Battle of Backbone Mountain

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The novel "Clotel" was not based on the story of Harriet Hemings. It was inspired by an item, very likely fictitious, in the abolitionist newspaper "Liberator" about the supposed auction of Thomas Jefferson's daughter in the slave market in New Orleans. Jefferson appears briefly in the first edition of Clotel, but in later editions the slave owner is a senator. Virginia Historian (talk) 11:26, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At the end of the first ¶ here's an attempted reference entry that really needs to be cleaned up by someone more knowledgeable in the ways of Wikipedia than I: ^[1] Dick Kimball (talk) 13:30, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone.

So looking at the history for the page it looks like "concubine" was changed to "nonconsensual concubine" with rape language being added. anonymous edit was flagged as a "fixed typo" so I'm going to assume the author was acting in bad faith remove that language.

None of this was sourced, so I did some digging and it appears that the original "concubine" language came from an oral history of Madison Heming (one of Jefferson's presumed daughters). I'm going to source her in the article and provide the reference.

I don't feel this is whitewashing the issue; being "made a concubine" does not infer choice or happiness with the arrangement. But saying that she was repeatedly raped is on its face overly speculative. Let the sources speak and the reader infer.

Thank you. Reve (talk) 00:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Edit:

Actually, upon reflection I just scrapped the whole paragraph in the leader dealing with rape. The first sentence summarizes his importance as per Wikipedia standards, and all the sex stuff is pretty well covered later in the family section. Reve (talk) 01:03, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I noted Tabitha Wayles' spouse was not named here after seeing it (Robert Skipwith) on their half sister's Martha Wayles Jefferson's page. Also cited the Seward Family archive while adding. Further reading reveals Robert and Henry to be sons of Sir William Skipwith, 6th Bt. in the Baronetage of England. The English, British and UK peerage trackers, while normally diligent fact checkers, I'm doubtful about their tracking of persons residing in Early USA as being any better. Their father's listing Person Page (thepeerage.com) has links for both brothers. While the birth years by name match other sources, these pages list Robert Skipwith as being married to Anne Wayles and Henry Skipwith being married to Tabitha Wayles. Tabitha Wayles, b.1753 d.1851 - Ancestry® Ancestry matches our current Wiki pairing for Tabitha but I didn't immediately find Anne there. This https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wayles-17 page first lists an inidividual name as Tabitha Anne (Wayles) Skelton (1753). Below that it lists as "Tabitha Anne "Tibby" Skelton formerly Wayles aka Skipwith - person. Note both sisters's given names present in this descriptor. This wikitree record shows "Tabitha" first married to Robert Skipwith and then to Henry Skipwith in 1772, which if true might explain why Tabitha's spouse remained uncertain (blank). It doesn't help that dates of either sister's first marriage is mostly blank everywhere. I see a primary wikitree listing for Anne as "Anne (Wayles) Skipwith (1756 - 1862)" and a secondary descriptor as Anne Skipwith formerly Wayles. Here Anne was only ever married to Robert which comes closer to flipping them and matching the peerage pages.

The Martha Jefferson wikipedia article where I first read about Martha's half sisters (these and two others) by Tabitha Cocke, seems to sayTabitha likely died young (or younger than Anne) after Tabitha's first delivery.That child's name follows in the next sentence (odd sentence structure) as Nancy Skipwith or "Aunty" Skipwith; herself living as late as 1798. Neither sisters' wikitree page makes mention of any daughter Nancy. They record Robert and Anne having one child, son George. They record "Tabitha Anne" (probably Tabitha) as having 3 children by Henry (her second Skipwith husband). Still looking for more information on a child Nancy Skipwith birthed by Tabitha, I looked closer at all 4 kids by the "sisters". Tabitha links fo a daughter Martha Wayles (Skipwith) Harrison (1786-1827) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree. The page first lists her as Daughter of Henry Skipwith and Tabitha Anne (Wayles) Skelton. In the biography section on that page she becomes the Daughter of Henry Skipworth [sic] and Anne Wayles. More than enough said for now. I'm leaning toward swapping the spouse pairings but I can't help wondering if there was only ever one sister-daughter born to John and Tabitha Sr. after their second daughter Elizabeth Wayles (Future Eppes) is born. She might have sometimes been called Tabitha,or Anne or Tabitha Anne. Maybe she preferred just Anne instead of Tabitha later on (not liking being called by her mother's name), giving the appearance that the young (not the mother) Tabitha might have died about then.

While improbable, and likely easily proven wrong, one wikipedia article (paraphrased) fitts well with my improbable theory. It states the total assets and debts of John Wayles at the time he died. It then states the executors had agreed to divde up the property and each of the "3 sons-in-law" would take on a portion of the total debt. By my reading, Wayles had no free-born sons but should have had 4 sons-in-law (T. Jefferson, Francis Eppes, Robert Skipwith and Henry Skipwith) unless one of the 4 daughters (plus spouse and stirpes) wasnt inheriting anything so wouldn't take on a share of the debt. Or That or perphaps Tabitha Anne had only ever been one daughter, married first to Robert and then to Henry Skipwhich with some rightful cause for the change.

Some of Jefferson's correspondence seems to treat Skipwith as an alternate spelling of Skipworth, with family members using different forms. wclaytong Wclaytong (talk) 12:53, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]