Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, guys, it's Jill. When Jen and I were recording this episode, we were a little unclear about the characters and their names because a lot of people were named the same thing during revolutionary times in American history. So just to clarify, we are referring to Elizabeth Hemings, who is the mother of Sally Hemings and Mary Hemings.
Now, Mary Hemings is the daughter of Elizabeth Hemings via a unknown black African slave. And Sally Hemings is a daughter of Elizabeth Hemings via John Wales, Thomas Jefferson's wife's father. Now, Mary Hemings, Sally's older half sister, ends up having a child at Monticello by the name of Betsy Hemingway Hemings. And we refer to Betsy Hemings later on in the episode, whereas some people call Elizabeth Hemings Sally and Mary's mother, Betty. So I hope that clears up some of the names. Also, Thomas Jefferson has a wife, Martha, and an eldest daughter, Martha.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: So hope that clears up for context.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: We love you. Thank you for listening. Please enjoy the episode.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: On this episode of Common Mystics, we explore a beloved and very well known United States president and his legacy.
I'm Jennifer James.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: I'm Jill Stanley.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: We're psychics, wish sisters. We are common mystics. We find extraordinary stories in ordinary places. And today we come to you from Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Yes, that's right, Jennifer. And you know what? This is a more Voices episode so the people know what we do. This is what we do. We drive around the country. We ask the spirits to lead us to a verifiable story previously unknown to us that gives voice to the voiceless. And then sometimes, Jennifer, sometimes during the research, we find another story that jumps out off the pages and really screams, talk about me too. And so here we are with another More voices from the road. You can't do handy. Don't try. Don't try to do handy.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: My voices are so bad, I won't even try.
I did not want to talk about this.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Well, we didn't know if we had anything to bring to this.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Anything new to bring to this story. So I'm really excited because I think you did it. I think you did it.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: I think we did it.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: You have to take credit, Jill. You have to take credit. You have to take credit because. Outline.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Okay. I have to unplug one of my ears because I can't hear myself. But listen, Jennifer.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: This was serendipitous in the timing.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Why?
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Because had this in our back pocket for years.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Years.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Not wanting to even look at it. Because Monticello, for all of you that are listening, who may not be in America, is a famous plantation of one of our founding fathers, T. Jeffs, as Jen likes to call him.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: So can we just say his real name first?
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Just. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It's coming.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Sorry.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: It's coming.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Sorry.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Later. Okay, so we're like, this man is one of the most written about figures in American history. True. So what are we gonna say about him? And lo and behold, we got some tea. We got some tea.
Yes, we did.
So let's get into it. March 20th of 2022, driving east on the turnpike, and we're feeling our feelings, and we decide, like, while we're driving east in Philadelphia, we're like, you know where we're going? We're going to Monticello.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yes, we are.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yes, we are. And I remember telling J.R. sparrow, one of our colleagues in the podcast space.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: I'm like, west Virginia commonplace. Shout out.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, thank you, Jennifer. Say it again.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: West Virginia commonplace. Shout out. Uncommon, but West Virginia uncommon place.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: That's right.
Shout out again.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Anyway, go ahead.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: He was like, you guys need to go to Monticello. And we're like, okay. We just went there and, like, we have a story. And he's waited this long. It's been three years, J.R. this is our story out of Monticello.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: But what you're not saying is there was another reason. Reason that we were hesitant to even talk about this.
Sure. And. Well, it's the race issue. You and I are white girls, and there's an issue here that is a little delicate because of the whole race thing. But we'll get into it. We'll get into it.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: I.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: You know, that's true. You know true. We had serious.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: I did not.
Well, we're not. We are imperfect messengers in all cases, in every scenario.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Blanket statements.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah. If anyone ever reaches out with, like, this and this and that, that is gonna be my default. We are unperfect. We are imperfect messengers. Do not. We are not historians. We're not documentarians. No. Ken Burns here. We are just two fools that go on road trips and bring you stories of spirits that wanna be stole. Told. So here we are again, driving east. We're going.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Sold. Go ahead.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Not.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: So you misspoke. Okay. Let's keep going.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Told.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Told.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Just storytellers telling the stories of spirits whose spirits want their stories told.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Nailed it. Nailed it.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Everything else, Brian, Everything else goes out. Monticello, Jennifer. Yes, Monticello. Monticello is the most famous plantation home.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Of who that would Be no other than Thomas Jefferson. You've heard of him?
[00:06:35] Speaker A: I believe we talk. I talked a lot about him during our Lewis and Clark episode.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: That is true.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: That is about York. Yep.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: I think most Americans listening will know the name Thomas Jefferson and associate him with being a founding father of the United States. Even if you don't know any of the details about his life, he's one of, like, the big ones from way back.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Well. And I want you to talk to our Aussie listeners. I want you to talk to our listeners in. In England and across the pond. Because they're not Americans. I don't know how much American history they know, although they may be tuned in today. But I'm saying, like, talk to us as if we are not.
If we're not.
The fourth of July loving.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: You put me on the spot because I don't know anything about Australian history. And, you know, I'm not talking to.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: You to talk about their history. I'm talking to you to give the significance of Thomas Jefferson in our context.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Are you ready?
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: No. Seriously, Big name. Think Louis the 16th. Like, really influential thing. Henry VII. Like, super influential, almost royalty. Like, obviously we don't have kings over here. It was a big deal. It goes back to the Declaration of Independence.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: But we're hoping to still have that tradition in this country as we move forward.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: But if we did, if we did have royalty, like, Thomas Jefferson would be up there. He would be kind of like American royalty just because of his status as one of the Founding Fathers. Did I say what you wanted me to say?
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Okay. Because sometimes you cue me to say something and I have no clue what the f you want me to say. So did I do well?
[00:08:21] Speaker A: He. And because he's one of the Founding Fathers, he was one of the key writers, if not the writer, of the Declaration of Independence. Now, that document, for all of the world. Please describe what that document is to Americans.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: It was basically like, dear England, we don't wanna be a part of you anymore. We're declaring our freedom.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Mm. He was all like one. In the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one nation to dissolve its political bands from another and to pursue among the powers of the Earth.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Holy crap. Wow.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Dr. Murray, sixth grade history.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: That is the preamble.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Impressive.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: But most people will. Will know it by we the people.
That's how most people know how it started.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union. Or is that. Is that the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution?
[00:09:17] Speaker A: I don't See, I only know the.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Preamble of which document. Great.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: My preamble was of the Independence.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Okay. All right, let's keep going then. Let's keep going. So Jefferson was not only an author of the Declaration of Independence, Very important document, but also served as the second governor of revolutionary Virginia from 1779 to 1781. Are you listening? I feel like you're not listening to me.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: I'm totally listening to you.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Congress appointed Jefferson as U.S. minister to France, where he served from 1785 to 1789. Okay. He was the first secretary of state under George Washington.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Did you know that?
