RPTM Podcast Episode Twenty Four: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, Alexander Hamilton, and the Louisiana Purchase

Last week we discussed the concept of Pseudohistory in its overall arching themes. This week let's start our deeper dive into the tenants I laid out. Firstly, Pseudohistory is UNFALSIFIABLE or can't be proven wrong and makes vague or unobservable claims.

History is not false but is comprised of two different types of components. Most of history is very concrete and not debatable. These include the questions of who, when, where, what, and how. Now some of these can get rather specific but do not garner much debate. These sorts of questions are rarely controversial, debatable, or even questioned. They are known.

Now let us ask the question, why did this happen? What caused it, and what resulted from it? Was this change or continuity historically? These questions are based on many factors, including scholarship and especially perspective. Perspective impacts all interpretations of history, and these questions are based on understanding. Perspective is also based on what era the person interpreting is living in. Interpretations change as perspective changes. This happens so commonly that a subset of the historical scholarship is the study of historiography, which studies how an understanding of the same historical event changes over time. When people criticize history as an academic discipline, they rarely take perspective into account.

Historians must constantly review history so historians can reevaluate people and events—for example, the story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. A tale shrouded from historical scrutiny for centuries has bubbled over to the surface in recent decades. 

If we are the judge, jury, and executioners of history, what do we do when there is a mistrial?

HIGHLIGHTS

• Sally Hemings was a woman enslaved by Thomas Jefferson and was an enslaved teenager who was forced to have sex with her enslaver.
• The first—and perhaps the most important—political rivalry in U.S. history was between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.  Both men would destroy their reputations to attack each other.
• The rivalry between Founding Fathers Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton stretched much further than the legendary duel where Vice President Aaron Burr shot and fatally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. 
• Nearly 200 years later, the exact details of what became known as the Burr Conspiracy -- Aaron Burr's attempt to detach the Western states and the Louisiana Territory from the Union -- remain unknown. 
• The Louisiana Purchase was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million.

CHAPTERS
0:37 Introduction
2:55 Sally Hemings
6:40 Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton
15:13 Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr
24:02 The Burr Conspiracy
32:30 Louisiana Purchase

RESOURCES
Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson
The Beef Between Thomas Jefferson And Alexander Hamilton Goes Deeper Than You Thought
Random Things About the Beef Between Thomas Jefferson And Alexander Hamilton Goes Deeper Than You Thought
Burr's Political Legacy Died in the Duel with Hamilton
Burr/Hamilton Duel
The Burr Conspiracy
The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase, 1803  “An Empire for Liberty”