Sally Hemings
Encyclopedia
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a mixed-race slave
owned by President
Thomas Jefferson
through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
by their father John Wayles
. She was notable because most historians now believe that the widower Jefferson had six children with her, and maintained an extended relationship for 38 years until his death.
When Jefferson's relationship and children were reported in 1802, there was sensational coverage for a time, but Jefferson remained silent on the issue. Four Hemings-Jefferson children survived to adulthood. Beverly left Monticello in 1822; however, Jefferson's records do not say anything about the terms under which he left. Harriet left a few months later and was put on a stagecoach and given $50.00. There is no evidence that they were freed, but were allowed to "escape". After reaching the North, they each entered white society and married white partners. Madison
and Eston Hemings
were freed by Jefferson's will at the age of 21.
Following Jefferson's death, his daughter gave Sally Hemings "her time", an informal kind of freedom by which she could live with her two younger sons in Charlottesville. Sally Hemings lived her last nine years with her two freed sons. An 1833 county census recorded the Hemingses as "white," consistent with their mostly European ancestry and appearance. After their mother's death in 1835, Eston and Madison Hemings migrated with their families to Chillicothe
in the free state of Ohio.
, who was the mixed-race daughter of Susannah, an enslaved African woman, and John Hemings, an English sea captain. Elizabeth Hemings (also known as Betty Hemings) and her mother were first owned by Francis Eppes IV. They were inherited by Francis' daughter, Martha, who took them with her to her marriage to John Wayles as his first wife. After Martha's death, Wayles married and was widowed two more times. Several sources assert that the widower John Wayles took his slave Betty Hemings as a concubine and had six children by her; the youngest was Sally Hemings. They were half-siblings to his daughter Martha Wayles (named after her mother, John Wayles' first wife), who married Thomas Jefferson.
The biracial children of Betty Hemings were very light-skinned (they had three-quarters European ancestry), as they had a white maternal grandparent and two white paternal grandparents. Since 1662 in Virginia, children born to enslaved mothers inherited their legal status as slaves under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem. Elizabeth and her children, including Sally Hemings, and all their children, were legally slaves, even when the fathers were the white masters. After Wayles died in 1773, his daughter Martha and Jefferson inherited the Hemings family and more than 100 other slaves from his estate. Scholars have noted that the mixed-race Hemings descendants were given assignments and trained as skilled artisans and domestic servants at Monticello, at the top of the slave hierarchy. None worked in the fields.
But, slave status was a different question than whether a racially mixed person could be considered legally white. Free persons who were seven-eighths white, as Sally's children with Jefferson were, under 18th and 19th-century Virginia law were legally white. As Annette Gordon-Reed
, in her 2008 book The Hemingses of Monticello, points out, the 18th-century and pre-Civil War attitude toward racial ancestry was rather more relaxed than in the late 19th and 20th century, when the one-drop rule
became the norm (it did not become part of Virginia law until 1924).
; he took up residence in Paris
with his older daughter Martha (Patsy). He had taken James Hemings
(son of Betty Hemings, and brother to Sally) among his personal slaves to Paris for training as a chef in French cuisine. In 1787, Jefferson sent for his surviving daughter, nine-year-old Maria (Polly) Jefferson, to live with him after his youngest daughter died. The teenage slave Sally Hemings, James' sister, was chosen to accompany Polly to France. Polly Jefferson and Sally Hemings were met in London
by John
and Abigail Adams. Writing in 1787, Abigail described Sally as a "Girl about 15 or 16" and as "quite a child, and Captain Ramsey is of opinion will be of so little Service that he had better carry her back with him." She added that Sally "seems fond of [Polly] and appears good-natured." While somewhat critical of Sally, Abigail Adams also described her as being "an industrious and orderly creature in her behaviour."
Sally remained in France (where slavery was generally illegal) for 26 months. Jefferson paid both her and James wages while they were in Paris. He paid Sally Hemings the equivalent of $2 a month. In comparison, he paid his Parisian scullion $2.50 a month, and James $4 a month as chef in training. The French servants earned from $8 to $12 a month. Toward the end of their stay, James used his money to pay for a French tutor and learn the language. According to her son Madison's 1873 memoir, Sally Hemings left Paris when "she was just beginning to learn the French language well." There is no record of where Sally lived. She could have lived with Jefferson and her brother from July 1787 to October 1789 in the Hôtel de Langeac on the Champs-Elysées
, or at the convent where Maria and Martha were schooled, the Abbaye de Panthemont. Whatever the weekday arrangements, Jefferson and his retinue spent weekends together at his villa. The convent's bills did not appear to have included a boarding charge for Sally. Jefferson purchased some fine clothing for Sally, suggesting that she was required to accompany Martha as a lady's maid to formal events.
Under French law, both Sally and James could have petitioned for their freedom as the revolutionary constitution in France abolished slavery in principle in 1789. Sally had the legal right to decide to remain in France as a free person, or return to Virginia with Jefferson as a slave. Her son Madison later said that she became pregnant by Jefferson in Paris, and refused to return to the United States unless he agreed to free her children. Jefferson was said to have agreed to that condition. Hemings had strong kinship ties with her mother, extended family and siblings at Monticello.
According to Madison Hemings, Sally's first child died soon after her return from Paris. Thomas Jefferson's records which have survived mutilation and purge, record that Sally had six children after her return to the US:
Jefferson recorded slave births in his Farm Book, but it was not a perfect record. Jefferson did not record the father's name for Sally's children.
According to the 1873 memoir of Madison Hemings, rediscovered in the 1950s, Sally bore a child in 1790, who died soon after. Controversial newspaper accounts in 1802 and the oral tradition of the descendants of former slave Thomas Woodson, alleged that she had a son named Thomas or Tom, born in 1790. This Tom may have been the infant whom Madison, born 15 years later, thought had died. A 1998 DNA study
disproved the Woodson family claims of descent from Jefferson but noted they had European ancestry in the paternal line.
