This Day in History: The third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born on this day in 1743. I think one of the most pernicious things done to the memory of Thomas Jefferson was to besmirch his name with the accusation of him impregnating one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings. Wikipedia shamelessly has posted: "According to DNA evidence from surviving descendants and oral history, Jefferson probably fathered at least six children with Hemings, including four that survived to adulthood."
What happened was, back in 1998, during Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal, the propaganda machine needed to throw light off Clinton and they targeted Jefferson. A team of geneticists tested Y-chromosomal DNA samples from male-line descendants of Thomas Jefferson’s uncle and descendants of Sally Hemings’ children. The result of the study was that a male Jefferson at the time fathered one of Sally Hemings' children. However, in addition to Thomas Jefferson, there were about 25 adult male Jeffersons who carried this chromosome living in Virginia at that time, and several of them are known to have visited TJ's home in Monticello.
A lawyer, William G. Hyland Jr., author of ‘In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal’ claims that it was Thomas's brother Randolph, “a ne’er-do-well,” who had a history of consorting with his brother’s slaves. Additionally, at the time this was all supposed to happen, Thomas Jefferson was 64, and his letters from that period are full of complaints about migraine headaches, arthritis, and intestinal infections. Jefferson was a man in poor health, and he was also not known to be sexual. Prior to this, Jefferson lost his wife Martha and he was devastated by the loss.
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