Sally Hemings

Outside of the Louisiana Purchase, which appears to have fallen into his lap, Thomas Jefferson was mainly a portrait in failure and flawed character. And, at the end, old Tom was an especially sorry case, but Sally Hemings, his slave-mistress for 38 years, loved him anyway. That's the history CBS will be teaching tomorrow and Wednesday night with its big-budget sweeps mini-series, "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal," starring Sam Neill and Carmen Ejogo. If the Jefferson-as-loser narrative doesn't quite square with your sense of our third president and the author of the Declaration of Independence, what can I tell you?

MERRILL PETERSON, 88 Scholar of 19th-century America Merrill Peterson, a University of Virginia professor whose writings on Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and other figures made him a renowned historian of 19th-century America, died Tuesday at a retirement home in Charlottesville, Va. He had pneumonia. Dr. Peterson was teaching at Brandeis University when he wrote his first book, "The Jefferson Image in the American Mind" (1960), which explored the relatively new field of intellectual history by focusing less on Jefferson's life than on the wide-ranging influence of his ideas.

When the PBS series "Frontline" is on its game, no one on television does in-depth reporting and informed analysis better. In "Jefferson's Blood," an examination of what the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings, means to us today, "Frontline" is at the very top of its game. The report, which is produced by Thomas Lennon and narrated by author Shelby Steele, revisits the headline-making DNA results released in 1998 that all but prove Jefferson fathered at least one of the six children to whom Hemings gave birth.

CHICAGO - When relatives of George Washington convene this weekend in Georgia, the reunion might be missing a branch of the family - black descendants of a Washington family slave who say they have as much right to attend the event as any of his white kin. The descendants of the freed slave, West Ford, are heirs to a long verbal tradition claiming Ford was born of a union between the first president and a slave named Venus. But despite increasing support from historians for the idea that Ford might be a blood relation to Washington - if not his son - the claimants continue to be excluded from the formal society whose members descend from relatives of the officially childless Founding Father.

DAYTON, Ohio -- For generations, descendents of Thomas Woodson, a presumed slave of Thomas Jefferson, have claimed they are the flesh and blood of the nation's third president.While genetic tests administered last year failed to link the family with Jefferson, the scientist who did the research is trying again -- this time with the help of a Trotwood, Ohio, man.Thomas Woodson, a former Jefferson Township police chief and the great-great-great-grandson of the man whose name he shares, gave a blood sample to Eugene Foster.

Peace is when we pretend to bomb the Serbs, and they pretend to be intimidated.If the city really wants the Children's Museum to succeed, it should begin to discourage riots in Market Place.Sunbeam Corp. decided in February to pay its CEO $2 million for three years, then to fire him. Sounds like baseball.Starr will subpoena Tom Jefferson next. We need to know the truth about Sally Hemings.Pub Date: 6/17/98

THOMAS JEFFERSON, America's "Renaissance man," is making a comeback, according to a recent Sunday Sun article ("The truth about the American statesman may not be self-evident," Dec. 4).Count me among the people hoping he returns ignominiously to wherever it was he was making his comeback from.Do not count me among admirers of the statesman, ambassador and author of the Declaration of Independence who went on to become our third president. It's not just because he was a racist who used every opportunity to claim black people were inferior.

BOSTON -- It may be that every generation gets the Thomas Jefferson it deserves. The Jefferson of my childhood was the face on the nickel and Mount Rushmore, the signature on the Declaration of Independence. The Jefferson of today is one of DNA tests, sex, scandal, hypocrisy, the Jefferson between the William and the Clinton. At last, scientists with DNA tests have proved that the third president of the United States had an "improper relationship" with Sally Hemings -- as if the relationship of master and slave were not improper enough.

MERRILL PETERSON, 88 Scholar of 19th-century America Merrill Peterson, a University of Virginia professor whose writings on Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and other figures made him a renowned historian of 19th-century America, died Tuesday at a retirement home in Charlottesville, Va. He had pneumonia. Dr. Peterson was teaching at Brandeis University when he wrote his first book, "The Jefferson Image in the American Mind" (1960), which explored the relatively new field of intellectual history by focusing less on Jefferson's life than on the wide-ranging influence of his ideas.

CHICAGO - When relatives of George Washington convene this weekend in Georgia, the reunion might be missing a branch of the family - black descendants of a Washington family slave who say they have as much right to attend the event as any of his white kin. The descendants of the freed slave, West Ford, are heirs to a long verbal tradition claiming Ford was born of a union between the first president and a slave named Venus. But despite increasing support from historians for the idea that Ford might be a blood relation to Washington - if not his son - the claimants continue to be excluded from the formal society whose members descend from relatives of the officially childless Founding Father.

