U.S.

Founding Father Found Out

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 1, 1998 / 6:03 PM EST / CBS

An alleged relationship between Thomas Jefferson and a slave, Sally Hemings, has long been the subject of historical debate -- and even a movie, reports CBS News Legal Correspondent Kristin Jeannette-Meyers. But until now, many mainstream historians discounted it as gossip.

History is being rewritten at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Charlottesville, Virginia, plantation, after the release of a study this weekend confirming that the nation's third president fathered a child with Hemings, who was one of his slaves.

Less than a day after an announcement that genetic tests confirmed Jefferson had fathered a slave's youngest son, Monticello tour guides on Sunday were telling visitors about the historic findings as they strolled through the estate's plantation house, historic gardens, and preserved slave quarters.

"The visitors seem interested in what our take is on the study, what is our response. I think that most of our guides are glad there may be more information," lead tour guide Elizabeth Dowling Taylor said.

In an article published in the journal Nature, retired pathologist Eugene Foster reported that DNA tests on Jefferson descendants and on the family of a slave, Sally Hemings, confirmed he fathered her youngest son, Eston Hemings Jefferson.

But the genetic tests also concluded that Jefferson was not the father of Hemings' eldest son, Thomas Woodson, whose family clings to an oral history passed down through the generations of their link to Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence and founded the University of Virginia.

Julia Westerinen

Julia Jefferson Westerinen of Staten Island, great granddaughter of Eston Jefferson, said the new fidings make her background more interesting. "It's wonderful to have any connection with the third president of the United States and the Declaration of
Independence writer. It made me more interesting than I thought I was," she told Thalia Assuras, co-anchor of CBS This Morning. "I'm delighted. I'm French, Irish, Scotch and Black."

The study is certain to prompt historians to reevaluate the life and times of a man who espoused the belief that all men were created equal but owned slaves, and condemned the mixing of races but apparently slept with one of his slaves.

Joseph Ellis

Professor Joseph L. Ellis, historian and co-author of the Nature article, says the fact that Jefferson fathered her third son indicates that his relationship with Hemings was a long-standing one.

"I'd like to think it was romantic," he said, "because 38 years is a long time to bwith anybody and raising six children, or four children actually. But I can't say that because, again, as a historian, I can't say she felt, he felt."

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, has never ignored the estate's African-American heritage, publishing a brochure about Sally Hemings and offering a separate tour of the slave quarters.

"The foundation has long believed that you cannot understand Thomas Jefferson without understanding slavery, and that you cannot understand Monticello without understanding its African-American community," Foundation President Dan Jordan said.

The foundation is compiling oral histories from slave descendants and has interviewed 99 people for the project, said Lucia Stanton, who is directing the study and has written a book on slavery at Monticello.