[00:09:59] Speaker B: No, I didn't.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: I didn't know that either. No. That's really impressive.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: He was the nation's second vice president under John Adams.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Didn't know that. But I know those two had beef.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: And he was the third president of the United States.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: I knew that.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: So he's a pretty big deal to us Americans. I'll speak for all of us.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Mm. We leave out our firecrackers on the fourth of July to be blessed by Thomas Jefferson's spirit.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Okay. And he's a huge part of the whole American narrative, the one that we tell ourselves about freedom and the liberties that we stand for.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: The tread. Don't tread on me.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Right? Right.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: You all know the flags. You know who I'm talking about? The white flags with the snake don't tread on. Yeah.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: And Thomas Jefferson is kind of a cornerstone, being one of the founding fathers to create this nation out of those.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Worthy principles of all men being created equal.
Complicated. Okay. So he's remembered for his role in establishing the fundamentals of American ideals.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Liberty, equality, self governance. That's all him.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: He's like.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: You know what?
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Him and his friends. That's what they do.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: I. I don't know. I'm saying Frenemies.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Come on. Oh.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Frenemies.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: All right, cohort.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: So where was his. Where was his plantation?
[00:11:32] Speaker B: His plantation was Monticello, located near Charlottesville, Virginia. It's much more than just a house. Don't think. House. Yes, it's a big house, but it's so much more than that. And it symbolizes Thomas Jefferson's intellectual curiosity and also his passion for architecture.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Who designed that said house on the plantation of Monticello? Why?
[00:11:59] Speaker B: It was T. Jeffs himself.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Shell was.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I looked into this. I looked into this. Some of the innovative features that it had for its time. Would you like to know?
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Okay. It had an octagonal dome.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: It still does.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: It's beautiful. It still has its octagonal Dome, which is great for the light distribution.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: I didn't know. I thought it was just beautiful.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and light distribution, which makes sense because, like, light was a big thing.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah. They didn't have Thomas Edison then.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: No, not yet. Alcove beds, Great space saver. So, like little nooks for the beds.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Great idea, Thomas. Skylights again, it's all about the lighting.
And triple sashed windows.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Ooh.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Do you know what that is?
[00:12:56] Speaker A: It sounds super fancy.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Can I just tell you this, because I had an epiphany today when I was looking up. What the heck are triple sashed windows?
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Please tell me.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Okay. Do you know twas the night before.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Christmas in All through the House?
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Yes. Yes, exactly. That poem slash story has a line like, I went to the windows. I. I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
I always thought. What did you think that threw up the sash meant?
[00:13:27] Speaker A: I thought it meant he, like, opened it really quick. And the, like the sash that holds them together, like, kind of flipped up. That's what I thought, too.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: I thought it was like a curtain or curtain accessory. A sash is a pane. He opened the window.
Yes. A sash is a pain.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: This is triple pane windows.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And each pane can open independent.
So, like double hung windows. You know, you can open the top part of the bottom part triple. You have three levels, so it was great for ventilation.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Thomas.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: So did it again.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: I hope you enjoyed that little explanation.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm bringing home Christmas again.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Okay.
So, yes. The estate, it offers insight into his complexities of Jefferson's life, including his role as a statesman, a plantation farmer and a slave owner.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: He knew he had slaves.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: We.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Wasn't.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: It wasn't hidden.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Wasn't hidden.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: It was a part of life back then. Yeah, that's just how it was. I'm not happy about it. No, he wasn't happy about it. He wrote about slavery being not cool, as when he was the governor of Virginia. He also wrote in the Declaration of Independence, like some heavy shade against King George, about the slave trade. That was voted out. Out to be edited out of the official document.
Continue.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: So Monticello, his home, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO being United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. And it's also a popular tourist destination. Now, you might ask what is on the property of Monticello?
[00:15:23] Speaker A: I would.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Would you?
[00:15:25] Speaker A: I would. I've been there. But I wonder, well, what is on the. Am I just going to see the House with the windows.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Yes. And more. Well, you have to pay, by the way. You can't just go and walk around the house. Of course you have to pay admission, because that's what we do here. That's what we do in America.
I'm just saying. Okay. So, yes, there's the house with the fancy windows, the dome and all that, but there are the gardens.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Beautiful garden.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: There is the Monticello cemetery.
And in that Monticello Cemetery, there are burials that are limited to the direct descendants of Thomas and his wife, Martha Jefferson, and their spouses and their spouses.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: And their children and their children and the children's spouses and that kind of stuff.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Oh, got it. And with very, very few exceptions. Okay.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Well, Martha was married before she married Thomas, so that could also mean.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't know that.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, she was.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: And there's also a separate burial ground for enslaved people who had lived and worked on the plantation.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Okay. There's also a mulberry row, which is named for the mulberry trees, lining the industrial site, center of Monticello.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: So you see a group of trees, but on the other side the trees, there's a vast number of buildings. Can you describe what those buildings would be?
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Yes. They would include woodworking shops, iron workshops, smokehouse, a dairy, a textile shop, a wash house, storehouses, stables, and Napa. Not.
Not the least, dwellings for the enslaved and free white workers as well. So it was almost like a town in and of itself.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: So these are the hits we were getting in the car. So knowing that we might not find a story previously unknown to us to Thomas Jefferson as one of the most written about person in American history, because there's so much we know. Right, right, right. I mean, literally, I would assume the man had no secrets from his politics, his duality around slavery. Not agreeing with the practice, but being like a serious slave owner. There's so much things we know about him already, and part of it is that he was rumored to have a relationship with his wife's half sister, Sally Hemings. Okay, so our boy T. Jeffs had a relationship, supposedly with Sally Hemings. Hey, Martha.
Martha Wales Jefferson, his wife?
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: T. Jeff's wife. Her father was John Wales, and John Wales had relations with a Betty Hemings. And so Sally, Martha's half sister, was born enslaved and was 3/4 white.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Three of her grandparents were white.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Okay, okay, got it. So obviously, Martha Wales, Jefferson Thomas's wife, also was from a plantation where they had. They had enslaved people. Yeah. And her daddy was Making babies with the enslaved. At least one enslaved woman living on their plantation.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: That is correct. And when Daddy Wales died as part of the estate, Thomas Jefferson and Martha inherited the Hemings family.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: They inherited a family of people.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Correct. Not only that, but her sister.
It was no secret. It was no secret that Sally was Martha's half sister.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: That's so freaking bold.
That's real. I. Wow. Okay. All right.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Okay. So as we're getting pulled in this. And this is stuff we already knew.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Yes. Right. Stella Hemings is. Has known. It's out there.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: It's out there. It's been out there. It's been out there since the 90s with DNA.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Okay, we'll get there.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: So just so we know this, but as we're in Philadelphia and as we're being further pulled to Monticello, we were picking up hits. Jennifer, do you remember this woman dressed in. With a white cap and an apron?
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yes, I do remember this. I remember seeing her in my mind's ey. A woman like you said, white cap, apron, seemed hundreds of years old in terms of her dress. What about you?
