Hemings family

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The Hemings family lived in Virginia in the 1700s and 1800s. The family consisted of Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings and her children and other descendants. They were slaves with at least one ancestor who had lived in Africa and been brought over the Atlantic Ocean in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some of them became free later in their lives. For part of their history, they were owned by the Eppes family, to the Wayles family, and to Thomas Jefferson. [1] The Hemingses were the largest family to live at Jefferson's house, Monticello. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Origins

When he was interviewed, Madison Hemings told a historian that his grandmother Elizabeth's mother had been a fully African woman but he did not know whether she was born in Africa. She was owned by the Eppes family. Historians do not know for sure what her name was. Papers with the names of female slaves in the Eppes family list "Dinah," "Judy," "Abbie," "Sarah," "Parthenia," and others. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed said that there were many girls named "Thenia" in the Hemings family, and they might have been named after Parthenia, also spelled Parthena. But she also says that "Sally" is a nickname for "Sarah," and there were many girls named "Sarah" and "Sally" in the Hemings family too. [2]

According to Madison Hemings, Elizabeth Hemings' mother was an African woman and her father was an English sea captain named Hemings. The sea captain tried to buy Elizabeth Hemings from her owner when she was born. Even though he offered the owner a large sum, the owner refused to sell Elizabeth. He said he wanted to see what a half-white, half-African child would look like. Captain Hemings later tried to break into the Eppes' house and take his daughter away "by force or stealth," but someone told the owner about his plan. Captain Hemings left Virginia and disappeared from Hemings family lore. [2] [3]

The man with whom Captain Hemings negotiated for his daughter was a male member of the Eppes family, but historians do not know which one because they do not know when Elizabeth Hemings was born. One paper says "about 1735." It could have been either of two men, depending on which was still living at the time. [3]

Elizabeth Hemings lived at the Eppes family's house, which was called Bermuda Hundred, until 1746. That year, Martha Eppes married John Wayles. Elizabeth and other enslaved people went with Martha to Wayles's house as part of her marriage settlement. Technically, the Eppes family owned Elizabeth Hemings even when she worked for the Wayles. [2]

Elizabeth Hemings lived as a house servant. Historians think that Elizabeth Hemings' job with the Wayles family was to help raise Martha Wayles, who would later marry Thomas Jefferson. After John Wayles' wife died, he made Elizabeth Hemings his concubine. They had a sexual relationship but he did not marry her or free her or her children, including the children who were most likely fathered by Wayles. [3]

When Martha Wayles, at the time called Martha Skelton, married Thomas Jefferson, Hemings and many people in her family went with her to Jefferson's house at Monticello. Historians think Elizabeth Hemings took care of Martha Jefferson when she became sick and that she was present at her death. [2] [5]

Habits

The Hemingses were known for pooling resources. They also had what historian Annette Gordon-Reed calls a "mania" for naming their children after each other. [2]

Many of Thomas Jefferson's letters and other writings survive, so historians know more about the Hemingses who lived on Monticello than about many other slave families. Six of Elizabeth Hemings' children were Martha Jefferson's half-brothers and half-sisters because they had the same father: John Wayles. Robert and James Hemings helped Martha Jefferson and her daughters escape from British soldiers during the American Revolutionary War. Historians do not know whether the Hemings men thought of themselves as two men helping their sister and nieces, as two men helping their master's wife and daughters, as both, or as neither one. [2]

Thomas Jefferson trusted many people in the Hemings family. When he was away from Monticello, he would allow the Hemings men to leave, choose other people for whom to work, and keep all their wages, something which was not required by Virginia state law. Normally, slave owners kept some or all of the money that a slave earned while working for someone else. Jefferson freed several people in the Hemings family but not all of them. Jefferson's writings mention that he had a conflict with Martin Hemings so intense that he decided to sell him, but did not actually do so before Hemings' death. [2]

Jefferson was not always happy to free his slaves. When Robert Hemings asked to buy his freedom, Jefferson said that Robert must have been lured away from him. After freeing Robert, Jefferson stopped letting his slaves travel so much. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed writes that she thinks Jefferson figured out that letting slaves live as if they were free made them want to be legally free. It also let them learn things about the outside world. [2]

Family tree

Elizabeth Hemings' children with an unknown partner: [6]

Mary Hemings' children with earlier partners:
  • Daniel Farley (d.1837)
  • Molly (1777-after 1790)
  • Joseph Fossett (1780-1858)
  • Betsy Hemings (1783-1857)
Mary Hemings' children with Thomas Bell:
  • Robert Washington Bell
  • Sarah Jefferson Bell
  • Billy (1777-1778)
  • Wormley Hughes (1781-1858)
  • Burwell Colbert (1783-1862)
  • Brown Colbert (1785-1833)
  • Melinda Colbert (1787-1860)
  • Edwin (1793-after 1819)
  • Robert (1799-after 1820)
  • Mary Colbert (1801-1843)
  • Billy (1780-after 1795)
  • Critta Hemings (1783-1819)

Elizabeth Hemings' children with John Wayles:

Robert Hemings' children with his wife:
  • Martin Hemings
  • Elizabeth Hemings
  • Mary
  • Lucy
  • Betsy
  • Susan
  • Sally
  • James Hemings (1787-after 1815)
  • Eugenia Hemings (1803-1885)
  • James Hemings (1804-1870)
  • Anderson Hemings (1808-1868)
  • Betty Hemings
Sally Hemings' children with Thomas Jefferson:

Elizabeth Hemings' children with Joseph Neilson, known:

Elizabeth Hemings' children with Joseph Neilson, possible:

Related Research Articles

Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a female slave with one-quarter African ancestry owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.

