Jefferson–Hemings controversy

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The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed Thomas Jefferson and his much younger slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors that he had sex with a slave. Based on his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings's children. The opinion of historians began to shift in the second half of the 20th century, and by the 21st century and after DNA tests of descendants, most historians agree that Jefferson was the father of one or more of Sally's children. In the 1850s, Randolph told the historian Henry Randall that the late Peter Carr, a married nephew of Jefferson's (a son of his sister), had fathered Hemings's children. Randolph asked Randall to refrain from addressing the issue in his biography. Randall passed on this information to...

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