may have influenced some of JeffersonÆs public views on slavery.
Many slave owners made slave women their mistresses, and Jefferson appears to have been no exception. Though the practice was widespread, planters almost never admitted to cohabiting with their slaves: ôMulatto children were usually attributed to overseers, white indentured servants, and poor whitesö (Miller 163). Halfway through JeffersonÆs first presidential administration a Scottish journalist, James Callender, spread the story that Jefferson had secretly fathered a large illegitimate family with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings. Jefferson made no response to the allegations and generally, Republicans did not believe the Hemmings story. Recent DNA analysis, however, reveals positive that Jefferson fathered at least one of SallyÆs sons: ôThe failing of the study, which compared only Y chromosomes taken from unbroken chains of male descendants from both sides, of course leave out of the question who fathered SallyÆs daughters, who as females had no Y chromosome to pass alongö (Truscott 163). In his will, Jefferson freed five slaves, all of which were offspring of Sally Hemings, but did not free Sally herself, perhaps out of fear that doing so would have lent credence to CallenderÆs accusation.
Throughout his life, Jefferson periodically tried to do something slavery albeit he never really pushed the issue. In 1770, he argued in court for the freedom of a third-generation mulatto. Virginia law specifically stated that the offspring of a white women and a black man could go free after serving for thirty years, but did not give the same privilege to offspring of mulattoes. Jefferson attempted to win his case by asserting the natural right to freedom, ôunder the law of nature, all men are born free, and every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own willö (Miller 5). The ...