Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Yale University Press, and author Christa Dierksheide for the advanced reader copy of this book. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I remember way back in the late 1970s or early 1980s watching a Phil Donahue show where he had as guests various descendants of Thomas Jefferson. The topic was whether or not the descendants of his illegitimate offspring should be included in the official records at Monticello. It was an interesting exchange at the time before DNA analysis was widely available and some of it stuck in my memory all these years later. It was one of the things that prompted me to request Beyond Jefferson: The Hemingses, the Randolphs, and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America as an advanced reader copy.

Christa Dierksheide researched what became of Thomas Jefferson’s descendants in the years following his death. The path of his legitimate grandchildren versus the illegitimate ones was quite different. After reading this book, I’d posit that the illegitimate ones actually fared better in the long run. Although two of them turned their back on their African-American heritage and passed themselves off as white, they did service to their country as equal citizens.

I learned quite a bit about the Opium Wars in China in the 19th century. Jefferson’s granddaughter, Ellen Randolph married a merchant involved in the opium trade between England, India, and China. His dealings were shady, to say the least. The same is true for two of her brothers, Jeff and Lewis, who tried to buy up federal land in Arkansas territory, anticipating that since it became a state they could make a windfall. They even tried to build a working cotton plantation, figuring they could demonstrate that the crop was viable and flip the plantation at the same time. The only problem was that the area of Arkansas where they chose to do it was not a good place to grow cotton. They left behind a mountain of debt and some very angry co-investors.

When Thomas Jefferson died, he freed Eston and Madison Hemings in his will. For a time, they lived nearby in Charlottesville, Virginia. Their mother, Sally, lived with them as well although she was not officially “free.” After she passed, they moved to Ohio, likely trying to escape the reprisals from Nat Turner’s Rebellion. One of Eston’s sons left behind his African-American identity and moved to Wisconsin, where they passed for white. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, becoming a decorated colonel.

In his later life, Madison dictated a memoir about growing up as Thomas Jefferson’s illegitimate son on his plantation. Although much had been made during Thomas Jefferson’s life about his relationship with a slave girl much younger than him, it was mostly considered to be rumors that faded from memory after a time. Madison’s book reignited the rumors by putting faces to the names that had once been whispered about.

Dierksheide has done a tremendous amount of research, covering nearly the entire world. She traces Ellen Randolph throughout Virginia, Boston, England, and China. Pouring through all of these records is much more difficult than just going through the archives at Monticello where she is affiliated. She shows how Jefferson’s descendants were a part of the new nation as the world around them grew and changed. The legitimate grandchildren seemed to be looking for ways to enrich themselves, even if it was at the expense of other people. This was especially true of Jeff and Lewis. When the capture and sale of Africans was made illegal, they found themselves involved in trying to get around it in Cuba.

I also learned a lot about how slaves were a part of the early days of building railroads. I knew about Irish and Chinese immigrants being involved in the building of the railroads, but I’d never thought about the use of slaves. Dierksheide showed that slaves were used as much more than just household servants and field hands, something I never thought about before. In Virginia, as the planter class fell on hard times, they would rent out their slaves. Most of the time this kept the slaves away from the very dangerous blasting work involved with the railroads, as if anything happened to them their owners would have to be compensated. Still, many were killed during the building of the railroads, and their deaths haven’t been acknowledged.

I enjoyed Beyond Jefferson: The Hemingses, the Randolphs, and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America a great deal. The beginning was a bit slow. I found the history of the Randolphs to be a bit plodding. It picked up quite a bit once it was focused on the Hemings’. There was also quite a bit of history that I didn’t know before. We’re taught names and dates in school, but this book is a demonstration that it’s the people who create history that are important. The decisions and choices that Jefferson’s descendants made for themselves are interesting, as it seems the contrasts in that particular Founding Father lived on in many ways.

I found this book to be very informative in shedding light on a little exp.ired area of Jefferson's life. Particularly illustrating how hus descendants affected the country. While not as illustrious as the Adam's family they were notable not always in the right way.

This comprehensive, well-researched and detailed biography follows the fortunes of some of Thomas Jefferson’s descendants, both black and white, and explores how the way they were influenced (or not) by their illustrious forbear and how they dealt with his legacy. Overall I found the book interesting, not least in relation to the Hemingses but I would have preferred the focus to be on fewer characters as afterwards I found it difficult to remember who was who. My inattention perhaps or maybe it would have been better to read each chapter with a longer break in between. It’s a scholarly text and didn’t really capture my imagination, although admittedly it’s well-written and accessible. I simply didn’t become invested in these descendants, although I learnt a lot and the book certainly broadened my knowledge of Jefferson and his legacy.

Most books about Jefferson and/or Sally Hemings don't provide a lot of information about what happened next. Some will say where the Hemings children ended up, if we know, and leave it at that. Dierksheide, who is affiliated with Monticello, takes up the story after Jefferson's death, following a few of his grandchildren through their lives and focusing on how they did, or didn't, deal with the subject of race in America.

Jefferson's children with Hemings were almost a different generation than his two daughters with his wife Martha (Hemings' half sister). Ellen Randolph, his granddaughter, married a Boston merchant and found herself in China where American mercantile interests assisted the British in forcing China to allow them to import and sell opium there, despite the country's attempts to prevent its deleterious effects on their population. Ellen's brothers Jeff and Lewis tried to monetize their Jefferson ancestry but ended up building their success on the use of slave labor in the expansion of the railroads. The children of Eston and Madison Hemings left Virginia for the free states of Wisconsin and Ohio, where they found the same violent racism that was pervasive in the south, and chose different approaches to making their way in spite of it.