Sally Hemings' duties included being a nursemaid-companion, lady's maid, chambermaid, and seamstress. It is not known whether she was literate, and she left no known writings. Hemings was described as very fair, with "straight hair down her back." Jefferson's grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, described her as "light colored and decidedly good looking." As an adult she may have lived in a room in Monticello's "South Dependencies," a wing of the mansion which was accessible to the main house through a covered passageway.
Sally never married. As a slave, she could not have a marriage recognized under Virginia law, but many slaves at Monticello are known to have taken partners in common-law marriages (but none, for Sally, is mentioned in the records). While Sally Hemings worked at Monticello, she had her children nearby. According to her son Madison, while young, they "were permitted to stay about the 'great house', and only required to do such light work as going on errands." At age 14, the children began their training: the brothers with the plantation's master in carpentry and Harriet as a spinner and weaver. The three boys all learned to play the fiddle
(Jefferson played the violin). In 1819 or 1820, a Jefferson granddaughter invited a friend to come to Monticello to "dance after Beverley's music" at the South Pavilion.
In 1822 at the age of 24, Beverly "ran away" from Monticello and was not pursued. His sister Harriet Hemings at the age of 21 followed in the same year. The overseer Edmund Bacon said that he gave her $50 and put her on a stagecoach, presumably to join her brother. In his memoir, Bacon said Harriet was near white and very beautiful, and that people said Jefferson freed her because she was his daughter. Jefferson thus consented to two of Sally's children going to freedom when of age. Madison Hemings said in his memoir that they each entered white society in Washington, DC according to their appearance, and each married well.
Of the hundreds of slaves he owned, Jefferson formally freed only two slaves in his lifetime: Sally's older brothers Robert, who had to buy his freedom, and James Hemings
(who was required to train his brother to get his freedom). He freed five slaves in his will - all males from the Hemings family, including Madison and Eston Hemings, his two "natural" children. Harriet was the only female slave he allowed to go free. In addition to manumission for the Hemings men in his will, he petitioned the legislature to allow them to stay in the state. No documentation has been found for Sally Hemings' emancipation
but Jefferson's married daughter Martha Randolph apparently gave Hemings her "time" after Jefferson's death. This informal freedom allowed her to live in Virginia, and she remained with her two youngest sons in nearby Charlottesville for the next nine years. In the Albemarle County 1833 census, all three were recorded as free white persons.
, a political journalist and former supporter of Thomas Jefferson, published a claim in the Richmond Recorder that Jefferson was the father of five children by Sally Hemings, including a son, Tom. Jefferson's grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph later said that Sally's children resembled Jefferson "so closely that it was plain that they had his blood in their veins," but attributed their paternity to a Jefferson nephew, Peter Carr. His sister credited Peter's brother Samuel Carr with being the father. This testimony was accepted by nineteenth century biographers Henry Randall and James Parton
, and by most historians who succeeded them, until the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Yet, even during Jefferson's life it was known at Monticello and in Charlottesville that he had fathered Hemings' children. Elijah Fletcher, the headmaster of the New Glasgow Academy (Amherst County, Virginia
) visited Jefferson in 1811 and wrote in his diary that:
Sally's son Madison Hemings
said in an 1873 memoir (edited by Samuel Wetmore, publisher of the Ohio newspaper The Pike County Republican) that Thomas Jefferson was his father and the father of all of Sally's children. He said that his brothers and sister Harriet
had passed into white society, concealing their slave origins. Madison's claims were corroborated by Israel Jefferson
, also a former slave at Monticello.
Madison's account had some factual errors -- he was writing later in his life about events before his birth or when he was young. In her 1997 book on the controversy, the historian Annette Gordon Reed noted these aspects, but also cross-checked details which only Madison could have known. She found much of his evidence more factually reliable than the contradictory accounts by Jefferson's family, which had long been followed by historians.
Because Jefferson descendants had identified Peter and/or Samuel Carr (Jefferson nephews) as the father(s) of Hemings' children, few academic historians before the third quarter of the 20th century credited the paternity allegation or examined the possible relationship closely. 1998 DNA
testing showed a match between the Jefferson male line and descendants of one of Sally Hemings' children Eston. It disproved Carr paternity of Eston Hemings. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello; and the National Genealogical Society
each conducted reviews. They agree that Jefferson likely fathered Hemings' children.
scientific journal Nature
The study compared the Y chromosomal haplotypes
of four groups of men: descendants of Thomas Jefferson's grandfather; Eston Hemings
; John Carr
, grandfather of the Carr brothers; and Thomas Woodson, among whom connections to Jefferson had been suggested. The study's major findings were that the Y chromosome of the Jefferson male line matched that of descendants of Eston Heming. Combined with the weight of historical evidence, the team concluded that it was most likely Jefferson had fathered Eston and all of Hemings' children. The Nature article acknowledged the possibility that one of Field Jefferson's five male descendants could have been the father, but an "absence of historical evidence" made this or other "possibilities...unlikely". Of all the accounts of the Hemings children published before 1998, Madison Hemings's was the most prominent as consistent with the DNA tests.
The Y chromosomes of descendants of the Woodson and Carr families were each distinctly different from the Jefferson and Hemings lines. The Carrs were conclusively disproved as possible ancestors of Eston Hemings. The Woodson family's claim to be descended from Jefferson was also disproved. (The Woodson family has said they will keep their tradition.)
, the result of much research on the family, including James and Sally's lives in France, and Monticello and in Philadelphia during Thomas Jefferson's lifetime. She was not able to find out much new information about Beverly or Harriet Hemings
, who left Monticello as young adults and entered the white community, likely changing their names. Much more is known about the lives of the younger sons Madison Hemings
and Eston Hemings
, and of their descendants, who have appeared in Madison's memoir, a variety of historical records, and newspaper accounts.