[00:20:27] Speaker A: I don't know if you remember this, but I went off on the fact that people were still arguing the relationship and the legitimacy of Sally Hemings and her children. Like, really, it's embarrassing how racist and off putting the arguments are when you have what you think is a good faith conversation about DNA and historical records. And they were like.
So I was going off about that.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: You brought up King George.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: You brought up. Yeah, King George. And I did not know, because I'm ignorant af, that King George was the king of the time that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Dear John letter in the form of the Declaration of Independence to just. I don't know if you knew that.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: I don't know if I knew that either.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: I think the only reason why I know it now is because the play Hamilton.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: That makes sense. Also, I was picking up on Revolutionary War soldiers.
And what else were you getting?
[00:21:22] Speaker A: I was getting a woman or women feeling overlooked or overshadowed.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: What? Okay.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: And the feeling. And.
And because I'm crazy and I'm like with self righteous justice. I'm like, the class system, the poor. How would it be to be living in 1776 in this area?
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: So we get to Monticello.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: We do the classic Jen and Jill mess around. We have pictures with Thomas Jefferson statue.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: We're acting like idiots, of course. Embarrassing ourselves.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: You get the picture.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: We're dreaming about shutting the place down when we're rich and famous so we can Walk around and get our Spideys on.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Well, you know, I remember saying there are ghosts here, but I can't get into it because there are also crowds of people here and kids running around all over the place.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: The kids.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: So annoying.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: This is really not a hit, but we really were annoyed with the kids. Just saying.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Part of the problem is that we always have to travel on my spring break because I work for a school district, which means that inevitably the kids are always off on spring break as well, wherever we go. So we can never use the pool in the hotel because it's full of kids anyway.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: And we can never go to the historical monuments or museum because of the trail of kids and their parents. Okay. So. But this is my second time at Monticello, and the first time I did not notice this, but this time when I was with you, we were pulled to the Life of Sally Hemings exhibit, and it was powerful. Can you tell us a little more background about Sally Hemings?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: And how she became one of the arguably most famous enslaved person in America?
[00:23:13] Speaker B: So Sally hemings lived from 1773 to 1835, and she, like you said, is one of the most famous and perhaps least known African American women in US history.
For more than 200 years, her name has been linked to Thomas Jefferson as his concubine.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: What's a concubine, I ask you? No, I want you to tell me.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Concubine is.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Is a willing lover. A willing lover. A girl, your side piece that wants.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: To be the side piece, and in this case, mistress. Right?
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: But this perhaps obscured some of the facts about her life and her identity.
So I want to note here that Sally Hemings never wrote about her life herself. There are no documents that she wrote. Okay. All of the information that we have pretty much comes from plantation records and other types of, like, notes or reminiscences of the people who lived at the plantation who might have been writing about the day to day, but also her son, Madison. Her son Madison was an important source about her life because he documented an account of his own life and his mother's life.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Not only that, but Madison is fascinating because he moves to Ohio and is very vocal as part of the community, being Thomas Jefferson's son. And people notice the striking resemblance between Madison and him.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Really? No.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: So, like, the papers were interviewing him as fact. So to have this controversy around, is Sally Hemings really bearing children for Thomas Jefferson is really even more absurd because you have Madison going on record with, like, like, looking like the man and being like, no, no, that's my father. And having these kind of conversations about what life was, being the son of the owner and being the son of the enslaved woman. Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Sally, like I said, was born in 1773. The exact date wasn't recorded because it wasn't necessarily important to the people who owned the plantation when an enslaved child was born. And probably the enslaved people weren't keeping records for whatever reason. She was, like you said, the child of Martha Jefferson's father, John Wales, and Elizabeth Hemings.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Does she go by Betsy, Betsy or Elizabeth?
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Okay. Elizabeth Hemings, who wasn't his. One of his enslaved women that lived on the plantation.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Now, the thing that's interesting, just to tell you, like, what time we're in. So Betsy Elizabeth Hemings mother was a black woman enslaved to someone named Captain Hemmings. And he wanted to see what a baby would look like.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Come on.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: I'm serious. I'm a hundred percent making this up.
So that was why Betsy was.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: This is so sick. This is generation after generation after generation of the same bad behavior is what I'm hearing.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I just wonder.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: I'm getting a little sick. Like, I'm literally getting nauseous right now.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: It's going to the fact that Sally was mostly white and she. Her three out of four. That's why I'm bringing it up.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, so like you mentioned, Martha Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's wife and Sally were half sisters. Right. Both fathered by John Wales.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: They had a close relationship. Even Sally was given brooches from Martha as signs of appreciation for her service on the plantation.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: I mean, but. Ugh.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: I know. Well, now, while Sally was still a child, she became the nurse maid to Thomas and Martha's daughter Maria, who I.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Think they called Polly, but let's just keep calling her Maria.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah, don't confuse me. So Thomas and Martha's daughter Maria now has this. This nurse best friend. Yeah.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Well, her aunt, her best friend, her nurse.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Yeah, and probably playmate, because they're both children.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: In 1787, Sally was chosen to chaperone Maria while she traveled with her father, T. Jeffs, who was the US Minister to France in Paris.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: This is what happened.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Okay, tell me.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: So Martha's already gone. She's already. She's already dead. Poor Martha.
Two of her youngest children are being raised by a family member in the United States. But Thomas Jefferson was appointed the US Minister in France, so him and his oldest daughter were already in France. And when his Youngest daughter died. He summoned for Maria to come.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: And the person that was supposed to take her, like, was unavailable, I think became ill. So like Maria's aunt, I think Jefferson's sister just was like, why don't you take her? And she's 14.
So Sally's 14 years old and was chosen because the original chaperone couldn't do it. To just go and be with Maria as she travels the voyage to France.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: That must have been terrifying.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Who received her on the other end was no other than John Adams wife. And she wrote a note. Yes. To Thomas Jefferson. Being like the girl that accompanied Maria to these shores is nice indeed.
Like a nice girl, but she's not wearing appropriate clothing. And so how do you want me to address this? Because I don't want to have her on the, like off the docks looking like a slave. Because slavery in France is illegal.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: So the.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: The Addams Family was very acquainted with the situation.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Okay, so they're in Paris. Yes. Second largest city in Europe, A pinnacle of grandeur, World class city. A vibrant global hub for politics, culture and the arts.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: And then second largest city in Europe at the time.
It's a big deal.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: So Sally arrives 14, looking like she's clearly enslaved and hungry.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Oh, she looks scrawny.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: And she's with Maria now. While Sally was staying in Paris with Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the family who was there. She was technically free under French law because of course, you had said that it was illegal. Slavery was illegal in France and France had abolished slavery on the mainland of French soil. I love that qualifier, by the way, because the French were better than us, but not completely, because I know they had territories outside of the mainland of France where slavery was still happening. But. Okay, we'll give it to you. France. You had abolished slavery on French soil.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: And this is not the time to pick a fight with France as we're talking about this issue, because it's. Yeah. And France won this one.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: And any enslaved person who stepped onto French territory could seek their freedom. I mean.