Martha Skelton Jefferson was the wife of Thomas Jefferson from 1772 until her death. She served as First Lady of Virginia during Jefferson's term as governor from 1779 to 1781. She died in 1782, 19 years before he became president.

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Martha "Patsy" Randolph was the eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, and his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. She was born at Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wayles Eppes</span> American politician (1772–1823)

John Wayles Eppes was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1803 to 1811 and again from 1813 to 1815. He also served in the U.S. Senate (1817–1819). His positions in Congress occurred after he served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Chesterfield County (1801–1803).

Eston Hemings Jefferson was born into slavery at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race enslaved woman. Most historians who have considered the question believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that a descendant of Eston matched the Jefferson male line, and historical evidence also supports the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson was probably Eston's father. Many historians believe that Jefferson and Sally Hemings had six children together, four of whom survived to adulthood. Other historians disagree.

John Hemmings was an American woodworker. Born into slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello as a member of the large mixed-race Hemings family, he trained in the Monticello Joinery and became a highly skilled carpenter and woodworker, making furniture and crafting the fine woodwork of the interiors at Monticello and Poplar Forest.

The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors that he had a slave concubine, Sally Hemings. Based on his grandson's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings's children. In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson is the father of one or more of Sally's children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis W. Eppes</span> American politician and planter

Francis Wayles Eppes was a planter and slave owner from Virginia who became a cotton planter in the Florida Territory and later civic leader in Tallahassee and surrounding Leon County, Florida. After reaching legal age and marrying, Eppes operated the Poplar Forest plantation which his grandfather President Thomas Jefferson had established in Bedford County, Virginia, which he inherited. However, in 1829 he moved with his family to near Tallahassee, Florida. Long interested in education, in 1856 Eppes donated land and money to designate a school in Tallahassee as one of the first two state-supported seminaries, now known as Florida State University. He served as president of its board of trustees for eight years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madison Hemings</span> American freed slave (1805–1877)

Madison Hemings was the son of the mixed-race enslaved woman Sally Hemings and, according to most Jefferson scholars, her enslaver, President Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of her four children to survive to adulthood. Born into slavery, according to partus sequitur ventrem, Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation, where his mother was also enslaved. After some light duties as a young boy, Hemings became a carpenter and fine woodwork apprentice at around age 14 and worked in the joiner's shop until he was about 21. He learned to play the violin and was able to earn money by growing cabbages. Jefferson died in 1826, after which Sally Hemings was "given her time" by Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph.

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Mary Jefferson Eppes, known as Polly in childhood and Maria as an adult, was the younger of Thomas Jefferson's two daughters with his wife who survived beyond the age of 3. She married a first cousin, John Wayles Eppes, and had three children with him. Only their son Francis W. Eppes survived childhood. Maria died months after childbirth.

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. After the death of Wayles in 1773, Elizabeth, Mary, and her family were inherited by Thomas Jefferson, the husband of Martha Wayles Skelton, a daughter of Wayles, and all moved to Monticello.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Jefferson</span> Man enslaved by Thomas Jefferson (1775–1846)

Isaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger was an enslaved artisan of US President Thomas Jefferson who crafted and repaired products as a tinsmith, blacksmith, and nailer at Monticello.

James Hemings (1765–1801) was the first American to train as a chef in France. Three-quarters white in ancestry, he was born into slavery in Virginia in 1765. At eight years old, he was purchased by Thomas Jefferson at his residence of Monticello.

Elizabeth Hemings was a female slave of mixed-ethnicity in colonial Virginia. With her owner, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were considered slaves from birth; they were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other slaves were inherited, along with 11,000 acres and £4,000 debt, as part of his estate by his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson.

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 was Jefferson, who is now believed to have fathered, with his slave Sally Hemings, four children who survived to adulthood.

John Wayles was a colonial American planter, slave trader and lawyer in colonial Virginia. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Wayles married three times, with these marriages producing eleven children; only five of them lived to adulthood. Through his female slave Betty Hemings, Wayles fathered six additional children, including Sally Hemings, who was the mother of six children by Thomas Jefferson and half-sister of Martha Jefferson.

Israel Jefferson, known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for years, and also rode with his brothers as a postilion for the landau carriage.

Burwell Colbert, also known as Burrell Colbert, was an enslaved African American at Monticello, the plantation estate of the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. There he served an important role in the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the Jefferson estates, including Poplar Forest, as butler, personal valet, glazier, and painter. He was the son of Betty “Bett” Brown, the second child of Elizabeth “Betty” Hemings, the matriarch of the Hemings family in the United States. He was held in high esteem by President Jefferson as a "faithful servant" who was "absolutely excepted from the whip." When Jefferson died on the night of July 4, 1826, Colbert was counted among those at the bedside of the former president.

Martin Hemings was an American man enslaved to Thomas Jefferson. He worked as Jefferson's butler at Monticello.

References

  1. ↑ Lucia C. Stanton (2012). "Those who Labor for My Happiness": Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. University of Virginia Press. ISBN   9780813932231 . Retrieved April 14, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Annette Gordon-Reed (2008). The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. New York: Norton.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Elizabeth Hemings". Monticello. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  4. ↑ Fawn M. Brodie (1974). Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History. pp. 171, 199. Retrieved April 14, 2022.
  5. ↑ Lucia Cinder Stanton. "Jefferson's "Family"". PBS . Retrieved September 18, 2021.
  6. ↑ "The Life of Sally Hemings - Family Tree". Monticello. Retrieved September 18, 2021.
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