Eventually three of Hemings's four surviving children chose to identify as white adults in the North; they were seven-eighths European in ancestry and this was consistent with their appearances. In his memoir, Madison Hemings said both Beverley and Harriet married well in the white community in Washington, DC. Harriet was described by Edmund Bacon, the longtime Monticello overseer, as "nearly as white as anybody, and very beautiful". Madison wrote to Beverly and Harriet for some time after they each entered white society, but Harriet cut off all letters after some years.
Eston Hemings
married a mixed-race woman. After his mother's death in 1835, they and their family moved to Chillicothe in the free state of Ohio
where, according to census records, they were classified as "mulatto", at that time meaning mixed race. The census enumerator tended to be local and classified people according to who their neighbors were and what was known of them.
After passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which put even free blacks at risk of slavecatchers, Hemings and his family moved to Madison, Wisconsin
to be further north, although they were legally free people of color
. There he changed his name to "Eston H. Jefferson", and all the family adopted the surname. From then on the Jeffersons lived in the white community.
Madison Hemings
also married a mixed-race woman. They shared a house with his brother and mother during her lifetime. He followed Eston to Chillicothe with his family after their mother's death. His family were the only Hemings descendants who continued to identify with the black community; some of their descendants are known later to have passed into the white community, while many others have stayed within the African-American community.
Both Eston and Madison achieved some success in life, were well respected by their contemporaries, and had children who repeated and built on their successes. They worked as carpenters, and Madison had a small farm. Eston became a professional musician and bandleader, "a master of the violin, and an accomplished 'caller' of dances", who "always officiated at the 'swell' entertainments of Chillicothe." He was in demand all across southern Ohio. A neighbor described him as, "Quiet, unobtrusive, polite and decidedly intelligent, he was soon very well and favorably known to all classes of our citizens, for his personal appearance and gentlemanly manners attracted everybody's attention to him."
. Madison's son Thomas enlisted in the United States Colored Troops (USCT); Thomas Eston Hemings was captured and spent time at the Andersonville POW camp. He died in a POW camp in Meridian, Mississippi
. According to a Hemings descendant, Thomas' brother James attempted to cross Union lines and enlist in the Confederate army to rescue him. William enlisted as a white man. Later, another son James Hemings was rumored to have moved to Colorado and perhaps passed into white society; like some others in the family, he disappeared from the record and the rest of his biography remains unknown.
Some of Madison Hemings's children and grandchildren who remained in Ohio suffered from the limited opportunities for blacks at that time, working as laborers, servants or small farmers. William Hemings, Madison's last known male-line descendant, never married. He died in 1910 in a veterans' hospital.
Madison's daughter Ellen Wayles Hemings married Alexander Jackson Roberts, a graduate of Oberlin College
. When their first son was young, they moved to Los Angeles, California
, where the family and its descendants became leaders in the twentieth century. Their first son Frederick Madison Roberts
(1879–1952) - Sally Hemings's great-grandson/Madison's grandson/Ellen Hemings's son - was the first person of known African-American ancestry elected to public office on the West Coast: he served in the California State Assembly
from 1919 to 1934. Their second son William Giles Roberts was also a leader. Their descendants have had a strong tradition of college education and public service.
Eston's first son John Wayles Jefferson
, who had red hair and gray eyes like his grandfather Jefferson, by the 1850s became proprietor of the American Hotel in Madison. At one time he operated it with his younger brother Beverly. He was commissioned as a white Union
officer during the Civil War, during which he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and served at the Battle of Vicksburg
. After the war, John Jefferson returned to Wisconsin, where he wrote frequently for newspapers and published letters about his war experiences. Ultimately he moved to Memphis, Tennessee
, where he became a successful and wealthy cotton broker. He never married.
Eston's second son Beverly Jefferson also enlisted as a white man in the Union Army. According to his 1908 obituary, he was "a likeable character at the Wisconsin capital, and a familiar of statesmen for half a century". He had operated the American Hotel with his brother before the war. Later he separately operated the Capital Hotel, and also built a successful horse-drawn "omnibus" business. His friend Augustus J. Munson wrote, "Beverly Jefferson['s] death deserves more than a passing notice, as he was a grandson of Thomas Jefferson... [He] was one of God's noblemen - gentle, kind, courteous, charitable." Beverly's great-grandson, John Weeks Jefferson, was the Eston Hemings descendant whose DNA matched the Y-chromosome of the Thomas Jefferson male line.
As of 2007, there are known male-line descendants of Eston Hemings/Jefferson, and female-line descendants of Madison's three daughters: Sarah, Harriet, and Ellen.
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
owned by President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, born Martha Wayles was the wife of Thomas Jefferson, who was the third President of the United States. It was her second marriage, as her first husband had died young...
by their father John Wayles
John Wayles
John Wayles was a planter, slave trader and lawyer in the Virginia Colony. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States....
. She was notable because most historians now believe that the widower Jefferson had six children with her, and maintained an extended relationship for 38 years until his death.
When Jefferson's relationship and children were reported in 1802, there was sensational coverage for a time, but Jefferson remained silent on the issue. Four Hemings-Jefferson children survived to adulthood. Beverly left Monticello in 1822; however, Jefferson's records do not say anything about the terms under which he left. Harriet left a few months later and was put on a stagecoach and given $50.00. There is no evidence that they were freed, but were allowed to "escape". After reaching the North, they each entered white society and married white partners. Madison
Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings , was born into slavery as the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was freed after the death of his master Thomas Jefferson. Based on historical evidence, most historians believe that Jefferson, United States president, was his father...
and Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings Jefferson was born a slave at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race slave. Most historians believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the United States president. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that Eston's descendants matched those of the male...
were freed by Jefferson's will at the age of 21.
