America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray

When you think about what we were taught in elementary school about our country's history, it is easy to see that the facts were "bent" in many cases.  Columbus was not first to America.  The native people did not peacefully give up their land and go to reservations, and slavery was not isolated to the southern states.  Likewise, a most troubling fact is that many of our founding fathers were no pillars of strength and virtue.  So why was our history so distorted in the retelling?  Stephanie Dray in her book America's First Daughter gives a compelling explanation.  In her interpretation, Thomas Jefferson, the father of our Declaration of Independence, was saved the disgrace of his many failings by his devoted, protective daughter, Patsy.  After her mother died when she was only 10 years old, Patsy became the constant companion of her father.  In Dray's telling of the years that Jefferson was both statesman and president his daughter protected his reputation and cleared the path for history by destroying and covering up many of the truths that historians have since uncovered.  Jefferson owned slaves, even though he professed to want freedom for all.  Jefferson's mistress and slave, Sally Hemings, bore him many children but he never acknowledged any of them.  As it later played out during the Civil War, Jefferson's strong adherence to a state's rights philosophy became the core around which the southern states built their fight against the federalist of the North.  Patsy Jefferson, in this historical fiction account and in her determination to protect her father's image, changed what we in later generations learned and believed about this man of history.  The protests we see today over statues and landmarks highlights the problems with this controlled version of history that we were taught.  Much can be learned from an unvarnished retelling of the lives of those we revere.  We should not devalue the work of our country's forefathers, but we cannot ignore the truth of their lives either.  America's First Daughter is a compelling story that forces a deeper contemplation of our country's beginning and those men who were instrumental in its conception.