This book was written by a legal historian and it shows. Not bad, I like the topic. As far as historical books go it could have been worse.

Incredibly neutral and factual presentation. I felt like I was on a jury.

Fascinating.

A solid book. I particularly liked the textual analysis of previous historians' work (or lack thereof) on this topic.
This is not the book to read if you want a strong attempt to develop a picture of Sally Hemings as a person (it provides a better view of Jefferson, in that sense); also, far from a completely conclusive 'proof' of Jefferson fathering Hemings' children; but a great introduction to the flaws in the traditional scholarship on this topic (in that it's not been scholarly at all) and a strong argument that Jefferson may very well have been Hemings' co-parent. Also, an interesting look into the possible mindsets of Hemings' adult children.

If you want an attempt to extrapolate more about who Hemings was as a person and more about her relationship to Jefferson, read Gordon-Reed's follow up, 'The Hemings of Monticello'.

this is a great book and really debunks the myth about sally hemmings as the "willing" young slave girl owned by thomas jefferson.

I agree with Professor Gordon-Reed on one point; professional historians have made a mess of things. But she has done no better. Believers will be reinforced. Skeptics will feel secure. Those approaching with an open mind will be unable to decide.

Several attempts are made to prove a negative (e.g. some evidence doesn't exist perhaps because the Jeffersons destroyed it) There are factual misdirections (e.g. Edmund Bacon had close ties by 1801, not starting in 1806.) And some of the evidence is missing completely. (e.g. One of the prime suspects, Randolph Jefferson, is not mentioned once, even though the Eston Hemings family claimed him as their ancestor for 170 years.) The inconclusive DNA testing was completed after the book was published.

If you're looking for answers, read other books on the subject. Because no matter what your final conclusion, this is a poorly written book.

A thoughtful pre-DNA test treatment of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship. While it reads like a lawyer's brief at times (unsurprisingly since the author is a lawyer), it would be an excellent book to use for teaching historical methodology to undergraduate history majors.

This was a pretty dry read but learned a lot.

This is a hard book to review. I was looking for a narrative history of the relationship of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, his slave who now we know genetically bore him several children. When this book was published in 1997 historians had been and were still arguing whether Jefferson was the father of Sally's children. Annette Gordon-Reed is first a lawyer and the book, rather than the narrative I expected, was a legalistic analysis of the treatments of the alleged relationship through various eras of journalistic/political and historical review. As I grew to understand how little history of Sally Hemings was contemporaneously recorded, Gordon-Reed's analysis of the pros and cons of each of the major analyses of the relationship drew me in. It is a lesson of how historians have fit the facts to how they view the world should be. I learned much about Jefferson and his extended family and the sexual relationship of male slave owners with female slaves. The historical record leaves little or no information about the emotional relationship of Jefferson and Hemings. But Gordon-Reed builds a strong circumstantial case. In the end I found this a fascinating book

This book was originally written before DNA testing were completed which ultimately showed that Sally Heming's children were indeed Jefferson children. It must be emphasized that although tests confirm that Sally Hemings did indeed have children which were a match to Jefferson DNA, it is not necessarily so that Heming's children were the offspring of THOMAS Jefferson. This book, although repetitious and sometimes dry, was very interesting. Dr. Gordon Reed is an attorney and therefore wrote the book as if she were presenting a case in court. I can't say, however, that she convinced me with her arguments. Her main argument which was repeated many times is that racism and the idea of 'white supremacy' are so ingrained in our society and consequently, most historians cannot look at the evidence presented regarding the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in an objective manner. I am not disputing that racism is ingrained in many levels in our society. I was just not swayed by Dr. Gordon-Reed's arguments.

In the end, I found the book to be very interesting as far as the historical perspective she gave. She provided a great deal of information about the background of slavery in Virginia. And I found the little pieces of information she uncovered about Heming's children which were told in their own words to be fascinating. All in all, the book demonstrates what I (and probably MOST people)already knew.... there were ALWAYS relationships (sexual or romantic) between slave owners and the women they 'owned' as slaves. This relationship just happened to be between the third President of the United States and a woman who was his slave.

I read this instead of the much longer Hemingses of Monticello, just to get an introduction to the controversy. This is really more a work of historiographical criticism than of straightforward historical narrative. AGR's main purpose is to critique the way that other historians have portrayed the Hemings-Jefferson relationship, or more specifically, their denial that it even happened. As she does this, she explores the evidence for their relationship, which clearly happened based on the historical evidence alone.

So what is the evidence for the Hemings-Jefferson relationship? There were people like the editor James Callender and, after the Civil War, his son Madison Hemings who testified to the relationship. TJ brought SH to France when she was a teenager, and it appears the liaison started there. Hemings only became pregnant at times when we know Jefferson was around Monticello, and she appeared to have no other sexual relationships. Jefferson also treated Hemings' children differently: they received light work and their freedom upon reaching adulthood. This was a form of favoritism unusual for Jefferson, who freed few of his hundreds of slaves and was deeply in debt for much of his life. Overall, even before DNA evidence conclusively proved their relationship, there was strong historical evidence that it was the case.

What's more interesting for AGR is why so many historians, most of them white and male, have resisted this truth. She also explores the argumentative tricks and stereotypes they deployed to enshrine this denial. Historians would argue that having sex with a slave was out of TJ's character either as a gentleman or a racist, which is preposterous if you know how often slaveholders had sex with their slaves. They would draw on stereotypes of black women to argue that Hemings slept with many men, and they found other men who were around Monticello and tried to pin her pregnancies on them, with very little evidence. All of this was designed to maintain a certain image of Jefferson as a cerebral, heroic, and principled founder of the nation and to avoid thinking about sexual exploitation as a fundamental part of slavery.

AGR, however, also portrays their relationship as complicated, and she makes some nuanced points that give Hemings a good deal of agency in her own romantic life. Obviously, outright rape was rampant in American slavery, and given the power relationship, no slave-master sexual relationship can be considered free from the threat of coercion. Yet, AGR argues, enslaved women had reasons to choose to engage in these relationships. It seems that Hemings, like some other women, derived a quid pro quo from Jefferson about freeing their children. Her mother also engaged in a relationship with her owner, which could be a pay to gain privileges and protection (from hard labor or sale, for example). AGR doesn't leave out the possibility that they were genuinely attracted to each other, although Jefferson was in his 40s at the time and Hemings was only 16. At that point in history, a girl of that age was considered essentially a woman, as they lacked the concept of teenage-hood. In short, AGR doesn't defend the relationship but asks her readers to view enslaved women as complex and complete human beings capable of making their own choices.

Anyways, this book is a little dense, and there's a lot of historiographical discussion. So if that isn't your thing, it might just be better to read the longer and more narrative Hemingses of Monticello.

compelling and deep dive