Following Jefferson's death, his daughter gave Sally Hemings "her time", an informal kind of freedom by which she could live with her two younger sons in Charlottesville. Sally Hemings lived her last nine years with her two freed sons. An 1833 county census recorded the Hemingses as "white," consistent with their mostly European ancestry and appearance. After their mother's death in 1835, Eston and Madison Hemings migrated with their families to Chillicothe
Chillicothe, Ohio
Chillicothe is a city in and the county seat of Ross County, Ohio, United States.Chillicothe was the first and third capital of Ohio and is located in southern Ohio along the Scioto River. The name comes from the Shawnee name Chalahgawtha, meaning "principal town", as it was a major settlement of...
in the free state of Ohio.
Biography
Sally was born to Elizabeth Hemings (1735-1807)Betty Hemings
Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings was an American enslaved woman of mixed race, who in 1761 became the concubine of the planter John Wayles of Virginia. He had become a widower for the third time. He had six children with her over a 12-year period...
, who was the mixed-race daughter of Susannah, an enslaved African woman, and John Hemings, an English sea captain. Elizabeth Hemings (also known as Betty Hemings) and her mother were first owned by Francis Eppes IV. They were inherited by Francis' daughter, Martha, who took them with her to her marriage to John Wayles as his first wife. After Martha's death, Wayles married and was widowed two more times. Several sources assert that the widower John Wayles took his slave Betty Hemings as a concubine and had six children by her; the youngest was Sally Hemings. They were half-siblings to his daughter Martha Wayles (named after her mother, John Wayles' first wife), who married Thomas Jefferson.
The biracial children of Betty Hemings were very light-skinned (they had three-quarters European ancestry), as they had a white maternal grandparent and two white paternal grandparents. Since 1662 in Virginia, children born to enslaved mothers inherited their legal status as slaves under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem. Elizabeth and her children, including Sally Hemings, and all their children, were legally slaves, even when the fathers were the white masters. After Wayles died in 1773, his daughter Martha and Jefferson inherited the Hemings family and more than 100 other slaves from his estate. Scholars have noted that the mixed-race Hemings descendants were given assignments and trained as skilled artisans and domestic servants at Monticello, at the top of the slave hierarchy. None worked in the fields.
But, slave status was a different question than whether a racially mixed person could be considered legally white. Free persons who were seven-eighths white, as Sally's children with Jefferson were, under 18th and 19th-century Virginia law were legally white. As Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson. Gordon-Reed was educated at Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. She is Professor of Law and History at Harvard, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe...
, in her 2008 book The Hemingses of Monticello, points out, the 18th-century and pre-Civil War attitude toward racial ancestry was rather more relaxed than in the late 19th and 20th century, when the one-drop rule
One-drop rule
The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black...
became the norm (it did not become part of Virginia law until 1924).
The Hemingses in Paris
In 1784, the widower Thomas Jefferson was appointed the American envoy to FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
; he took up residence in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with his older daughter Martha (Patsy). He had taken James Hemings
James Hemings
James Hemings was an American mixed-race slave owned and freed by Thomas Jefferson. He was an older brother of Sally Hemings and is said to have been a half-sibling of Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson because their father was John Wayles...
(son of Betty Hemings, and brother to Sally) among his personal slaves to Paris for training as a chef in French cuisine. In 1787, Jefferson sent for his surviving daughter, nine-year-old Maria (Polly) Jefferson, to live with him after his youngest daughter died. The teenage slave Sally Hemings, James' sister, was chosen to accompany Polly to France. Polly Jefferson and Sally Hemings were met in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
by John
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
and Abigail Adams. Writing in 1787, Abigail described Sally as a "Girl about 15 or 16" and as "quite a child, and Captain Ramsey is of opinion will be of so little Service that he had better carry her back with him." She added that Sally "seems fond of [Polly] and appears good-natured." While somewhat critical of Sally, Abigail Adams also described her as being "an industrious and orderly creature in her behaviour."
Sally remained in France (where slavery was generally illegal) for 26 months. Jefferson paid both her and James wages while they were in Paris. He paid Sally Hemings the equivalent of $2 a month. In comparison, he paid his Parisian scullion $2.50 a month, and James $4 a month as chef in training. The French servants earned from $8 to $12 a month. Toward the end of their stay, James used his money to pay for a French tutor and learn the language. According to her son Madison's 1873 memoir, Sally Hemings left Paris when "she was just beginning to learn the French language well." There is no record of where Sally lived. She could have lived with Jefferson and her brother from July 1787 to October 1789 in the Hôtel de Langeac on the Champs-Elysées
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...
, or at the convent where Maria and Martha were schooled, the Abbaye de Panthemont. Whatever the weekday arrangements, Jefferson and his retinue spent weekends together at his villa. The convent's bills did not appear to have included a boarding charge for Sally. Jefferson purchased some fine clothing for Sally, suggesting that she was required to accompany Martha as a lady's maid to formal events.
Under French law, both Sally and James could have petitioned for their freedom as the revolutionary constitution in France abolished slavery in principle in 1789. Sally had the legal right to decide to remain in France as a free person, or return to Virginia with Jefferson as a slave. Her son Madison later said that she became pregnant by Jefferson in Paris, and refused to return to the United States unless he agreed to free her children. Jefferson was said to have agreed to that condition. Hemings had strong kinship ties with her mother, extended family and siblings at Monticello.
