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From: "Dennis Maggard" <>
Subject: Re: [Melungeon] descendants of slaves
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 13:03:26 -0400
References: <b2.48adf09.263db320@aol.com>


From: <>

> I have to respond to the lack of credibility for Black people who claim to
be
> descended from "Slave owners". Its something like "every Irishman is
> descended from an Irish King". It just isn't so.
> There were severe penalties for any man who had sexual intercourse with a
> female slave. Not to mention the death penalty that would have been
imposed
> by his wife. Honor meant everything in the Old South and there were
ironclad
> rules of social behavior.

The above is simply untrue. It wasn't always the slave owner, of course;
there were also sons, brothers and nephews of the slave owner, overseers and
their male kinfolk, and any male visitor to the plantation who might get
into the act. Just to cite two of the many, many sources available on slave
life, see "Honor and Violence in the Old South" by Bertram Wyatt-Brown and
"Roll, Jordan, Roll" by Eugene Genovese. I'm sure there were slave owners
who did not do or allow such things and I'm not sure if violation of female
slaves was the exception or the rule, but if it was the exception, it was
certainly not an uncommon one.

> There are so many "Hollywood"
versions of
> plantation life that are pure fiction but now accepted by the masses as
> truth. The latest fiction is of course that Thomas Jefferson had a Black
> slave mistress. Not a shred of truth in it, but it makes a good story.
> Before you say "DNA", the DNA that was supposedly tested was NOT Thomas
> Jeffersons. One would think that anyone of Melungeon descent would want
truth
> and not stories made up to sell movies, books and to facilitate the
decline
> and fall of western civilization.

The DNA testing showed that the father of at least one of Sally Hennings'
children was either Jefferson, his uncle or a nephew. Based on who had the
opportunity, the circumstantial case for it being Jefferson is very strong.
Note that Sally Hennings was Jefferson's deceased wife's half-sister, and it
may well have been on that basis that he was attracted to her. I don't
think any of this means Jefferson was not a great man. He was, but he was
not the first great man whose actions sometimes fell short of his great
words, and in particular Jefferson was never able to reconcile the
contradiction between owning slaves and proclaiming that all men are created
equal.


Dennis Maggard


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