Yeah, that's interesting to me because she could have run because she could have run and just have been free. But she was 14. She was 14. Yeah.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: She knows nobody. She doesn't speak the language.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: She's in a different. Everything she knows is across. Yeah.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: I wonder if she even knew this at the age of 14.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: She did.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: She did know.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know at the age of 14, but she was there for a couple years.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: So this 14.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: At some point she. She Found out.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: All right, well, and she also knew her. One of her brothers was there studying to be a French chef.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Hey.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Okay, that's cool.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: So he would have known too, like, hey, if you want to stay.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So what did she do when she was in. In Paris?
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Well, like I said, she reunited with her brother James, and he was learning French cooking. They all lived in the Jefferson household that was in this fancy hotel in Paris.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Oh, that sounds, like, kind of awesome.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: The Hotel Delme. I can't say it, but it's beautiful. It's a beautiful, lovely place. Okay.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds terrible, but it really is lovely. Okay.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: I'm sure if I got the name right, you would have been like, oh, we, we. But she was being trained in needlework and for caring for clothing. So seamstress. She was trained as an essential being. All the essential functions of someone who would be a lady's maid.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Okay.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: And her efforts were also giving her an opportunity to earn a modest monthly wage of 12.
Whatever.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: Oh, 12 livres, which is roughly $2 and $2 in this year. 1787 is about $34 a month. $34 a month in like around the year, around now.2025.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: But again, I mean, I'm sure she didn't have negotiating rights. And.
And she was being taken care for. Like, she had clothes bought for her. She was living in the house. You know what I mean?
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: But still shitty. Yeah, but I told you Thomas Jefferson didn't pay well. I told you. I told you that with Lewis and Clark. I told you that.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Right. Anyway, you know, she got out of the house, though. They didn't keep her locked up in the house.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: No. She was able to learn some French.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: We think.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: We think.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: And she accompanied Jefferson's daughters on social outings and was intermingling with society.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: So. So 1789 comes around.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Now Sally is 16.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: 16. And she returns with T. Jeffs and Pham back to Virginia. Now her brother James is now a French chef and is cooking for the whole family.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Oh, I need that in my life.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: I. Why do you think Sally returned 16 years old?
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Did she have a choice?
Yeah.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Oh, by law, he couldn't have made her get on that ship.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Well, personally, I think that her entire family, her entire world was back in.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: The United States and James was going back.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think the bigger question is, why would James go back?
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Being trained as a chef.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: Yeah. He could make a great living, but he chose to come back. I understand why a 16 year old when her whole family is overseas. Wouldn't want to stay by herself in a strange city where she probably still didn't know the language well enough to get along on her own. But let's. Let's go to the outline and see what. What you have indicated here for me to read, shall we?
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Well, Please quote a Mr. Madison Hemings, her son.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So Madison Hemings later would say that his mother became Mr. Jefferson's concubine in France while they were there.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: So 14 to 16, he was. We don't know when it started, but we know that she left France when she was 16.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: So many icks.
And not only that, it was believed that she.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: This is what Madison said. Madison said that she told him that she was like, I'm not going back. I'm not going back.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: She told him she wasn't going to go back.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: She told Thomas Jefferson, she's not going back.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Okay.
Then Jefferson negotiated with her and he said, okay, if you come back, you and your children will get, quote, extraordinary privileges living in my household and freedom for your future children, is what he told her.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Now, this is the thing.
And I purposely buried this when they're having this conversation. She is pregnant already.
So the fact that she didn't want to go back because she wanted her baby to be free. And she's like, I don't care what I have to do in Paris to make a living to take care of my child. And he's like, you don't have to go through all that. Come back with me and you'll have privilege and your baby will be free. Anyway.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: So she did. She came back. Apparently he was a hell of a persuader.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: He's. Yeah, from what I read.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: It's his. It's a politician negotiating skills.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: He could have been edited a little bit more, but, yeah, long winded.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Sally would go on to bear at least six children to Thomas Jefferson. Oh, I didn't want to say that. It sounds nasty.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: It's true, though.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Ew. Her master. No, there, I said it and I feel dirty. The only one, the one and only Thomas Jefferson.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: No one knows why she trusted Jefferson.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Good point, good point.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Because it's all just empty words. Whatever it takes to get her on the boat. Right?
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: I don't know. She trusted him.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Did she have her baby?
[00:37:51] Speaker A: The baby that she was pregnant with? Time was born in Virginia, but only lived a short time.
And that was Sally's first pregnancy. And she again, was 16 upon returning. This gets me. So he's returning Sally fam. Sally's 16, pregnant. Everyone sees that she had a baby. Even though it passed quickly, he still referred to Sally as Maria's maid as she performed her duties as an enslaved household servant and lady's maid.
Like, look, I don't know anything. How. I can't even imagine. I literally can't imagine the horrors of slavery. And I assuming being a lady's maid and being a servant in the household would be a lot. A hell of a lot easier than being in the field. I get that. But she's still enslaved.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: Just saying.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Okay, so, Jill, did people know they were a couple at the time?
[00:38:50] Speaker A: Girl, girl. Yes, they did.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Shut up.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Yes, they did. And it was published, you know. Okay. You know, I love it.
Tell us all about it.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: Okay.
Back then, there was this guy who wrote for the paper, the Richmond Recorder. His name was James Callender. And actually, James is remembered today for his controversial writings about Thomas Jefferson and his affair with Sally Hemings. And he reported that the then president of the United States, T. Jeffs, had a, quote, black slave mistress who had borne him a number of children. It is well known that the man whom it delighteth the people to honor keeps and for many years past has kept as his concubine one of his own slaves. Her name is Sally.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: So the criticism in the paper that we're talking about isn't a criticism that he's banging a slave. It's the criticism that he kept her well kept as a concubine.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Just think about that for a second. Let that sink in.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Right. Not that it's wrong, right. To have everyone's doing it, but how.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Good you're treating her, how good you're treating her like.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: Like a partner.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: And to know. Know that he's still referring to her as the. The maid, although he's just not cruel to her, is basically what the criticism is.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: But this James Callender was not the only one writing about it.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Girl. No.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: There were other Federalist newspapers from Maine to Georgia, all up and down the coast. Now, Federalist. Federalist is the other party, not Jefferson's, his opposing party. So they are all reprinting this story and they are publishing racist poems about it. Oh, my gosh. And calling her Dusky Sally and other inappropriate names. And Jefferson's defenders, like the people in his party who are trying to, like, defend him, were just pretty much quiet, like they had no strategy there.
And everybody was kind of waiting for Jefferson to deny it. And the thing is, he never did.