Return to the US
In 1789, Sally and James Hemings returned to the United States with Jefferson. His wife had died seven years before and he was still only 46 years old. "Ten years later [referring to its 2000 report], [the Thomas Jefferson Foundation] and most historians now believe that, years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson was the father of the six children of Sally Hemings mentioned in Jefferson's records, including Beverly, Harriet, Madison and Eston Hemings." As evidenced by Jefferson's father-in-law, John Wayles, wealthy Virginia widowers frequently took enslaved women as concubines. That Jefferson also would do so was not unusual for the time.According to Madison Hemings, Sally's first child died soon after her return from Paris. Thomas Jefferson's records which have survived mutilation and purge, record that Sally had six children after her return to the US:
- Harriet Hemings (I) (October 5, 1795 - December 7, 1797)
- Beverley Hemings (possibly named William Beverley Hemings) (April 1, 1798 - after 1873)
- unnamed daughter (possibly named Thenia after Hemings's sister Thenia) (born in 1799 and died in infancy)
- Harriet HemingsHarriet HemingsHarriet Hemings was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his Presidency. Most historians believe her father is Jefferson, who is believed by many historians to have had a relationship with his mixed-race slave...
(II) (May 22, 1801 - after 1863) - Madison HemingsMadison HemingsMadison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings , was born into slavery as the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was freed after the death of his master Thomas Jefferson. Based on historical evidence, most historians believe that Jefferson, United States president, was his father...
(possibly named James Madison Hemings) (January 19, 1805–1877) - Eston HemingsEston HemingsEston Hemings Jefferson was born a slave at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race slave. Most historians believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the United States president. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that Eston's descendants matched those of the male...
(possibly named Thomas Eston Hemings) (May 21, 1808–1856)
Jefferson recorded slave births in his Farm Book, but it was not a perfect record. Jefferson did not record the father's name for Sally's children.
According to the 1873 memoir of Madison Hemings, rediscovered in the 1950s, Sally bore a child in 1790, who died soon after. Controversial newspaper accounts in 1802 and the oral tradition of the descendants of former slave Thomas Woodson, alleged that she had a son named Thomas or Tom, born in 1790. This Tom may have been the infant whom Madison, born 15 years later, thought had died. A 1998 DNA study
Jefferson DNA Data
The Jefferson-Hemings controversy concerns the question of whether there was an intimate relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his mixed-race slave, Sally Hemings. The controversy started as early as the 1790s...
disproved the Woodson family claims of descent from Jefferson but noted they had European ancestry in the paternal line.
Sally Hemings' duties included being a nursemaid-companion, lady's maid, chambermaid, and seamstress. It is not known whether she was literate, and she left no known writings. Hemings was described as very fair, with "straight hair down her back." Jefferson's grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, described her as "light colored and decidedly good looking." As an adult she may have lived in a room in Monticello's "South Dependencies," a wing of the mansion which was accessible to the main house through a covered passageway.
Sally never married. As a slave, she could not have a marriage recognized under Virginia law, but many slaves at Monticello are known to have taken partners in common-law marriages (but none, for Sally, is mentioned in the records). While Sally Hemings worked at Monticello, she had her children nearby. According to her son Madison, while young, they "were permitted to stay about the 'great house', and only required to do such light work as going on errands." At age 14, the children began their training: the brothers with the plantation's master in carpentry and Harriet as a spinner and weaver. The three boys all learned to play the fiddle
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
(Jefferson played the violin). In 1819 or 1820, a Jefferson granddaughter invited a friend to come to Monticello to "dance after Beverley's music" at the South Pavilion.
In 1822 at the age of 24, Beverly "ran away" from Monticello and was not pursued. His sister Harriet Hemings at the age of 21 followed in the same year. The overseer Edmund Bacon said that he gave her $50 and put her on a stagecoach, presumably to join her brother. In his memoir, Bacon said Harriet was near white and very beautiful, and that people said Jefferson freed her because she was his daughter. Jefferson thus consented to two of Sally's children going to freedom when of age. Madison Hemings said in his memoir that they each entered white society in Washington, DC according to their appearance, and each married well.
Of the hundreds of slaves he owned, Jefferson formally freed only two slaves in his lifetime: Sally's older brothers Robert, who had to buy his freedom, and James Hemings
James Hemings
James Hemings was an American mixed-race slave owned and freed by Thomas Jefferson. He was an older brother of Sally Hemings and is said to have been a half-sibling of Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson because their father was John Wayles...
(who was required to train his brother to get his freedom). He freed five slaves in his will - all males from the Hemings family, including Madison and Eston Hemings, his two "natural" children. Harriet was the only female slave he allowed to go free. In addition to manumission for the Hemings men in his will, he petitioned the legislature to allow them to stay in the state. No documentation has been found for Sally Hemings' emancipation
but Jefferson's married daughter Martha Randolph apparently gave Hemings her "time" after Jefferson's death. This informal freedom allowed her to live in Virginia, and she remained with her two youngest sons in nearby Charlottesville for the next nine years. In the Albemarle County 1833 census, all three were recorded as free white persons.
Controversy over Sally Hemings's children
In 1802, James T. CallenderJames T. Callender
James Callender was a political pamphleteer and journalist whose writing was controversial in his native Scotland and the United States. His contemporary reputation was as a "scandalmonger", due to the content of some of his reporting, which overshadowed the political content...
, a political journalist and former supporter of Thomas Jefferson, published a claim in the Richmond Recorder that Jefferson was the father of five children by Sally Hemings, including a son, Tom. Jefferson's grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph later said that Sally's children resembled Jefferson "so closely that it was plain that they had his blood in their veins," but attributed their paternity to a Jefferson nephew, Peter Carr. His sister credited Peter's brother Samuel Carr with being the father. This testimony was accepted by nineteenth century biographers Henry Randall and James Parton
James Parton
James Parton was an England-born American biographer.-Biography:Parton was born in Canterbury, England in 1822. He was taken to the United States when he was five years old, studied in New York City and White Plains, New York, and was a schoolmaster in Philadelphia and then in New York...
