presidents, particularly John Adams, was his uniquely "feminine" approach to politics. Detesting direct confrontation, he was a master "dinner table" politician. He was known for inviting his competitors to dinner to plant the seeds of his ideas and defuse controversies. [5]
Brent Staples in the New York Times Book Review commented, "Joseph J. Ellis's American Sphinx is a brief and elegant return to Monticello. Mr. Ellis...is a remarkably clear writer, mercifully free of both the groveling and the spirit of attack that have dominated the subject in the past....'American Sphinx' is fresh and uncluttered but rich in historical context." [6] Like several of his other books, American Sphinx was a bestseller.
Ellis suggested in the text that evidence for an affair between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings was "inconclusive". [7] Specifically, Ellis stated in the appendix to American Sphinx,
Unless the trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation decide to exhume the remains and do DNA testing on Jefferson as well as some of his alleged progeny, it leaves the matter a mystery about which advocates on either side can freely speculate...This means that for those who demand an answer the only recourse is plausible conjecture, prefaced as it must be with profuse statements about the flimsy and wholly circumstantial character of the evidence. In that spirit, which we might call the spirit of responsible speculation, after five years mulling over the huge cache of evidence that does exist on the thought and character of the historical Jefferson, I have concluded that the likelihood of a liaison with Sally Hemings is remote. [8]
In 1997 Annette Gordon-Reed analyzed the historiography in her book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. She noted that historians had accepted Jefferson descendants' denials while overlooking significant evidence that supported the paternity thesis, such as Madison Hemings' memoir attesting to his parentage, the facts that the Hemings family was the only one that Jefferson freed, and that Hemings only conceived when Jefferson was at Monticello (based on documentation by the biographer Dumas Malone).
In part because of Gordon-Reed's book, a team undertook a DNA study to try to settle the issue. In November 1998 Dr. Eugene Foster and his team published an article in Nature , reporting on their analysis of DNA data from descendants of Jefferson, Eston Hemings, the Carr family and Thomas Woodson. Foster said that there was a match between the Jefferson line and that of the Hemings' descendant, for which, with historical evidence, the simplest explanation was that Jefferson was the father of Eston, and likely Hemings' other children. The DNA tests conclusively proved that the Carr line and descendant of Eston Hemings were not related. This overturned the more than 150 years' contention by the Jefferson family and historians that his nephews, the Carr(s), were more likely fathers. [9]
On November 2, 1998, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ran a feature on this topic, reporting that, "according to an article in an upcoming issue of the journal Nature, DNA analysis shows that Jefferson almost certainly fathered at least one of Sally Hemings' children, her last son, Eston." [10] Ellis, who was interviewed during this broadcast, said that he had revised his opinion due to this new evidence:
It's not so much a change of heart, but this is really new evidence. And it—prior to this evidence, I think it was a very difficult case to know and circumstantial on both sides, and, in part, because I got it wrong, I think I want to step forward and say this new evidence constitutes, well, evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that Jefferson had a longstanding sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. Even though the match is only with one of the Hemings' descendants, Eston Hemings, it's inconceivable that Jefferson, who was 65 when Eston was born, would have made a one-night stand here. I think this is a longstanding relationship. When it began and what the character of the relationship is we probably can't know easily or at all. But it was, without question, an enduring one. [10]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Washington Journal interview with Ellis about DNA evidence identifying Thomas Jefferson as the father of one of Sally Hemmings's children, November 7, 1998, C-SPAN |
He noted, "In the wake of the DNA revelations, an already-clear pattern of denial in Jefferson's life is deepened and darkened." [11] After the results of the DNA testing, Ellis published essays coauthored with the geneticist Eric S. Lander in Nature and U.S. News & World Report . [7] Ellis said, "As one who had suggested that we could not know the truth, I felt a special obligation to take the lead when the DNA evidence finally made the truth available." [7] In 2001 Ellis took students on a field trip to Monticello to survey the response of visitors to the results of the DNA tests. They found that "eighty percent of those polled were unmoved by findings they'd assumed all along were fact ... scholars not the public, it turned out, were the ones taken by surprise." [12]
Ellis' revised position confirmed that of the late UCLA professor of history, Fawn Brodie. She had publicized new evidence for this relationship in her 1974 biography, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, by noting that Jefferson was always at Monticello during Hemings' conception times for her children, and she never conceived when he was not there. [13]
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a female enslaved person with one-quarter African ancestry who was enslaved by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.