Monticello never made a statement. He never bothered to address it.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: The people that are staunchly against this and I would say, quote, unquote theories. Before 1987, when it became like fact, were white historians, they were like, no, absolutely not. This did not happen. They had all kinds of excuses. But Jefferson himself was quiet. Continue.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: No, just this story was all over, all over the United States papers.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: Not only that, his frenemy, his political rival, John Adams wrote some tea to his sons about the affair. And again, the Addams knew firsthand because they were in Paris.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: Yeah, so everybody knew about it. It was kind of this open secret and Jefferson never addressed it.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Adam points to the relationship between the sage of Monticello and the beautiful young woman known around the plantation as Dashing Sally.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: That's better than Dusky Sally.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: I mean Dusky was just racist, just rude. Yeah, this absolutely, basically. Okay, okay, 1826, what happens?
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Well, Thomas Jefferson passes away.
Sally is now about 53 years old.
Upon his passing, she was not legally emancipated.
He did not write that into the will.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Doesn't seem like an oversight to me.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: No. Oh, absolutely not. But instead she was unofficially freed or quote, given her time.
Given her time. By Jefferson's daughter, Maria.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: Martha's. He had two daughters.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Oh, he had a Martha too.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: He had a Martha and Maria.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: Oh, okay. By Jefferson's daughter Martha after his death. So she was unofficially emancipated or freed.
But in his will he did free Sally's younger children, Madison and Eston.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: Her. One of the first born children of Sally and Jefferson's that survived was a red headed child that looks so much like Jefferson. He like disappeared from the plantation. Like he. But, and I say that I don't think anyone killed him, but I think that like he gave him money and was like, you need to get out of here. You can't be running around too much.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: Like, much like him. Oh my goodness.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: That was my understanding.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Wow, that is crazy.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: What happens to Sally and her freed children?
[00:43:59] Speaker B: In 1830, Sally and her boys are listed as white in federal census.
[00:44:07] Speaker A: Cuz Madison and Eston are only like a. A fourth African.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
In 1835, Sally lived in Charlottesville.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: Not even probably an eighth, an eighth African.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: Well, you have to. If she's having children that basically look white but with some color.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: Right?
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Like you after you get a tan.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Actually you in the summer. Babies that have this like a little like an beautiful olive complex and darker skin is so much better than whiter skin. So she's making beautiful babies. Despite of the red hair.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Despite the red hair. Red hair is lovely too. We love the redheads. In 1835, I believe I was gonna say, Sally lived in Charlottesville with her son Madison and his brother Eston, until she died, actually, in that year, in 1835. She was 62 years old. Sadly, the location of her grave is not known. It's been lost to history. Wow.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: That's super sad to me.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: That's such a shame.
[00:45:17] Speaker A: And there are no pictures of her.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: She should have been buried at Monticello.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: You think? Anyway, there are no pictures of her.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: Thomas. They were in Paris. He could have gotten her a portrait done in Paris.
What a dick. Ugh.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: So the question between this relationship and how. Whether or not it was sectional was like a debate for, like, over 150 years. Right? Most. Like I said, most historians, notably White, dismissed the rumors and said, no. No. The reason why these kids look like Thomas Jefferson is because of his nephew was just doing all sorts of shenanigans with the slave.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: It wasn't our founding father. It wasn't St. Thomas Jefferson.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: Not at all.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: So.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: And I. I bet. I bet Sally's progeny over the years was like, hey, he's our. In our genealogy. Like, we know from stories from our family that that is our great, great, great grandfather. And I bet that they were not listened to.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Yes. That was happening. And basically those people for generations were like, it's a lie.
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: Like, random historians were like, you do not exist.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: What you're being told is not true.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: That would piss me off so much.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: You don't even know how bad. Like, I get enraged just thinking about it. Okay, so while. Why this debate was even happening?
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Because of the records, the timeline, and Madison himself being like, no. Like, my mom told me, like, that's pretty. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't understand why the debate other than to try to protect Thomas. Yeah.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: The image. His image.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Instead of worrying about how this man or having conversations about the duality of him.
[00:47:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: And which is more complex than anyone can even imagine. Yeah. We're just gonna be like, no, no, no. He was a good slave owner.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: But there was also a complete lack of evidence. For the longest time. There was no DNA. There was no way to prove or disprove. So it was easy just to be like, no, no, no. They're lying. Until.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: Until. But. But that's true for everyone. The Daughters of the American Revolution. That was true for everyone at the time.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: That's a good point. It was just the. Yeah. People of color. It was people of color. Who.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Who the White historians were saying, ugh, they don't know what to do.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: If you were a white woman that claimed you were related to Jefferson, and you had your genealogy written out by someone in your family, you could have applied for the Daughters of the Revolution and you could have been a part of that organization, not Madison's children.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: So, Jill, tell me about the DNA.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Okay, well, first I have to tell you what was happening.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: Please.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: Okay, so this is what happened in the 90s. Okay.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: 1980S.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: In the 1990s, there was a movie that came out. Okay. Called Jefferson in Paris.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: Have you seen it?
[00:48:25] Speaker A: No. Is it good?
[00:48:26] Speaker B: I don't know. I looked it up. 1995, 31 on rotten tomatoes, so it looks like it's bad.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Are we gonna have to do the same thing we did with the Crucible?
[00:48:38] Speaker B: I don't know, Jill. Can I just tell you?
[00:48:39] Speaker A: Scarlet Letter. We're gonna have to do that.
[00:48:41] Speaker B: Can I just tell you who plays Thomas Jefferson?
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Tell me.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Think of the worst possible, like, 1990s leading action guy.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: The worst possible.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Throwing out 1990s Nicholas Cage. Oh, you're so close. Nick Nolte. Nick Nolte plays Thomas.
Thomas Jefferson.
[00:49:08] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: I know. Isn't that terrible? I kind of want to see it.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: Just.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Just see it.
[00:49:16] Speaker A: We have to watch it and take notes. Oh, my God. We have to watch it and take notes.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: I guarantee it's unwatchable, but I'll do it.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: We're doing this for you, audience. We're doing this for you. You remember the Scarlet Letter? It was the Scarlet Letter, right?
[00:49:28] Speaker B: I don't remember. Yes, it was a Scarlet Letter.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: Native titty is all I remember from that movie. There was good native titties.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: There was a lot of native titties. Okay, 1995, the movie Jefferson in Paris comes out. Talk to me.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: Okay, so historians, again, the white ones were all like, that is impossible. This is, like, sacrilege. How can you say this as if this was, like, really what happened? And then there was a historical professor who has a law degree named Annette Gordon Reeves, and she wrote a book that year in response to the. Response to this. This pushback against this horrible movie. And she wrote it, in a sense that how she would depict this in a court of law for her students. So that was the premise of the book.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: I like it.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: She was writing evidence. And. And this is what's more likely. Is it more likely that the nephew who had no access to these slaves gave birth or gave his semen to Sally? Or is it more realistic that this really was Happening.
[00:50:35] Speaker B: So when that book came out in 1997.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: Yes, it became a bestseller. Because the following year, Jennifer, what happened?
[00:50:46] Speaker B: The emergence of new scientific evidence in DNA was finally available. And let me just say, too, it wasn't just the historians were upset about the depiction of, you know, Nick Nolte. Of Nick Nolte as Thomas Jefferson.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: But also, no one's happy about historians. No one's happy about that.
