The debate over the affair between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings rarely rises above the question of 'Did they or didn't they?' The author seeks to uncover this complexity, as well as the reasons it is so often obscured.

In this brief manuscript, Clarence Walker uses theJefferson/Hemings liaison as a point of departure for a series of historicalreflections on race, sex, and nation in the Americas. His basic argument, evident inthe attached, is that America has been a multiracial society from colonial times, but one that has had a particularly difficult time acknowledging the fact. Theessays have historical, historiographical, and contemporary significance. They giveus a more complex picture of Jefferson and race than is often presented. They usethe Jefferson/Hemings relationship to comment on historians' treatement of race andnation. And, finally, they comment on the current state of American thinking aboutrace and nation--both more recent iterations of the discomfort with racial mixingthat has been part of American colonial and national identity from the beginning, and its weakening in the face of the rapidly increasing racial and ethnic diversityof American society.