Joseph John-Michael Ellis III is an American historian whose work focuses on the lives and times of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson won a National Book Award in 1997 and Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History. Both of these books were bestsellers.
Fawn McKay Brodie was an American biographer and one of the first female professors of history at UCLA, who is best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974), a work of psychobiography, and No Man Knows My History (1945), an early biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Randolph Jefferson was the younger brother of Thomas Jefferson, the only male sibling to survive infancy. He was a planter and owner of the Snowden plantation that he inherited from his father. He served the local militia for about ten years, making captain of the local militia in 1794. He also served during the Revolutionary War.
Eston Hemings Jefferson was born into slavery at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race enslaved woman. Most historians who have considered the question believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that a descendant of Eston matched the Jefferson male line, and historical evidence also supports the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson was probably Eston's father. Many historians believe that Jefferson and Sally Hemings had six children together, four of whom survived to adulthood. Other historians disagree.
Partus sequitur ventrem was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies in the Americas which defined the legal status of children born there; the doctrine mandated that children of enslaved mothers would inherit the legal status of their mothers. As such, children of enslaved women would be born into slavery. The legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem was derived from Roman civil law, specifically the portions concerning slavery and personal property (chattels), as well as the common law of personal property; analogous legislation existed in other civilizations including Medieval Egypt in Africa and Korea in Asia.
The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors that he had a slave concubine, Sally Hemings. Based on his grandson's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings's children. In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson is the father of one or more of Sally's children.
Thomas Jefferson is a 1997 two-part American documentary film directed and produced by Ken Burns. It covers the life and times of Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the United States.
Madison Hemings was the son of Sally Hemings and, most likely, Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of Sally Hemings’ four children to survive to adulthood. Born into slavery, according to partus sequitur ventrem, Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation, where his mother was also enslaved. After some light duties as a young boy, Hemings became a carpenter and fine woodwork apprentice at around age 14 and worked in the joiner's shop until he was about 21. He learned to play the violin and was able to earn money by growing cabbages. Jefferson died in 1826, after which Sally Hemings was "given her time" by Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph.
The Monticello Association is a non-profit organization founded in 1913 to care for, preserve, and continue the use of the family graveyard at Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The organization's members are lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. The site is located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Thomas Jefferson was the designer, builder, owner, and, with his family, a first resident of Monticello.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph of Albemarle County was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, and as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The favorite grandson of President Thomas Jefferson, he helped manage Monticello near the end of his grandfather's life and was executor of his estate, and later also served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.
John Wayles Jefferson, was an American businessman and Union Army officer in the American Civil War. He is believed to be a grandson of Thomas Jefferson; his paternal grandmother is Sarah (Sally) Hemings, Thomas Jefferson's mixed-race slave and half-sister to his wife.
Elizabeth Hemings was a female slave of mixed-ethnicity in colonial Virginia. With her owner, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were considered slaves from birth; they were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other slaves were inherited, along with 11,000 acres and £4,000 debt, as part of his estate by his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson.
Walter Beverly Pearson was an American inventor, industrialist and president of the Standard Screw Company. It became known as Stanadyne Automotive Corporation.
Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is formerly the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gordon-Reed is noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson regarding his relationship with Sally Hemings and her children.
Harriet Hemings was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his presidency. Most historians believe her father was Jefferson, who is now believed to have fathered, with his slave Sally Hemings, four children who survived to adulthood.
Israel Jefferson, known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for years, and also rode with his brothers as a postilion for the landau carriage.
Burwell Colbert, also known as Burrell Colbert, was an enslaved African American at Monticello, the plantation estate of the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. There he served an important role in the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the Jefferson estates, including Poplar Forest, as butler, personal valet, glazier, and painter. He was the son of Betty “Bett” Brown, the second child of Elizabeth “Betty” Hemings, the matriarch of the Hemings family in the United States. He was held in high esteem by President Jefferson as a "faithful servant" who was "absolutely excepted from the whip." When Jefferson died on the night of July 4, 1826, Colbert was counted among those at the bedside of the former president.
Sally Hemings has been represented in the media in popular culture due to her relationship with American Founding Father and president Thomas Jefferson. She has been portrayed in films and the inspiration for novels, plays and music.
Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings is a 2016 historical fiction novel by American writer Stephen O'Connor. The novel depicts the relationship between Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, and Sally Hemings, his slave and sister-in-law. The depiction, which portrayed the relationship as consensual and romantic, was the focus of controversy due to questions about Hemings's status as a slave and her age difference with Jefferson.