THIS IS for everybody who hates "African-Americans." Meaning the term, if not necessarily the people it connotes. Our scene is a mountaintop in Virginia, home to a mansion called Monticello, which was, in turn, home to Thomas Jefferson. And a slave named Sally Hemings. She was half-sister to Jefferson's wife, Martha, born of a sexual relationship between Jefferson's father-in-law and a black slave. After Martha died, the story goes, Jefferson began a relationship with Hemings. During his lifetime, it was whispered that the nation's third president had fathered a child or children with her. Hemings herself said the same thing, a testimony that was passed down through generations of her family but routinely ignored by historians, members of the Jefferson clan and other defenders of the great man's legacy.

When the PBS series "Frontline" is on its game, no one on television does in-depth reporting and informed analysis better. In "Jefferson's Blood," an examination of what the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings, means to us today, "Frontline" is at the very top of its game. The report, which is produced by Thomas Lennon and narrated by author Shelby Steele, revisits the headline-making DNA results released in 1998 that all but prove Jefferson fathered at least one of the six children to whom Hemings gave birth.

Outside of the Louisiana Purchase, which appears to have fallen into his lap, Thomas Jefferson was mainly a portrait in failure and flawed character. And, at the end, old Tom was an especially sorry case, but Sally Hemings, his slave-mistress for 38 years, loved him anyway. That's the history CBS will be teaching tomorrow and Wednesday night with its big-budget sweeps mini-series, "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal," starring Sam Neill and Carmen Ejogo. If the Jefferson-as-loser narrative doesn't quite square with your sense of our third president and the author of the Declaration of Independence, what can I tell you?

Lots of people who follow the Jefferson-Hemings saga are applauding last week's conclusion by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation that the third president likely fathered his slave's six children. It's about time, say Sally Hemings descendants and historians, who for years have argued -- with plenty of documents and a DNA test to back them up -- that Jefferson had a long-standing relationship with his slave. But one branch of the family isn't celebrating the new report: the descendants of Thomas Woodson, who have long claimed their ancestor was the first child produced by the union.

DAYTON, Ohio -- For generations, descendents of Thomas Woodson, a presumed slave of Thomas Jefferson, have claimed they are the flesh and blood of the nation's third president.While genetic tests administered last year failed to link the family with Jefferson, the scientist who did the research is trying again -- this time with the help of a Trotwood, Ohio, man.Thomas Woodson, a former Jefferson Township police chief and the great-great-great-grandson of the man whose name he shares, gave a blood sample to Eugene Foster.

Jefferson's behavior with slave far worse than Clinton's affairAfter reading Pamela Prenger's letter , I didn't know whether to laugh or cry ("Jefferson-Hemings liaison nothing like president's affair," Nov. 8).Ms. Prenger basically wanted to make the point that President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was a far greater sin than Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings because Jefferson "truly loved her," according to all the biographies she had read about Jefferson.I have no doubt that those biographies claimed that Jefferson loved Hemings.

Jefferson's behavior with slave far worse than Clinton's affairAfter reading Pamela Prenger's letter , I didn't know whether to laugh or cry ("Jefferson-Hemings liaison nothing like president's affair," Nov. 8).Ms. Prenger basically wanted to make the point that President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was a far greater sin than Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings because Jefferson "truly loved her," according to all the biographies she had read about Jefferson.I have no doubt that those biographies claimed that Jefferson loved Hemings.

Nothing agitates the Schadenfreude that secretly gurgles in every critic's heart more than the failure of a famous director. It's wonderful. He had so much so recently, he was so powerful and mighty, and look at him now -- we're tearing him to shreds, as if we're the important ones!Now it's the august James Ivory's turn. After a dignified career -- "A Room With a View," "Howards End" and "Remains of the Day" to name a few -- he has crashed and burned along with the usual suspects: his longtime producer, Ismail Merchant, and his screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

BOSTON -- It may be that every generation gets the Thomas Jefferson it deserves. The Jefferson of my childhood was the face on the nickel and Mount Rushmore, the signature on the Declaration of Independence. The Jefferson of today is one of DNA tests, sex, scandal, hypocrisy, the Jefferson between the William and the Clinton. At last, scientists with DNA tests have proved that the third president of the United States had an "improper relationship" with Sally Hemings -- as if the relationship of master and slave were not improper enough.

Peace is when we pretend to bomb the Serbs, and they pretend to be intimidated.If the city really wants the Children's Museum to succeed, it should begin to discourage riots in Market Place.Sunbeam Corp. decided in February to pay its CEO $2 million for three years, then to fire him. Sounds like baseball.Starr will subpoena Tom Jefferson next. We need to know the truth about Sally Hemings.Pub Date: 6/17/98