Mongrel Nation: The America Begotten by Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

The debate over the affair between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings rarely rises above the question of 'Did they or didn't they?' But lost in the argument over the existence of such a relationship are equally urgent questions about a history that is more complex, both sexually and culturally, than most of us realize. Mongrel Nation seeks to uncover this complexity, as well as the reasons it is so often obscured.

About the Author :
Clarence E. Walker is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, and the author of We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument about Afrocentrism.

Review :
"[H]istorian Walker situates American icon Thomas Jefferson's fathering of children by his slave Sally Hemings within the broad context of commonplace sex across the color line in early America.... His critical commentary on American self-identity constructed from imagined racial creations to support dominance and subordination fits neatly with such recent works as Peggy Pascoe's What Comes Naturally, David Roediger's How Race Survived U.S. History, and Linda Frost's Never One Nation.... This provocative, quick read belongs on graduate and undergraduate reading lists and in any collection that seriously considers U.S. history." - Library Journal "Thomas Jefferson's heroic stature as an Enlightenment archetype, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president has always made his positions on race particularly troubling in a nation that wants to think of itself as just and equitable and also racially pure. Historian Walker uses the contradictions between Jefferson's writings on race and his thirty-eight-year relationship with his slave Sally Hemings as a prism through which to view the complexities of American race relations" - Booklist "America has indeed been a mongrel nation, not just in terms of blood, but in terms of culture and politics, from the very beginning. Walker very rightly challenges the assumption that the Jefferson-Hemings liaison was either unusual or exceptional. He provides critical insight that not only will enlighten general readers but will spur other scholars to explore the range of sources and material they consider when writing about Jefferson and Hemings, as well as other mixed families in slavery. The importance of this cannot be overstated." - Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family"