New DNA analysis adds evidence Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings
New DNA analysis provides further evidence supporting the long-standing historical claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman. The findings are detailed in a new book by Smithsonian scholar Richard Kurin.
Why it matters
Revisits a significant historical controversy, bridging scientific forensic evidence with the legacy of American slavery and the founding fathers.
History Jefferson's Monticello Makes Room For Sally Hemings For more than 200 years, one question about the nation's third president has lingered: Did Thomas Jefferson father children with Sally Hemings, a woman 30 years his junior whom he held in slavery?
The question has long been part of debates over slavery, race, power and Jefferson's legacy.
"Thomas Jefferson wrote the most famous phrase in American history — 'All men are created equal' — and yet, if he bore children with Sally Hemings who were born into slavery, it seemed like a paradox and a contradiction," Richard Kurin told NPR's Michel Martin for Morning Edition .
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