Thomas Jefferson kept meticulous records of his farm equipment, expenses, and property, including the enslaved people he owned. He tracked the purchase, births, sale, and deaths of all the enslaved people born at Monticello, his primary estate. He named the fathers of the children, except the six from Sally Hemings, his dead wife’s half-sister, and the product of the rape of Sally’s mother by Martha Jefferson’s father, John Wayles.
Some historians, novelists, and filmmakers present the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings as a great romance. By all accounts, they started sleeping together when Jefferson brought the fourteen-year-old Sally from Monticello to chaperone his nine-year-old daughter, Polly, when visiting Paris.
Polly and Sally stopped on the way in London at the home of Abigail Adams. Abigail thought that Sally was less mature than the younger Polly.
“The Girl who is with her [Polly Jefferson] is quite a child, and Captain Ramsey is of opinion will be of so little Service that he had better carry her back with him. But of this, you will be a judge. — Abigail Adams
It’s true that Jefferson didn’t initially ask for Sally. He wanted an unavailable older chaperone; Jefferson took full advantage of the young girl sent, almost thirty years his junior.
Some say Jefferson couldn’t help himself because Sally reminded him physically of his late wife. Others blame Sally, claiming she was the aggressor and that Jefferson could not resist the wily vixen. Some recognize that with the power differential, age difference, and the fact that Jefferson owned and had power over her extended family and that she was his slave, it could only have been rape.
The six children sired by Thomas Jefferson with Sally Hemings were Harriet, Thenia, William Beverly, Harriet (the same name as the earlier Harriet who died young), James Madison, and Thomas Eston. Martha, the first Harriet, lived less than two years, as did another daughter, Thenia. The other four lived and resided at Monticello until reaching adulthood.
Under French law, Sally could have petitioned for her freedom and stayed in Paris. There was the risk that France would deny her petition, given Jefferson’s status, or that Jefferson might take out her refusal to return on her family members at Monticello. Sally agreed to return to Virginia after extracting a promise from Jefferson that he would free her children once they came of age.
When William, commonly known as Beverly, reached 21, Jefferson failed to keep that promise. It became a point of contention between Sally and Thomas, but what recourse did she have? Beverly ran away at the age of 24 and was not pursued. Because of his light complexion, he could pass as white and moved into white society in either Washington, DC, or Maryland. He did stay in contact with his brother James (Madison).
Harriet turned twenty-one around that time and was not freed by Jefferson. She also left in a stagecoach with fifty dollars given to her by an overseer, probably from Thomas Jefferson. Harriet married a white man, though she never denied she was Black. She kept in touch with Madison for a few years and then stopped writing.
James Madison Hemings developed skills as a carpenter and became a woodwork apprentice at Monticello. When he reached 21, his father, Thomas Jefferson, was amid a prolonged illness. Maybe it slipped his mind to free the third of his adult children when he came of age. Madison was released in Jefferson’s will when he died a year later. He later married a free Black woman, eventually moving to Ohio, a free state. There is a memoir of Madison’s life as told by him to S.F. Wetmopre.
Last, there is Thomas Eston Hemings. Eston had not come of age yet when Jefferson died, so there’s the chance he would have been the sole beneficiary of the promise Jefferson made to Sally before Eston was born. Eston married a free Black woman and moved to nearby Charlottesville with his brother Madison.
Sally was never freed by Jefferson, not even in his will, but was “given her time” by Jefferson’s daughter, Martha. Sally moved in with Madison and Eston in their home in Charlottesville until her death. Eston and his wife also went to Ohio with Madison and his family.
These are the children that Jefferson didn’t acknowledge publicly as having been their father, and his descendants consistently denied until DNA told the tale. Somebody needed to say their names.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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