GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Tom and Sally
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 07:51:36 EDT

In a message dated 5/5/2001 1:12:35 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
writes:


> 2. If he actually had sex with her when she was still in her teens,
> particularly when he was so much older than she was, then the man could be
> considered a pedophile. Do you think that many people want to think of
> dear
> old Thom, the venerable writer of significant portions of the Constitution,
> as a nasty pedophile.


> don't disagree with your conclusion, but I would disagree with this
> rationale for two reasons. (1) If she was a teen of child bearing
> capability it is evidence he was not a paedophile. (2) In that era
> marriage/cohabitation as early as 13 was not at all uncommon in the South.



>
> AD: 3. Having sex with Sally would mean that he was a rapist, since a
> slave had
> no right to deny consent to sex from the master, or any white man, for that
> matter. Do many people want to view Thom as a rapist?

GAC: Do you have a citation for this? My understanding was that the slave
lacked the ability to not consent--consent was assumed as the slave was
property. On black women and white men in the slave South, see Deborah Gray
White, Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York,
1985), 33-46; Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 237, 297-98, 307-15, 319-24;
Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York,
1972), 413-31, 461; Gutman, Black Family, 83-84, 386-96, 399-402; Clinton,
Plantation Mistress, 211-20; James Hugo Johnston, Race Relations in Virginia
and Miscegenation in the South, 1776-1860 (Amherst, Mass., 1970), ch. 9;
Richard Steckel, "Miscegenation and the American Slave Schedules," Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 11 (1980): 251-63; Steven Brown, "Sexuality and the
Slave Community," Phylon 42 (1981): 7-8; C. Vann Woodward, American
Counterpoint: Slavery and Racism in the North-South Dialogue (Boston, 1964),
47-48, 75. For a primary source, see Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of
a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Jean Fagan Yellin, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.,
1987. You will remember that scripture was inappropriately quoted in support
of slavery: Paul wrote that slaves should be obedient to their masters
(Ephesians 6:5-7; see also Titus 2:9-10). In I Peter 2:18, it is even
specified to be submissive both to masters who are overbearing as well as
gentle. As noted in Racism and Psychiatry, Thomas and Sill, 1979, 101 -111,
slave owners often took advantage of female slaves (but executed or castrated
any black male suspected of paying attention to a white woman).

I do find support for your argument in the hypocrisy which would be evident
if Jefferson did have sexual relations with the slave given that Jefferson
maintained that the mixing of the races "produces a degradation to which no
lover of his country, no lover of excellence in human character can
innocently consent."


Glen Cook

This thread:

• [DNA] Tom and Sally by "Ralph Turner" <>
  • Re: [DNA] Tom and Sally by "A. Devilliers" <>
    • Re: [DNA] Tom & Sally by Pamela Berger <>
  • Re: [DNA] Tom and Sally by Marianne <>

  • Re: [DNA] Tom and Sally by