[00:51:12] Speaker B: But, Jill, there's many problematic things about this, but another problematic one is that it was a romance.
The movie depicted a romance between this child, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Jefferson, her master. It was a romance. Okay. Just wanted to say that. Okay.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So DNA. And finally, finally we are able to actually have some evidence about Thomas Jefferson's progeny after Annette.
[00:51:49] Speaker A: A year after Annette, Gordon Reed's book hits the stands. Okay. And the book was called. Geez, what was the book called? Oh, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, An American Controversy. Year later, she gets a phone call. We have the DNA results. And they actually held the results up until it could be put into the Sunday papers so it could be widely distributed.
[00:52:14] Speaker B: I love this. I remember this.
[00:52:17] Speaker A: I remember this.
I remember this.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: Yes. Keep going.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: So the groundbreaking DNA published in Nature and was confirmed that Thomas Jefferson foundation revealed a compelling connection. It was confirmed. And the Thomas Jefferson foundation confirmed there was compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson likely fathered Eston Hemings.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Now, now, Sally Heming's youngest known child.
[00:52:48] Speaker A: Right. Because they couldn't find. I mean, I'm sure if they found other.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: Of her kids, they would have been able to test, but it was only Eston's DNA that they had available for whatever reason to test. And by analyzing the Y chromosome of the male descendant, researchers were uncovering a high potential probability that Jefferson was Eston's father. Now, the thing is about Y DNA. It's the same Y DNA from father to son through generations. So Y DNA don't lie.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: Just saying, Thomas, you are the father.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: At least of Esten. At least of Eston.
[00:53:28] Speaker A: I wrote this as a Maury Povich.
Maury Povich. He sits down. He's like. In the case of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, six children. Thomas Jefferson, you are the father. And then think of like, Thomas Jefferson. Be like, ah. And then sailor getting up, being like, I told you.
[00:53:45] Speaker B: I told you.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: That's what I was thinking. Wow.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: Wow. And I've never seen that. I'm proud to say I've never seen an episode of the Gloria Povich Show. But I will say this, though. That is a little bit of. Not an unrealistic stretch, but you are making a stretch because we only have factual evidence that it was Eston who was definitely, you know, a child of Thomas Jefferson and Sally.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: Right. Yes, Right. But.
[00:54:13] Speaker B: But, I mean, logical. The logical next step would be logically that the rest of her children, at.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: Least, especially if it's noted that Madison looks like the man.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: Do you know what I mean?
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Like, wow.
[00:54:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:30] Speaker B: So are the hemings, any of the hemings buried in Monticello's family graveyard?
[00:54:37] Speaker A: Not in the Monticello family graveyard. That is reserved for Thomas Jefferson and his wife. The Monticello association, which owns and managing and manages the cemetery, restricts anyone from being buried there that is not related to Thomas Jefferson and Martha and Martha only. So it excludes the Hemings family.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:55:02] Speaker A: Despite some of the descendants of Sally Hemings being recognized.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Got it. Today.
[00:55:08] Speaker A: Today.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: Okay. So, Jill, so our voice list then, is Sally Hemings and the generations of people impacted by the attempts to keep Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings a secret.
Is that what you're thinking?
[00:55:22] Speaker A: No, no, no.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: What else you got for me?
[00:55:27] Speaker A: Mary Bell, who is Mary Belle?
Mary Belle is the older sister of Sally Hemings through Sally's mother, Betsy or Elizabeth.
[00:55:41] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: She is her older sister who was conceived with an African man. So she's half black, half African and half. And, well, she's like 3/4 black, whereas Sally's 3/4 white. She's 3/4 black. They only share a mother.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: Tell me more.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: Well, she was the oldest of Elizabeth Betsy's children.
History doesn't say who the man was that was her father.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: It doesn't matter.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: We don't.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: We don't need to know all of Betty's business. We don't need all our business.
[00:56:18] Speaker A: But she was enslaved for part of her life and was given to Martha and Thomas in John Wales estate.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: She was enslaved.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: Okay, so Mary Hemings Bell is half sister to Sally Hemings is half sister to Martha Jefferson.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: Martha and Mary are not related.
[00:56:41] Speaker B: Right. Gotcha.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: It's the same way you and I are related. Yeah.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: Gotcha.
[00:56:46] Speaker A: So not related.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: Gotcha.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: Okay. No blood. No blood.
[00:56:49] Speaker B: No blood. There's.
[00:56:50] Speaker A: Okay. And again, she was enslaved with the Wales. And then when Johnny Wales died, the hemings were all given in a nice little bow package to the Jefferson household.
[00:57:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: Now. Now, 1774, she was brought with her family to Monticello, was enslaved as a household servant and a seamstress.
[00:57:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: While she was at Monticello, she had four. Four Children.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Daniel, Molly, Joseph and Betty.
[00:57:25] Speaker B: Okay. Betsy.
[00:57:27] Speaker A: Betsy. I'm sorry, Betsy. I'm getting my names confused. Okay.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: Four children. Got it.
[00:57:32] Speaker A: Four children.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: While she's living in Monticello.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: While she's living in Monticello.
[00:57:37] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: So when Jefferson went to Paris.
[00:57:42] Speaker B: Uh huh.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:57:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:57:44] Speaker A: She was rented out to a man named Thomas Bell in Charlottesville.
And when T. Jeffs came back, she went to Jefferson and was like, I want to stay with Thomas Bell. Because they developed a relationship as man and wife.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: Makes sense.
[00:58:05] Speaker A: As common law man and wife. And she wanted to stay with Thomas Bell and not be enslaved anymore.
[00:58:11] Speaker B: What he say?
[00:58:13] Speaker A: He wrote his manager of the plantation, Nicholas Lewis, and says, dispose of Mary according to her desire with such of her younger children as she chooses, because she had two younger children with Bell at this point. But he said, I'm keeping the four children that she had at Monticello so Mary can go with the youngest Bell kids. But. But these kids are staying here.
[00:58:42] Speaker B: Part of me is like, dick move. And then part of me is like, why? Aside from the fact that they're valuable because they're enslaved. Right.
Interesting. Keep going. I have questions.
[00:58:53] Speaker A: Mary lived until her common law husband, Thomas Bells.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: She outlived Thomas Bell, and they were never properly married. But because they lived together was a common law sort of thing.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: This still happens today. But Mary outlives Thomas Bell. He dies in 1800. He did not legally free her, but like, unofficially, the neighbors and like the community, like, no, that woman is. Is free. Leave her be. Right.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:59:20] Speaker A: Bell does write in his will that these people are free. Mary and her children are free. And again, people respected it. They didn't take it to the letter of the law to say what the legality was, but she was able to keep the Bell estate. And so she had money and her two children.
[00:59:36] Speaker B: Nice. Okay.
[00:59:38] Speaker A: She maintained a close relationship with her enslaved children that were still at Monticello, because again, she's living in Charlottesville. It's just a carriage ride away.
