Jefferson apologists will repeat nonsensical arguments they’ve been trained to repeat since birth. The truth is that any defense of Jefferson is based both on speculation and on distortions and denials of fact. They’ll say that accusations of child rape are based on speculation. ![]() We’ve been conditioned to believe the founding fathers are untouchable.įaced with the truth about Jefferson, the average American responds with denial. ![]() Nobody is allowed to think in the United States. We’ve all been subjected to too much propaganda. Unfortunately, the average American citizen is incapable of having an honest conversation about any founding father. American citizens are brainwashed by patriotism to disregard facts If we aspire to become a nation that values truth, justice, and basic human decency, we have to start recognizing the crimes of the past. The only reason he’s not considered one of the most deplorable villains of history is because American citizens are brainwashed from childhood to dismiss the horrors of racism and slavery. “Well, when you put it that way, sure, it sounds bad.”īut that’s the only way to put it! Thomas Jefferson was a child rapist. His actions represent a fundamental horror story and traces of his behavior remain normalized even to this day. How about calling it child rape? How about calling it evil? How about calling it an abuse of power on the most terrible level imaginable? These are the conversations we need to start having about Thomas Jefferson. Oh, it’s a “concession” to call it a “power gap?” Are you trying to imply that description is somehow accurate? How about “power chasm?” How about recognizing that the distance between the power Jefferson held and the power Hemings held was basically infinite because her power was effectively zero.Ī power gap? You want to call what happened between Jefferson and Hemings a “power gap?” That seems like a pretty sanitized word for the relationship between a child slave forced to become the mistress of a 44 year old man who had helped establish his own form of government. “I concede that there was a power gap between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.” I become furious when I read comments like this: It will argue that despite her iconic stature, Sally Hemings is a historical figure who deserves to be seen as an individual rather than as a symbol of enslaved African American women over time.Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons How would such a portrayal fare in today’s world with heightened attention to the problem of sexual assault? This chapter will consider these questions along with the changing perceptions of Sally Hemings over time. ![]() What and how should we think about the pair? How do we describe Hemings’s situation? Should the words “relationship,” “mistress,” or “rape” be used when discussing her life? In the 1970s, novelist Barbara Chase-Riboud’s wildly popular novel Sally Hemings portrayed Hemings and Jefferson as lovers with a relationship doomed by white supremacy and the institution of slavery. After newly gathered and analyzed historical evidence, combined with DNA, established that the pair did have children together, questions about the nature of the Hemings and Jefferson connection have come to the fore. Until the end of the twentieth century, white historians denied this story. Sally (Sarah) Hemings’s name has been linked to Thomas Jefferson’s since the early nineteenth century, when political opponents of then President Jefferson revealed that she and Jefferson had children together.
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