At first I was not enthralled with the narrative, maybe because I don't have much background in the history of China or the railroads. I found the story of the Hemings descendants most interesting, especially J.W. Jefferson (Eston's children took the name Jefferson instead of Hemings when they moved to Wisconsin), who passed as white and was a successful officer in a Wisconsin regiment in the civil war, and Frederick Roberts, Madison's grandson, who moved to Los Angeles and started a black newspaper in response to the rise of racism there as more descendants of enslaved people searched for a place they could live without fear.

One interesting little piece of information Dierksheide tosses out in passing is that when the railroads were being built in the 1830s and 1840s in central and western Virginia, the work (blasting tunnels through mountains) was so hazardous that slave owners did not want to lease their human property to build tunnels for fear they would be injured and lose their value, so the most dangerous work went to the impoverished Irish immigrants in the Shenandoah valley, who had no one to be concerned about them even at that selfish level.

This short book is an interesting look at a period in American history that is seldom studied closely, through the lens of a few specific individuals.

Thank you, Yale University Press, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I just finished Beyond Jefferson: The Hemingses, the Randolphs, and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America, by Christia Dierksheide.

The first two chapters were about Jefferson’s grandson-in-law and his personal secretary in the 1820s who then became the executor of his estate. Neither of their stories were that interesting.

The book got better when it moved to the issues of slavery and race. That’s where you could really see Jefferson’s influence. The two grandsons who were portrayed, Thomas Jefferson Randolph and Merriweather Lewis Randolph also turned out to be people of low character, just like grandpa. Then, the chapters on Jefferson and Sally Hemmings’s son, Madison, and their grandson, J.W. Jefferson, were the two most interesting chapters in the book.

I give this book a B+.

Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B+ equates to 4 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

I finished reading this on November 7, 2024.

Jefferson has been studied frequently, and so it takes something unique to stand out, this book takes on the Hemings’ scandal and looks at the aftermath in a new way. A worthy addition to the Jefferson academia.

I was intrigued by the idea of viewing the growth of the early republic through the lens of Thomas Jefferson. More than just the third president, Jefferson was a well traveled man of the Enlightenment and of personal contradiction. His descendants are the direct result of this contradiction and yet so much more than the shadow of Monticello. Through Joseph Coolidge, Jefferson's grandson-in-law, the author explores U.S. imperial entry into China, and how Coolidge became an agent for banned British traders and eventually caught in the middle of the Opium War. Jefferson's other grandson-in-law Nicholas Trist became a federal scapegoat while trying to settle a "peace" agreement during the U.S. invasion of Mexico. Madison and Eston Hemings, strove to maintain their identity while protecting their families in a mercurial world outside of Virginia. On the other hand J.W. Jefferson, born Hemings, chose to "pass" and became a captain for the Union.

It's an interesting premise, and I can't fault the author for being passionate and engaging, but I feel like there are two books fighting for space. One is a book about 19th c. America's "imperial exploits," the pre-Civil War decline of the South, etc. The other is a book on Jefferson's grandchildren and immediate great-grandchildren. It's true that the 19th c. was an explosion of war and expansion, but when relating greater events, the subjects are often lost. There needed to be a few pages in between each chapter to "set the scene" first so the reader isn't overwhelmed. Each chapter reads like a stand-alone vignette, a short glimpse into the life of the select subjects; but it leaves you wanting more. The contrast between their lives is obvious without structurally dividing the book. This also created a misleading and confusing timeline. To be fair, I will read anything about Jefferson - I wrote my senior thesis on the man - but do not dive in without reading Annette Gordon Reed's book or some family history first.

"Beyond Jefferson" is an academic monograph focusing on the descendants of the third president of the U.S., Thomas Jefferson, who had children both with his wife Martha and later with her half-sister Sally Hemings who was an enslaved woman in his household. It is difficult to warm to Jefferson, who "openly acknowledged Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston [his children with Sally] as his property, but never as his family."

My first impression of this book was its elegance: in writing style, structure and appearance. The author, historian Christa Dierksheide, highlights how Jefferson used the phrase "equal & independent" twice in a working draft of the Declaration of Independence, and the book explores the shifting meanings of these terms for his descendants during the long 19th century. Her intention is to use this complex, multi-generational family history to illuminate broader historical themes, and to argue that "the American Revolution did not end in 1783 - it remained a contested and protracted struggle that lasted well into the nineteenth century."

While this is a scholarly work, in tone and ambition, it was the storytelling and the micro-level of family history - the portraits, anecdotes, telling details and idiosyncratic life paths - which I found most absorbing. For example, after Jefferson's death, his grandson-in-law, Nicolas Trist, "shelled out about $16 for odds and ends, including a writing table and a 'shower bath'" from his estate. This quote by Jefferson's son Madison Hemings also stood out: "I learned to read by inducing the white children to teach me the letters and something more."

Madison is the only one of Sally Hemings' children to have their own chapter, and the others are described rather dismissively at one point (via a quote by descendant Shay Banks-Young): "The other siblings - Harriet, Beverly, and Eston - 'either went white and passed through' or the 'name was changed.'" (p.140). I would have been interested to read more about them (and in fairness, there is more detail about Eston in the final chapter which focuses on his son, J.W. Jefferson, during the Civil War era). My impression is that there are only fragments of information available about Harriet Hemings, but it might have spoken to the impetus/ethos of the book to include a chapter focused on her. What might "equal & independent" have meant to her? This is not to diminish, or under-estimate, the skill and considerable achievement of 'Beyond Jefferson' as it stands. It is a compelling and ambitious work.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.