The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
This epic work on the Hemings familly won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for historical biography.
Sally Hemings (1773-1835), whose given name was probably Sarah, was the daughter of Elizabeth Hemings. According to her son, Madison Hemings, her father was Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law, John Wayles. There are no known portraits of her. Sally Hemings became Thomas Jefferson's property as part of his inheritance from the Wayles estate in 1774 and came with her mother to Monticello by 1776.
As a child, she was probably a nursemaid to Jefferson's daughter Maria (enslaved girls from the age of six or eight were childminders and assistants to head nurses on southern plantations). Sally Hemings and Maria Jefferson were living at Eppington — residence of Maria's aunt and uncle — in 1787, when Jefferson's long-expressed desire to have his daughter join him in France was carried out. Fourteen-year-old Sally and eight-year-old Maria crossed the Atlantic Ocean to London that summer. They were received by John and Abigail Adams, who wrote that Sally "seems fond of the child and appears good naturd."[1] Jefferson's French butler, Adrien Petit, escorted the two girls from London to Paris.
It is not known whether Sally Hemings lived at Jefferson's residence, the Hôtel de Langeac, or at the Abbaye Royale de Panthemont, where Martha (Patsy) and Maria (Polly) Jefferson were boarding students. Jefferson, who had requested a travel companion for Maria who had had smallpox or had been inoculated against it, soon had Sally inoculated by one of the famous Doctors Sutton. While in Paris, she undoubtedly received training — especially in needlework and the care of clothing — to suit her for her position as lady's maid to Jefferson's daughters. She was occasionally paid a monthly wage of twelve livres (the equivalent of two dollars).
Sally Hemings acted as Martha Jefferson's attendant in the spring of 1789, when Patsy began to "go out" in French society (increased expenditures for clothing for both Patsy and Sally reflect this). When booking accommodations on the Clermont for the return to America, Jefferson asked that Sally's berth be "convenient to that of my daughters."[2]
After the family's return to Virginia in 1789, Sally Hemings remained at Monticello, where she performed the duties of an enslaved household servant and lady's maid (Jefferson still referred to her as "Maria's maid" in 1799).[3] Sally's son Madison recalled that one of her duties was "to take care of [Jefferson's] chamber and wardrobe, look after us children, and do light work such as sewing, &c."[4]
There are only four known descriptions of Sally Hemings. Enslaved blacksmith Isaac Granger Jefferson remembered that she was "mighty near white . . . very handsome, long straight hair down her back." Jefferson biographer Henry S. Randall recalled Jefferson's grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph describing her as "light colored and decidedly good looking."[5]
Sally Hemings may have lived in the stone workmen's house (now called the "Textile Workshop") from 1790 to 1792, when she — like her sister Critta—might have removed to one of the new 12' × 14' dwellings farther down Mulberry Row. After the completion of the south dependencies, she apparently lived in one of the "servant's rooms" under the south terrace (Thomas J. Randolph pointed it out to Randall many years later).[6]
Years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally Hemings’s children. Four survived to adulthood and are mentioned in Jefferson’s plantation records: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings. Beverly Hemings (b. 1798), an enslaved carpenter and fiddler, was allowed to leave the plantation in late 1821 or early 1822 and, according to his brother, passed into white society in Washington, D.C. Harriet Hemings (b. 1801), an enlsaved spinner and weaver in Jefferson's textile shop, also left Monticello in 1821 or 1822, and passed for white. Madison Hemings (1805-1878), a enslaved carpenter and joiner, was given his freedom in Jefferson's will; he resettled in southern Ohio in 1836, where he worked at his trade and had a farm. Eston Hemings Jefferson (1808-ca. 1856), also a enslaved carpenter, moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, in the 1830s. There he was a well-known professional musician before moving about 1852 to Wisconsin, where he changed his surname to Jefferson along with his racial identity. Both Madison and Eston Hemings made known their belief that they were sons of Thomas Jefferson.
Sally Hemings was never officially freed by Thomas Jefferson. However, Jefferson's daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph apparently gave Sally "her time," a form of unofficial freedom that would enable her to remain in Virginia (the laws at that time required freed slaves to leave the state within a year). Madison Hemings reported that his mother lived in Charlottesville with him and his brother Eston until her death in 1835.[7] The location of her grave remains a mystery.
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