, and by most historians who succeeded them, until the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Yet, even during Jefferson's life it was known at Monticello and in Charlottesville that he had fathered Hemings' children. Elijah Fletcher, the headmaster of the New Glasgow Academy (Amherst County, Virginia
Amherst County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 31,894 people, 11,941 households, and 8,645 families residing in the county. The population density was 67 people per square mile . There were 12,958 housing units at an average density of 27 per square mile...
) visited Jefferson in 1811 and wrote in his diary that:
Sally's son Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings , was born into slavery as the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was freed after the death of his master Thomas Jefferson. Based on historical evidence, most historians believe that Jefferson, United States president, was his father...
said in an 1873 memoir (edited by Samuel Wetmore, publisher of the Ohio newspaper The Pike County Republican) that Thomas Jefferson was his father and the father of all of Sally's children. He said that his brothers and sister Harriet
Harriet Hemings
Harriet Hemings was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his Presidency. Most historians believe her father is Jefferson, who is believed by many historians to have had a relationship with his mixed-race slave...
had passed into white society, concealing their slave origins. Madison's claims were corroborated by Israel Jefferson
Israel Jefferson
Israel Jefferson, known as Israel Gillette before the 1840s , was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States...
, also a former slave at Monticello.
Madison's account had some factual errors -- he was writing later in his life about events before his birth or when he was young. In her 1997 book on the controversy, the historian Annette Gordon Reed noted these aspects, but also cross-checked details which only Madison could have known. She found much of his evidence more factually reliable than the contradictory accounts by Jefferson's family, which had long been followed by historians.
Evidence for Thomas Jefferson paternity
Significant facts related to the issues include:- Sally Hemings' children were all conceived while Jefferson was recorded to be present near Sally in Paris and at Monticello, and none were conceived during his extensive and lengthy periods of absence; as noted by the 20th-century historian Winthrop JordanWinthrop JordanWinthrop Donaldson Jordan was a professor of history and renowned writer on the history of slavery and the origins of racism in the United States....
, from the documentation of Jefferson's activities developed by the 20th-century biographer Dumas MaloneDumas MaloneDumas Malone was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history...
; - statements made by Madison Hemings and Isreal Jefferson, another former slave from Monticello, who corroborated Madison's account;
- the children were named after people in the Randolph-Jefferson family or those important to Jefferson;
- contemporary claims that Hemings's children strongly resembled Jefferson physically, including remarks by Jefferson's first grandson;
- Jefferson gave the Hemings family special treatment - training for the boys with the master woodworker at Monticello; and
- Jefferson freed all of the Hemings children, two informally by allowing them to escape and two in his will; they were the only family from Monticello to gain freedom. Harriet Hemings was the only female slave whom he freed.
Because Jefferson descendants had identified Peter and/or Samuel Carr (Jefferson nephews) as the father(s) of Hemings' children, few academic historians before the third quarter of the 20th century credited the paternity allegation or examined the possible relationship closely. 1998 DNA
Jefferson DNA Data
The Jefferson-Hemings controversy concerns the question of whether there was an intimate relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his mixed-race slave, Sally Hemings. The controversy started as early as the 1790s...
testing showed a match between the Jefferson male line and descendants of one of Sally Hemings' children Eston. It disproved Carr paternity of Eston Hemings. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello; and the National Genealogical Society
National Genealogical Society
The National Genealogical Society is a genealogical interest group founded in 1903 in Washington, D.C.. Its headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia....
each conducted reviews. They agree that Jefferson likely fathered Hemings' children.
DNA testing
Dr. Eugene A. Foster led a study whose results were announced in the November 5, 1998, issue of the BritishGreat Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
scientific journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
The study compared the Y chromosomal haplotypes
Genetic genealogy
Genetic genealogy is the application of genetics to traditional genealogy. Genetic genealogy involves the use of genealogical DNA testing to determine the level of genetic relationship between individuals.-History:...
of four groups of men: descendants of Thomas Jefferson's grandfather; Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings Jefferson was born a slave at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race slave. Most historians believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the United States president. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that Eston's descendants matched those of the male...
; John Carr
John Carr
John Carr was a prolific English architect. He was born in Horbury, near Wakefield, England, the eldest of nine children and the son of a master mason, under whom he trained. He started an independent career in 1748 and continued until shortly before his death. John Carr was Lord Mayor of York in...
, grandfather of the Carr brothers; and Thomas Woodson, among whom connections to Jefferson had been suggested. The study's major findings were that the Y chromosome of the Jefferson male line matched that of descendants of Eston Heming. Combined with the weight of historical evidence, the team concluded that it was most likely Jefferson had fathered Eston and all of Hemings' children. The Nature article acknowledged the possibility that one of Field Jefferson's five male descendants could have been the father, but an "absence of historical evidence" made this or other "possibilities...unlikely". Of all the accounts of the Hemings children published before 1998, Madison Hemings's was the most prominent as consistent with the DNA tests.
The Y chromosomes of descendants of the Woodson and Carr families were each distinctly different from the Jefferson and Hemings lines. The Carrs were conclusively disproved as possible ancestors of Eston Hemings. The Woodson family's claim to be descended from Jefferson was also disproved. (The Woodson family has said they will keep their tradition.)
Descendants
In 2007 the historian Annette Gordon Reed published The Hemingses of Monticello: An American FamilyThe Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family is a 2008 book by American historian Annette Gordon-Reed. It recounts the history of four generations of the African-American Hemings family, from their African and Virginia origins until the 1826 death of Thomas Jefferson, their master, Sally...
, the result of much research on the family, including James and Sally's lives in France, and Monticello and in Philadelphia during Thomas Jefferson's lifetime. She was not able to find out much new information about Beverly or Harriet Hemings
Harriet Hemings
Harriet Hemings was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his Presidency. Most historians believe her father is Jefferson, who is believed by many historians to have had a relationship with his mixed-race slave...
