乔治.华盛顿也有黑人私生子？

今日，在哥伦比亚市古迹保护者Keilah M. Spann女士陪同下参观非裔美国人墓地，以了解非裔美国人文化残余。期间偶尔谈到混血问题，Keilah女士说其家族也有白人血统，而且来自乔治.华盛顿！我对这个话题很感兴趣，搜索了一下，发现纽约时报上有篇文章提供相关线索，现转贴于此，以便今后继续了解此课题。
July 4-10; The Mystery of Venus and George
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: July 11, 1999

Sometime in 1784 or 1785 a boy was born to Venus, a slave on the estate of George Washington's half-brother, John Augustine Washington. The boy, named West Ford, was treated with special favor. John Augustine's wife, Hannah, instructed in her will that he should be freed and taught a trade.

So who was West Ford's father? Three of his descendants -- Linda Bryant of Aurora, Colo., her sister Janet Allen of Peoria, Ill., and their cousin, Judith S. Burton of Alexandria, Va. -- say their family's oral history, passed down in secret for six generations, records the name of Venus's lover: George Washington.

Historians do not agree, for several reasons. Washington may have been sterile: he had no children with his wife, Martha, who bore four from her previous marriage. He was highly protective of his reputation and unlikely to have risked it with an illicit liaison. And there is no record that he visited his brother's estate or had any other opportunity to be with Venus.

Far more probable, say historians, is that one of John Augustine Washington's three sons was West Ford's father. They were young, unmarried and living on the plantation. One candidate is Bushrod Washington, who bequeathed land to West Ford and resembled him, according to portraits. Another possibility is the youngest son, George Augustine Washington. The middle name may easily have been lost in the retelling over the centuries.

Many slave-owning families had two sides: the white family and the unacknowledged children of master-slave unions. The descendants of Sally Hemings, a slave on Thomas Jefferson's estate, have long preserved the oral tradition that the third President was their ancestor, a claim that was long denied by many historians but dramatically supported by DNA data published last November. With the Washington and Venus story, there is as yet no DNA evidence, and so far every available historical fact points to a Washington other than George. NICHOLAS WADE