[00:59:47] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:59:48] Speaker A: And Joseph and Betsy were only 11 and 9 at the time that they were separated from their mother. So these were young kids.
[00:59:56] Speaker B: A.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: So as they got older and they were still enslaved as Monticello, there was like this financial crisis that happened to Monticello in 1827, and they started selling off Monticello's assets. And part of that sell off was Mary's kids.
[01:00:15] Speaker B: And Mary sold her children farther away.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: Mary was able to purchase Joseph and some of Joseph's family from that sale.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[01:00:28] Speaker A: Now, Betsy, whose father has been debate, debated. She was 14 then when she. In 1827, when she was sold 80 miles away, Jefferson had. Well, sold. She was given to Maria. So Sally's the person that Sally raised.
[01:00:52] Speaker B: Yes. As Thomas Jefferson's daughter. Yeah.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: Betsy was given to Maria and her husband, John Wales Epps, as part of their. Like their wedding sentiment. Like, this is your wedding gift. Here's a person.
[01:01:05] Speaker B: Okay, got it. Now Fast forward to 1993 and in the Chilla Cathy Gazette. I looked it up. Chillicothe Gazette of. In an article entitled of noble ancestry, four local residents can trace their family tree to the third president, Thomas Jefferson. And they are William and his sister, Pearl Cunningham. William Cunningham and Pearl Cunningham. And their cousins, Jack Pettiford and Marianne Pettiford. Interesting. So here we have another line of individuals of this part of the same family, the Cunningham crew, who are claiming to be descendants of Thomas Jefferson in 1990.
[01:01:54] Speaker A: So they're living in this same small town in Ohio, living together, knowing that they're. They're DNA cousins somehow, because they're both a part of Jefferson's descendant line.
[01:02:04] Speaker B: Right, right.
[01:02:05] Speaker A: It's like a well known secret. And again, Eston and Madison moved to Ohio.
[01:02:11] Speaker B: Okay, so what happens? Are they indeed descendants of Jefferson? And if so, how so?
[01:02:21] Speaker A: So I love these questions. So after the DNA of Esten came out in 1998, Sally's son. Yes, Sally's son.
That DNA was confirmed. Confirmed that the Pitfords were of Jefferson descent. But no one had DNA from the other line. Now, the other line, exhibit A, Jennifer, the Hemings family tree.
Now, Elizabeth Hemings.
[01:02:54] Speaker B: Okay, yes.
[01:02:56] Speaker A: Has a husband that she was taken from when she was enslaved to John Wales. Okay, so, yeah, she has Mary Hemings Bell.
[01:03:08] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:03:09] Speaker A: Mary Hemings Bell has Joseph Fawcett.
[01:03:13] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:03:14] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:03:14] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: Joseph Fawcett has Ann Elizabeth Fawcett.
Ann Elizabeth Fawcett has Frederick Isaacs and. And Ann Elizabeth Idris marries.
Marries Pearl Cummingham. And that's where William and Pearl Cunningham come from.
[01:03:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:03:36] Speaker A: It's Mary's Hemings line.
[01:03:39] Speaker B: And are they confirmed? Were they confirmed in the 90s as being.
As being great grandchildren of Thomas Jefferson?
[01:03:50] Speaker A: They only tested Eston's against the claims.
[01:03:56] Speaker B: Then why are we talking about Mary and her line?
[01:04:00] Speaker A: Because now if you go online and you have these gedmatches and you have these forums where people are taking their own DNA and it's really accessible to compare DNA.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:13] Speaker A: People are finding that they are related to Thomas Jefferson and these descendants in another way, not just through Sally and Esten's.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: Line through Mary.
[01:04:24] Speaker A: Mary's. So the four children that Mary had potentially, were Thomas Jefferson's children.
What does that do to your mind right now?
[01:04:42] Speaker B: Okay, so Thomas Jefferson was not only sleeping with Sally, but before. Before he was sleeping with Sally, he was sleeping with Mary.
[01:04:54] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:04:56] Speaker B: Which means that this whole narrative of Thomas Jefferson, founding father of the United States, who was sleeping with Sally because he was romantically in love with her, and it's somehow this noble sort of situation where she's half. Half sister with his wife, and so, like, it just makes sense that he has a relationship with her.
[01:05:22] Speaker A: The actual story, the narrative published time and time and again, was that Martha, on her deathbed, begged him not to marry again. So Sally was this godsent, this loophole. I won't have to get married again, but I can still love another. And this other looks like you. And I'm honoring you and our relationship and helping out other parts of your family.
[01:05:43] Speaker B: Okay. Bullshit. And I also wonder, aside from Mary, how many of the other enslaved women he was also sleeping with. Now that we just blow the roof off of that theory that he was just madly in love with, with Sally.
[01:05:56] Speaker A: I also want to say this, if I were, and the reason why I want to say it, because remember Annette Gordon Reed's first book before the DNA was to say what's probable. And I do want to say that a year after Martha Jefferson dies, it is well documented that Thomas Jefferson had taken Mary Hemings with him to Williamsburg as a house slave from 1779 to 1781. Her baby Betsy was born in 1783, a year after the wife died. So it's pretty compelling evidence that the timeline matches up and the fact that these people today are. Have the. The tool of genealogy to say, hey, hey, hey.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So a couple things. He was sleeping with Mary around the time of 1779 to about 1783, as far as I can piece it. And then he was sleeping with Sally from 1787 onward until he died. Probably. Probably, yeah. But so he wasn't sleeping with both of them at the same time, as far as I can see. But again, how many others are there that he was banging boots with?
[01:07:15] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:07:16] Speaker B: Ick.
[01:07:17] Speaker A: How many? Like I think of the TV show the Jeffersons was that family depicted a descendant of Thomas Jefferson. Like, how many. How many Jefferson descendants are walking around that we will never have the DNA unless they try to upload their DNA to GEDmatch, which is a DNA community.
[01:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:38] Speaker A: Where that was used to find one of, like, serial Killers.
[01:07:42] Speaker B: I wonder if they are. I wonder if they are. And it's just not being published. I mean, that's probable too.
[01:07:49] Speaker A: Like they're just not taken seriously because these aren't like genetic people. These are people just like using this free service.
[01:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:58] Speaker A: GEDmatch. To connect with their DNA cousins.
[01:08:01] Speaker B: So what are your takeaways?
[01:08:05] Speaker A: My takeaway of Jefferson is that I feel like I was duped. I feel like I always. I knew the story of Sally Hemings. I think every American did. I didn't doubt Sally Hemings having a relationship with Jefferson, but what I was fool enough to believe was the narrative around the. The. The relationship. That there was love, respect, and he treated her well instead of like she was like 14 when she was on his radar, you know, like.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about because you and I were pondering the question in the car when we were on the road. Did he really love her and did she love him? And it doesn't matter. She was a child and she was. The power differential there is such that it doesn't matter what she thought. She had no choice. She literally had no choice. He owned her in the. By U.S. law. He owned her and she was a child. Okay, so it doesn't matter if she said yes. It's like if a 21 year old sleeps with a 14 year old. Doesn't matter if the 14 year old says yes. 14 year old is a child. The 14 year old cannot give. No. Does not have the legal authority of consent. Yeah. So.