, who left Monticello as young adults and entered the white community, likely changing their names. Much more is known about the lives of the younger sons Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings , was born into slavery as the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was freed after the death of his master Thomas Jefferson. Based on historical evidence, most historians believe that Jefferson, United States president, was his father...
and Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings Jefferson was born a slave at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race slave. Most historians believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the United States president. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that Eston's descendants matched those of the male...
, and of their descendants, who have appeared in Madison's memoir, a variety of historical records, and newspaper accounts.
Eventually three of Hemings's four surviving children chose to identify as white adults in the North; they were seven-eighths European in ancestry and this was consistent with their appearances. In his memoir, Madison Hemings said both Beverley and Harriet married well in the white community in Washington, DC. Harriet was described by Edmund Bacon, the longtime Monticello overseer, as "nearly as white as anybody, and very beautiful". Madison wrote to Beverly and Harriet for some time after they each entered white society, but Harriet cut off all letters after some years.
Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings
Eston Hemings Jefferson was born a slave at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race slave. Most historians believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the United States president. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that Eston's descendants matched those of the male...
married a mixed-race woman. After his mother's death in 1835, they and their family moved to Chillicothe in the free state of Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
where, according to census records, they were classified as "mulatto", at that time meaning mixed race. The census enumerator tended to be local and classified people according to who their neighbors were and what was known of them.
After passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which put even free blacks at risk of slavecatchers, Hemings and his family moved to Madison, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
to be further north, although they were legally free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
. There he changed his name to "Eston H. Jefferson", and all the family adopted the surname. From then on the Jeffersons lived in the white community.
Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings , was born into slavery as the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was freed after the death of his master Thomas Jefferson. Based on historical evidence, most historians believe that Jefferson, United States president, was his father...
also married a mixed-race woman. They shared a house with his brother and mother during her lifetime. He followed Eston to Chillicothe with his family after their mother's death. His family were the only Hemings descendants who continued to identify with the black community; some of their descendants are known later to have passed into the white community, while many others have stayed within the African-American community.
Both Eston and Madison achieved some success in life, were well respected by their contemporaries, and had children who repeated and built on their successes. They worked as carpenters, and Madison had a small farm. Eston became a professional musician and bandleader, "a master of the violin, and an accomplished 'caller' of dances", who "always officiated at the 'swell' entertainments of Chillicothe." He was in demand all across southern Ohio. A neighbor described him as, "Quiet, unobtrusive, polite and decidedly intelligent, he was soon very well and favorably known to all classes of our citizens, for his personal appearance and gentlemanly manners attracted everybody's attention to him."
Grandchildren and other descendants
Sons of both Madison and Eston served in the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Madison's son Thomas enlisted in the United States Colored Troops (USCT); Thomas Eston Hemings was captured and spent time at the Andersonville POW camp. He died in a POW camp in Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Mississippi. It is the sixth largest city in the state and the principal city of the Meridian, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area...
. According to a Hemings descendant, Thomas' brother James attempted to cross Union lines and enlist in the Confederate army to rescue him. William enlisted as a white man. Later, another son James Hemings was rumored to have moved to Colorado and perhaps passed into white society; like some others in the family, he disappeared from the record and the rest of his biography remains unknown.
Some of Madison Hemings's children and grandchildren who remained in Ohio suffered from the limited opportunities for blacks at that time, working as laborers, servants or small farmers. William Hemings, Madison's last known male-line descendant, never married. He died in 1910 in a veterans' hospital.
Madison's daughter Ellen Wayles Hemings married Alexander Jackson Roberts, a graduate of Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
. When their first son was young, they moved to Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, where the family and its descendants became leaders in the twentieth century. Their first son Frederick Madison Roberts
Frederick Madison Roberts
Frederick Madison Roberts was an American newspaper owner and editor, educator and business owner who was the first known man of African American descent elected to the California State Assembly...
(1879–1952) - Sally Hemings's great-grandson/Madison's grandson/Ellen Hemings's son - was the first person of known African-American ancestry elected to public office on the West Coast: he served in the California State Assembly
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...
from 1919 to 1934. Their second son William Giles Roberts was also a leader. Their descendants have had a strong tradition of college education and public service.
Eston's first son John Wayles Jefferson
John Wayles Jefferson
John Wayles Jefferson, born John Wayles Hemings , was the son of a former slave who served as a colonel in the Union Army and was a businessman, becoming a wealthy cotton broker in Memphis, Tennessee...
, who had red hair and gray eyes like his grandfather Jefferson, by the 1850s became proprietor of the American Hotel in Madison. At one time he operated it with his younger brother Beverly. He was commissioned as a white Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
officer during the Civil War, during which he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and served at the Battle of Vicksburg
Battle of Vicksburg
The Siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C...
. After the war, John Jefferson returned to Wisconsin, where he wrote frequently for newspapers and published letters about his war experiences. Ultimately he moved to Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, where he became a successful and wealthy cotton broker. He never married.
Eston's second son Beverly Jefferson also enlisted as a white man in the Union Army. According to his 1908 obituary, he was "a likeable character at the Wisconsin capital, and a familiar of statesmen for half a century". He had operated the American Hotel with his brother before the war. Later he separately operated the Capital Hotel, and also built a successful horse-drawn "omnibus" business. His friend Augustus J. Munson wrote, "Beverly Jefferson['s] death deserves more than a passing notice, as he was a grandson of Thomas Jefferson... [He] was one of God's noblemen - gentle, kind, courteous, charitable." Beverly's great-grandson, John Weeks Jefferson, was the Eston Hemings descendant whose DNA matched the Y-chromosome of the Thomas Jefferson male line.
As of 2007, there are known male-line descendants of Eston Hemings/Jefferson, and female-line descendants of Madison's three daughters: Sarah, Harriet, and Ellen.
