Book Review

Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson grew out of a 1999 conference at Monticello and the University of Virginia. The book contains twelve essays and an appendix of Madison Hemings's memoir, James Callender's accusation, published in 1802, that Jefferson had fathered interracial children, and some of Jefferson's comments on racial differences between blacks and whites.

1

Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf begin the book with a thoughtful introduction that suggests we use the controversy over the paternity of Sally Hemings's children to write a new multiracial history of the United States. Gordon Wood provides a brief discussion of Jefferson's life and Jeffersonian historiography, asking how to balance our needs for historical accuracy and for a symbolic national heritage. Winthrop Jordan revisits his portrayal of the Hemings and Jefferson relationship in his book, White over Black (1968). In one of the book's best essays, Philip Morgan documents patterns of interracial shadow families of Atlantic world slave holders, ultimately suggesting that we need to view the Hemings-Jefferson relationship within that spectrum and without romanticized blinders to the power inequities inherent in such interactions.

. . .