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Article: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy.(Review)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. By Annette Gordon-Reed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997. Pp. xx, 288. $29.95.)
In this study, Annette Gordon-Reed examines primary documents and historical interpretations concerning the alleged thirty-eight-year liaison between Thomas Jefferson and a female slave. The author admits she did not want this story to be true because she did not want to believe that "Jefferson could treat his own flesh as slaves" and claims, "It is not my goal to prove that the story is true or that it is false"; but, by the time readers are halfway through her extensive arguments, they should be ...