Existing comment:
The Hemings Family
As many as 70 members of the Hemings family lived in slavery at Monticello over five generations. Elizabeth Hemings and her children arrived at Monticello around 1774 as part of Jefferson's inheritance from his father-in-law, John Wayles, who was likely the father of six of the children. Members of the family eventually occupied the most important positions in Monticello's labor force. They helped build the Monticello house, ran the household, made furniture, cooked Jefferson's meals, cared for his children and grandchildren, attended him in his final moments, and dug his grave. Elizabeth's daughter Sally Hemings was likely the mother of four of his children. The nine people Jefferson freed in his lifetime and will were all members of the Hemings family.
Sally Hemings
Sally Hemings (1773-1835) -- daughter of Elizabeth Hemings and (probably) Jefferson's father-in-law, John Wayles -- came to Monticello with her mother and siblings in the mid-1770s. At age 14 she accompanied Jefferson's daughter Mary to Paris as a lady's maid. Hemings's son recalled that her later duties at Monticello were "to take care of [Jefferson's] Chamber and wardrobe, look after us children, and do light work such as sewing, etc."
Her name has been linked with Jefferson's since 1802 when a newspaper reported that Jefferson kept a "concubine" named Sally. Their relationship has been the subject of debate ever since. Documentary and genetic evidence leads most historians now to believe that, years after his wife's death, Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings's children. Her two older children, Beverly and Harriet, were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822, and the younger two, Madison and Eston, were freed in Jefferson's will. After Jefferson's death, Sally Hemings lived out her life in unofficial freedom in Charlottesville. |