In popular culture
- William Wells Brown, Clotel; or, The President's Daughter, 1853, Project Gutenberg Etext, University of Vermont, novel inspired by the Jefferson-Hemings story
- 1979, Barbara Chase-RiboudBarbara Chase-RiboudBarbara Chase-Riboud is an American novelist, poet, sculptor and visual artist, perhaps best known for her historical fiction. Much of her work has explored themes related to slavery and exploitation of women....
's novel Sally Hemings became a bestseller. It was the first time that a novelist had imagined Hemings as a fully realized person. When CBS began to make plans to adapt the popular novel as a miniseries, the historians Virginius DabneyVirginius DabneyVirginius Dabney was a U.S. teacher, journalist, writer, and editor. He was the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch from 1936 to 1969 and author of several historical books...
(a direct descendant of Jefferson's sister Martha) and Dumas MaloneDumas MaloneDumas Malone was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history...
campaigned with the network's president William S. PaleyWilliam S. PaleyWilliam S. Paley was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.-Early life:...
against producing it and killed the project. - The 1991 novel, Wolf by the Ears, by Ann Rinaldi, portrays Sally Hemings' relationship with Jefferson as contemplated by her daughter Harriett.
- Jefferson in Paris, a 1995 film, portrayed the early relationship between Jefferson (Nick NolteNick NolteNicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
) and Hemings (Thandie NewtonThandie NewtonThandiwe Nashita "Thandie" Newton is a British actress. She has appeared in a number of British and American films, including The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II, Crash, Run, Fatboy, Run and W....
). - Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, a CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
television miniseriesMiniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
(Air dates: 2/13/00 and 2/16/00; Writer: Tina AndrewsTina AndrewsTina Yvonne Andrews is an American actress, television producer, screenwriter, author and playwright.-Biography:Andrews was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She attended the New York University, in which her major skill was in Drama...
Director: Charles HaidCharles HaidCharles Maurice Haid III is an American actor and director, with notable work in both movies and television. He is known for his portrayal of Officer Andy Renko in Hill Street Blues....
; With Carmen EjogoCarmen EjogoCarmen Elizabeth Ejogo is a British actress, currently based in the United States.-Early life:Born and raised in London, Ejogo is the daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Ejogo née Douglas. Her father is a Nigerian entrepreneur and her mother a Scottish tour guide. During her childhood, Ejogo...
as Hemings and Sam NeillSam NeillNigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
as Thomas Jefferson) As PBS noted in a Frontline program, "Though many quarrelled with the portrayal of Hemings as unrealistically modern and heroic, no major historian challenged the series' premise that Hemings and Jefferson had a 38-year relationship that produced children." - In May 2000, PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
Frontline had an extensive documentary program entitled Jefferson's Blood, about the issues of DNA, historical evidence related to his paternity of Hemings' children, and the significance of the issues in American history. - The 1993 science fiction novel Arc D'X by Steve Erickson features Sally Hemings' relationship with Jefferson.
See also
- John HemingsJohn HemingsJohn Hemings was born into slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello as part of the large mixed-race Hemings family...
- Mary HemingsMary HemingsMary Hemings, also known as Mary Hemings Bell , was born into slavery, most likely in Charles City County, Virginia, as the oldest child of Elizabeth Hemings, a mixed-race slave held by John Wayles...
- Isaac JeffersonIsaac JeffersonIsaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger was a valued, enslaved artisan of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson; he crafted and repaired products as a tinsmith, blacksmith, and nailer at Monticello....
- Lewis WoodsonLewis WoodsonLewis Woodson was an educator, minister, writer, and abolitionist. He was an early leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio and Pennsylvania...
Further reading
- R. B. Bernstein, Thomas Jefferson: (Oxford University Press, 2003).
- Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History: (W. W. Norton, 1974)
- Eyler Robert Coates, Sr., ed., The Jefferson-Hemings Myth, An American Travesty (Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, 2001)
- Jane Feldman, Shannon Lanier, Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family: (Random House, 2001)
- Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family: (W. W. Norton, 2008)
- Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy: (University Press of Virginia, 1997)
- William G. Hyland Jr. In Defense of Thomas Jefferson (St. Martins, 2009)
- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book (Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2002) ISBN 1-882886-10-0
- Thomas Jefferson, Farm Book, 1774-1824, (electronic edition) Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive. Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2003.
- Jan E. Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, editors, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture (University Press of Virginia, 1999)
- Dumas MaloneDumas MaloneDumas Malone was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history...
, Jefferson and His Time: (Little, Brown, 1948–1981), six volumes - Rebecca L. and James F. McMurry, Jr., "Anatomy of a Scandal, Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Story", (Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, 2002)
- Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 2000, Monticello
- Scholars Commission Report (Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, 2001)
- "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account", Monticello
- Byron W. Woodson, Sr., A President in the Family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Woodson (Praeger, 2001)
External links
- "Descendants of Eston Hemings - Photos", Descendants of Elizabeth Hemings, Getting Word, Monticello
- Getting Word: Oral History Project, Monticello
- Jefferson Descendants, Beverly Hemings, Wisconsin Digital History
- Thomas and Sally - Interview with Annette Gordon Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello (Excerpted from the full episode Black & White: The Idea of Racial Purity), Back Story, American History Guys, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
- "Sally Hemings and her children", Monticello
- Bibliography of Hemings - Jefferson Sources
- "Annette Gordon-Reed", on Booknotes
- "Annette Gordon-Reed", on Charlie Rose
- A&E biography Clip
- Alan Pell Crawford, "Twilight at Monticello" video, Reason
Further reading
- François Furstenberg, "Jefferson's Other Family: His concubine was also his wife's half-sister", review of Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello, Slate, 23 September 2008
- Gordon-Reed, Annette. The Hemingses of Monticello: an American Family, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
- Stanton, Lucia. Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello, Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2000.
- Hamilton Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello: The Private Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1862, digital text of novel, University of Michigan