User talk:Virginia Historian

Welcome
I am concerned about your editorial changes to the articles Harriet Hemings and John Wayles. As to the accuracy of the original text, and your stated objections, I offer the following:

1. In the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (April 19, 2009), Prof. Jennifer Riddle Harding, professor of American literature and rhetoric at Washington & Jefferson College, states: "Harriet [Hemings] did have a brush with the spotlight -- in a completely fictional form. Her connection to Jefferson was publicized most notably in 1853 when William Wells Brown wrote "Clotel; or The President's Daughter" (the first novel published by an African American).

She adds: "That this wasn't true (and that Jefferson's slave daughter wasn't named Clotel) wasn't the point for abolitionists like Brown, who saw her as a public symbol of the embedded evils of slavery." (http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/09109/963637-109.stm)

2. Barbara Chase-Riboud, in her 1994 novel "The President's Daughter" which is itself a fictional treatment of the life of Harriet Hemings, acknowledges Brown's clotel, as she had also done previously in her 1979 prequel to the story entitled Sally Hemings. This reference can be found at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/callaloo/summary/v032/32.3.moynihan.html

History Repeating Itself: Passing, Pudd'nhead Wilson, and The President's Daughter, by Sinéad Moynihan, Callaloo, Volume 32, Number 3, Summer 2009, pp. 809-821.

Harriet Hemings was born in 1801, and evidently died sometime after 1863. William Wells Brown was born in 1816, and died in 1884. They were both essentially contemporaries. They both began life as slaves and later gained their rightful liberty.

In addition to the Clotel (Clotelle) series, Brown also wrote several works of history, including: (http://www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/appendixh.html)
 * The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements (1863)
 * The Negro in the American Revolution (1867)

Thus, in addition to being a renowned author and abolitionist orator in both the United States and Europe, he was also an able researcher. Your assertion, without evidence, that "It is clear that William Wells Brown, the author of Clotel, had no knowledge of Harriet Hemings and her departure from Monticello" is puzzling.

As to Edmund Bacon, the evidence indicates that he did not enter Mr. Jefferson's employ until 1806 - five years after the birth of Harriet Hemings. Therefore, his recollections and presumed eye-witness testimony as to her possible parentage are indeed questionable. Of "Captain" Edmund Bacon, the PBS Frontline website includes the following:

"Captain Edmund Bacon was chief overseer of Monticello for twenty years..." and "He offered his recollections of life at Monticello to Hamilton W. Pierson, the president of a local college, who, in the early 1860's, sought out Bacon at Bacon's Kentucky home." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/slaves/bacon.html)

Stating, as you have, that "he is never referred to as 'Captain' theses days" requires some clarification.

You are apparently quite new to Wikipedia volunteer editing, having been extended a welcome on August 20th, a mere four days ago. It is no doubt safe to conclude that you are not an Administrator. I would certainly have preferred that you posted your comments/objections on the article Discussion page or to my User page for consideration - discussion - prior to arbitrarily deleting and altering content that I took the time to research and include; and which I still consider to be accurate.

I will not undo your changes immediately, as I will extend the courtesy of awaiting your response.Tonymartin (talk) 20:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)