Why did Thomas Jefferson get romantically involved with Sally Hemings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why this could not have been a consenting relationship is because sally was between 14 and 16 yrs when they began having sex. She was still a child.

People got married/had sex at 14 then. It was quite common. Heck, my grandmother married my grandfather when she was 14 in 1915.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous



Another reason why this could not have been a consenting relationship is because sally was between 14 and 16 yrs when they began having sex. She was still a child.

No back in the day people got married at that age. There was no consent b/c he owned her. He could do what he wanted with his property.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He didn't just simply remarry another white because he was already in love. It was taboo at the time, his affinity for a black woman, but that doesn't mean it wasn't sincere. Goes to show despite whatever cultural traditions and ethical practices society puts in place to determine who can/should be with whom, love supersedes all policies and protocol.

Yes --because you can really and truly call it a wonderful love affair when a man is 'in love' with someone HE OWNS!
The ignorance is soooooooo astounding!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They had 6 kids together. If that ain't love then what is?

Ariel Castro had a child with one of the women he kept imprisoned for a decade. That must have been love too.

thank you !!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He didn't just simply remarry another white because he was already in love. It was taboo at the time, his affinity for a black woman, but that doesn't mean it wasn't sincere. Goes to show despite whatever cultural traditions and ethical practices society puts in place to determine who can/should be with whom, love supersedes all policies and protocol.

"Love?" You're a bit naive.

How do you know?

he owned her, and didn't free her or their children- you can't consent if you are someone's property so please don't buy into this "love" crap

+1

Why bother getting married when you have a piece of human property that you can coerce to fill whatever sexual need you have?

Hemmings didn't have the right to refuse him. I have no idea if she felt about him, but without consent, it's not really a romantic relationship. It's legal rape.

[Anonymous]

Here's what I'm curious about: why are some people so determined to believe that this relationship was a great romance? What on earth do they gain from this belief?

Or maybe it's just one person on DCUM, who posts about it regularly. I sure hope so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the fuck are you people going back and forth about - the shit happened centuries ago and there's no way to know one way or the other what the deal was between those two.
Stop debating for the sake of argument and settle for the only true conclusion which is "No one knows."

Here's what we do know:

He owned her. He had sex with a person that he owned who could not legally refuse him.

That's not romance or love. It's just gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the fuck are you people going back and forth about - the shit happened centuries ago and there's no way to know one way or the other what the deal was between those two.
Stop debating for the sake of argument and settle for the only true conclusion which is "No one knows."

This must be why we're still arguing 200 years later, because this is not true. The only true conclusion isn't "no one knows" it's "She was owned by him and in such a relationship there is no such thing as consent." Feelings are completely, utterly irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Damn y'all still going on about this shit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Damn y'all still going on about this shit?

I guess that we should stop talking about history

[Anonymous]

Why does it have to be one or the other? Yes I could have been legal rape, but who's to say she wouldn't have consented if she even had that choice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does it have to be one or the other? Yes I could have been legal rape, but who's to say she wouldn't have consented if she even had that choice?

There's no way to know what would have happened if she'd been raised in freedom, taught that she was a person of worth and equal value, allowed to stay with her family until adulthood and not shipped off to a strange country and a man who raped her when she was 14. But that didn't happen. Given the circumstances she was in, any choice she had was influenced by the horror of slavery, and therefore doesn't count as consent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Romanticizing slave master/slave relationships is pretty damn insulting.

Even a relationship that went on for 40 years and was enveloped so much innuendo about a possible romance that it continues to compel discussion and debate even to this day?

The innuendo was not about "a possible romance". The innuendo was about Thomas Jefferson fathering children with one of his slaves. (As, in fact, he did.) You're the one who keeps insisting it was "romantic".

Yeah, the rumors weren't "was Jefferson in love with Hemings?" it was "did Jefferson have sex with Hemings"? And the Monticello Mafia denied it and insisted that some other male relative of Jefferson's was the father of Hemings's children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does it have to be one or the other? Yes I could have been legal rape, but who's to say she wouldn't have consented if she even had that choice?

ugh, the point is that she didn't have a choice- we don't get to live in some magical world where slavery and the owning of people might not have been so bad - It was and constructing or supposing this "romance" involving a woman who had no choice is just re-writing history to make you feel better, it is gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the fuck are you people going back and forth about - the shit happened centuries ago and there's no way to know one way or the other what the deal was between those two.
Stop debating for the sake of argument and settle for the only true conclusion which is "No one knows."

Here's what we do know:

He owned her. He had sex with a person that he owned who could not legally refuse him.

That's not romance or love. It's just gross.

Agreed. I don't see why people are romanticizing something that's just fundamentally horrible.