[01:09:27] Speaker A: Ick. The question is, how many other enslaved women did Jefferson rape?
[01:09:35] Speaker B: Ooh, I don't like the R word, but yes. I mean, it's appropriate.
Well, yeah, it depends on whose definition. I agree with you. I agree with you. And also. Yeah. Can we just look at human beings as flawed human beings? Like, do we have to like, romanticize everything about a person just because they did some good things for the country?
[01:10:00] Speaker A: I agree. I agree with you 100%. It takes nothing away from the Declaration of Independence. It actually makes you ponder who was this man who can compartmentalize in this way.
[01:10:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:13] Speaker A: Who famously wrote indicating that he knew better, but yet participated. Not just participated, but like fully participated in the, the society and the way they treated enslaved people at the time. Like, he was a full on participant.
[01:10:33] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, for sure. All right.
[01:10:36] Speaker A: Just. I just have to tell you something else. This is not going to make you happy.
[01:10:40] Speaker B: All right, tell me.
[01:10:41] Speaker A: I was intrigued by Betsy.
She was the youngest child of, if we believe Jefferson and Mary Hemings Bell.
[01:10:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:10:52] Speaker A: Okay. She was given to Maria and her husband, John Wales Epps. Now, it's documented and rumored that John Wales Epps fathered Betsy's children. And Betsy is buried on the Epsom State. And her headstone reads, a sacred memory of our mammy, Betsy Hemings, who is a mother, sister, and friend to all.
And the thing is about this story about Jefferson and Mary Hemings Bell is that Sally was not special.
And this is happening generationally.
[01:11:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:37] Speaker A: And Sally is being. Has the spotlight because not only of Madison Heming and his reminiscence, but because John Adams was a little bitch and wrote terrible things to his sons about their relationship between Sally and Jefferson, but also the newspaper at the time, spilling the tea, being racist as fuck, being like, he's not only sleeping with this woman, but not treating her as poorly as he should be.
[01:12:06] Speaker B: Right, Exactly. So my takeaways are men are gross. And I'm sorry if you're a man and you're listening or watching, but men are included. You know, Men are gross. And number two, men with unchecked power are the grossest and the most dangerous, I would say.
[01:12:28] Speaker A: Agreed. Agreed.
[01:12:31] Speaker B: All right. So done with that.
[01:12:33] Speaker A: What do you. What do you want to do for detours?
[01:12:35] Speaker B: Dirty. I just feel dirty.
[01:12:37] Speaker A: You know what we need to do for detours? We need to talk about good presidents.
[01:12:43] Speaker B: Okay. I like it.
[01:12:45] Speaker A: I like it, too. I. Did you know? Did you know? Because now I was like, I'm obsessed with things I don't know about American presidents.
[01:12:52] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:12:52] Speaker A: George Washington. Did you know this? George Washington, slave owner. When he realized the. The. The travesty and the brutality of slavery, he freed all his slaves.
[01:13:03] Speaker B: He did.
[01:13:04] Speaker A: He freed them all. So not only do you love George Washington for being like, don't name the country's capital after me. Don't move the country's capital near me.
[01:13:14] Speaker B: Don't.
[01:13:15] Speaker A: I don't want to be the president. Then he's like, you know what? I don't believe in this slavery thing. This can't be right. And gave freedom to all the slaves.
[01:13:24] Speaker B: I love that. I want to know how long it took him to realize that slavery was wrong. But I love that he freed them all.
[01:13:31] Speaker A: He bought. He was born into a family that had slaves, so, like, got it.
[01:13:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:13:35] Speaker A: So it wasn't like he was like, I'm gonna get me some slaves. It was like they were always around.
[01:13:39] Speaker B: All right. I like that. Good old George Washington. Okay, so we'll. We'll talk about presidents, other presidents in our detours and where can people find us on Detours?
[01:13:48] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, I have so much things to tell our people. Okay, you can find us on Detours if you subscribe to the thing.
[01:13:57] Speaker B: Third tier of our Patreon, actually, second tier. Tier two.
[01:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:02] Speaker B: More Mystics, which is the five.
[01:14:03] Speaker A: The $5 tier. You get More Mystics.
[01:14:05] Speaker B: Detours. Oh my, what a bargain. And Detours were supposed to originally be like 15 minute short pods, but we're doing like longer videos now for our Detour. So join us there.
[01:14:18] Speaker A: And we don't edit.
[01:14:20] Speaker B: No. And this isn't going to be edited.
[01:14:22] Speaker A: Well, this video isn't going to be edited.
[01:14:24] Speaker B: This video isn't going to be edited.
[01:14:25] Speaker A: What are you going to do with this video?
[01:14:27] Speaker B: I don't know. Put it on YouTube, see if people like it.
[01:14:30] Speaker A: You're going to do this on YouTube?
[01:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. We're going to see if people like it. If you like it, let us know. If you don't, let us know.
[01:14:37] Speaker A: I want to say. What do you want to say from us to you? We really appreciate you guys downloading, subscribing and sharing us with your friends. It means so much to us and it gives us a larger impact in the space. So please, if you haven't already, go to YouTube and subscribe to our channel because that's gonna help us tremendously as well.
[01:14:56] Speaker B: And also on Apple, right? Leave us a positive review.
[01:14:58] Speaker A: Oh my God. The positive reviews on Apple's are everything. Okay, if you love Common Mystics, we got more for you. Learn about our mystical world by visiting Patreon CommonMyStics. You can find out a little bit more about us on our website, commonmystics.net connect with us. Schedule a reading. Just say hi or give us feedback via our email commonmysticsmail.com for more magic, follow us on all the socials at Common Mystics Pod. And don't forget our exclusive content. That is pretty cheap. We're going cheap. We going cheap on especially the Detours on Patreon. So check us out. We love you. All of you that participate on Patreon at any level. Really do keep the lights on. You don't even know. Thank you so much.
[01:15:55] Speaker B: Love our patrons. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much.
[01:15:57] Speaker A: Love all of you. And I love our Aussies. Aussies, tell us, email us and tell us if we did you good in describing who Thomas Jefferson was and if you knew him. I want to know. Do you guys know Thomas Jefferson?
[01:16:09] Speaker B: I bet they do.
[01:16:10] Speaker A: I mean, they're smart people. They probably do. It's like, do you know them and care? You know what I mean? Like, it's just a president, you know?
[01:16:18] Speaker B: All right. Thanks, Jill. This is fun.
[01:16:20] Speaker A: Thanks, Jen. I love you.
[01:16:22] Speaker B: Love you.
[01:16:22] Speaker A: Thank you, guys.
[01:16:23] Speaker B: All right.
[01:16:23] Speaker A: Bye. Bye. This has been a common Mystics Media Production editing done by Yokai Audio, Kalamazoo, Michigan.
