Sally Hemmings
| Sally Hemings | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Sarah Hemings c. 1773 Charles City County, Virginia Colony |
| Died | 1835 (aged 61–62) Charlottesville, Virginia |
| Residence | Monticello |
| Known for | Enslaved woman who had children by Thomas Jefferson |
| Children | Harriet Hemings, Beverly Hemings, Harriet Hemings (II), Madison Hemings, Eston Hemings |
| Parent(s) | Betty Hemings, John Wayles |
| Relatives | James Hemings, John Hemings, Mary Hemings, John Wayles Jefferson, Frederick Madison Roberts |
 Booknotes interview with Gordon-Reed on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, February 21, 1999, C-SPAN
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Sarah "Sally" Hemings (c. 1773 – 1835) was an enslaved woman of mixed race owned by President Thomas Jefferson. Most historians believe Jefferson was the father of her six children, born after the death of his wife, Martha Jefferson. Four survived to adulthood, and were given freedom by Jefferson. Hemings was the youngest of six siblings by the widowed planter John Wayles and a mixed-race woman he kept as a slave, Betty Hemings; Sally and her siblings were three-quarters European and half-siblings of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton. As an infant Sally came to Monticello as part of Martha's inheritance of her father's slave holdings.
In 1787, Hemings, aged 14, accompanied Jefferson's youngest daughter Mary ("Polly") to London and then to Paris, where the widowed Jefferson, aged 44 at the time, was serving as the United States Minister to France. Hemings spent two years there. It is believed by most historians that Jefferson began a sexual relationship with Hemings in France or soon after their return to Monticello. Hemings remained enslaved in Jefferson's house until his death.
The historical question of whether Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children is known as the Jefferson–Hemings controversy. Following renewed historic analysis in the late 20th century and a 1998 DNA study that found a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Hemings' last son, Eston Hemings, there is a near-consensus among historians that Jefferson fathered her son Eston Hemings and probably all her children. A small number of historians disagree.
Hemings' children lived in Jefferson's house as slaves and were trained as artisans. Jefferson freed all of Hemings' surviving children: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston, as they came of age (they were the only slave family freed by Jefferson). They were seven-eighths European in ancestry, and three of the four entered white society as adults. Descendants of those three identified as white. Hemings was "given her time," lived her last nine years freely with her two younger sons in Charlottesville, Virginia, and saw a grandchild born in the house her sons owned.
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Wikipedia