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Annette Gordon-Reed : Seeing Past the Slave to Study the Person

When, 11 years ago, DNA evidence convinced most experts that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings, many people talked about what the discovery said about Jefferson. Yet few seemed all that interested in what it said about the young girl he owned.

Annette Gordon-Reed was one of those few. Her 1997 book,"Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy" (University of Virginia Press), examined how historians throughout the decades consistently discounted the rumored relationship, ignoring the oral testimony of black descendants. Since then she has combed legal records, diaries, farm books, letters, wills, old newspapers, archives, relatives' memories and more to rescue not only Sally but the entire Hemings clan from obscurity.

Their story is contained in her book"The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family" (W. W. Norton), to be released on Monday. In nearly 800 pages she follows four generations of Hemingses, starting with their origins in Virginia in the 1700s and continuing through 1826, when Jefferson died and his home, Monticello, was put up for sale.

"I wanted to tell the story of this family in a way not done before" so that readers can"see slave people as individuals," Ms. Gordon-Reed said, sitting on a bench at the slavery exhibit at the New-York Historical Society, where she will be speaking on Oct. 14 with Brent Staples, an editorial writer for The New York Times. Looking down from the balcony, visitors can see glass cabinets holding dozens of busts and statues, including a small one of Jefferson. On another shelf is a bronze cast of Lincoln's face and hands.

Read entire article at NYT