It is well known who Thomas Jefferson is. A founding father of the United States. The man who penned the Declaration of Independence. The sage of Monticello. These titles align themselves with American exceptionalism. The inherent reality of Thomas Jefferson is starkly different from what was taught in schools for decades, if not centuries. While Thomas Jefferson’s achievements and contributions to this nation are nothing to scoff at, it cannot go without noting that he was a slave owner.
Despite Jefferson’s condemnation of slavery in a 168 word passage of an early version of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson partook in this nation’s original sin, owning 607 humans held in bondage throughout his lifetime, all the while benefitting from its spoils. One of these spoils, a young mixed race woman by the name of Sally Hemmings whom he and his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson inherited from Martha’s father, John Wayles. Wayles, a British slave trader, merchant, and attorney once had a sexual relationship with Betty Hemings, a slave of mixed race ancestry who gave birth to 10 mixed race children, six of them being half siblings to Martha. The youngest child was Sally.
Upon Martha’s death at the age of 33, she requested to Thomas Jefferson that he never remarry. Honoring this, Jefferson went about his duties as a politician, some of which led him to Paris, France as an American envoy. In 1784 after Jefferson’s youngest daughter passed away from whooping cough, he requested his surviving daughter Mary “Polly” Jefferson join him and his eldest daughter Martha “Patsy” Jefferson in Paris. As fate may have it, Sally Hemings was assigned to accompany Polly to Paris after another enslaved woman who was originally tasked with the role became pregnant.
At the age of 13 or 14, Sally arrived in Paris, France with Polly in 1787, joining the 43 year old Thomas Jefferson. Soon thereafter, a sexual relationship began between Sally and Jefferson, to which many details are uncertain. As a woman held in bondage, she had no ability to ward off such advances and today, we know such an age disparity and clear power imbalance to likely be an act of coercion. However, during Sally’s two year stay in Paris, she likely learned from a new found sense of freedom by virtue of her residence in the city where she was legally free from bondage, leading some historians to wonder if the relationship was rape, consensual, or possibly even one rooted in love. As Sally was technically free under French law, something Jefferson was fully aware of, Sally utilized these rights to gain certain privileges. Upon Jefferson’s demand that she return to the United States with him, Sally initially refused. As a concubine of Jefferson, a man who often spoke of liberty and freedom, why should she return to a land where those ideologies were not permitted to her and her unborn children? Through persuasion, Sally and Jefferson were able to bargain, Jefferson promising to free their children at the age of 20. Sally abided, making her return to Monticello in 1789.
Upon her return, Sally continued to work as an enslaved household servant as well as a lady’s maid. Over the next few decades, Sally and Jefferson continued their relationship, giving life to at least six children, the first in 1790 at the age of 16. With the ever longing hopes for her children to see freedom, Sally’s resilience and resolve to hold Jefferson to his word came to fruition for the four children who survived into adulthood. In 1822, Jefferson begrudgingly freed their eldest son and daughter by listing Beverly and Harriet as runaways in his records. Beverly and Harriet soon integrated into white society but at a cost. By denying their family lineage, they were rewarded with safety and acceptance but never able to live as who they truly were. Since this denial, historians have been unable to successfully find these Hemings-Jeffersonian descendants. As freedmen in 1827, Madison and Eston both acknowledged their lineage, passing on their family history from generation to generation, providing bread crumbs to historians to document evidence for Sally and Jefferson’s relationship in addition to various first hand documents and eventual DNA confirmation. Madison and Eston would both go on to marry free women of color, starting families and living alongside their mother Sally in Charlottesville, VA until her passing in 1835. The families were honored to be a part of Sally’s lineage, calling her the family’s “best and bravest character” and passing this along to future generations.
These generational stories eventually led to one young boy often sharing his pride in being a descendant of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. While learning of presidents in school, he often shared this pride only to be told to stop lying by his teachers because his skin tone did not match that of Jefferson. While being denied his truth, Shannon LaNier held onto what he knew to be fact. In 1999, Lucian Truscott, an acknowledged descendant of Thomas Jefferson invited all descendants of Jefferson, from both Martha and Sally’s lineages to attend the Jefferson family reunion at Monticello for the first time. Shannon was in attendance, finally recognized for what he always knew. As a nation fraught with a shameful past, it is the relationships of people like Shannon and Lucian, cousins lost in time who once again found each other and openly share their love for one another as kin to lead this country in guidance during devise times.
If not for the strength of a woman, born in bondage, determined to fight to see her children know freedom one day, Shannon and Lucian’s story may never have been known. A bargain set in France 76 years before the last slaves were freed in Galveston, TX on June 19, 1865 led to the proliferation of the four lives. Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston witnessed freedom. Through Sally’s resilience, her children gained freedom to live, love, and express themselves through liberty. A freedom that has since led to thousands of descendents living in skins shaded dark and light, Black and white.
Upon Jefferson’s death, Sally was not freed, a possibly telling sign of the hypocrisy between his words and his actions. Sally did however gain her unofficial freedom through Jefferson’s daughter, and in actuality, her very own niece, Martha Randolph in 1826, permitting Sally to live in Virginia with Madison and Eston. While the founding fathers have long been deified in the United States, the reality is that they were human, full of faults. It is important to recognize these truths. It is also greatly important to raise to light, true heroes that fought for the ideals America says it beholds. Sally Hemings embodies these ideals to the greatest depths possible. She fought for her children to live in freedom, to see an opportunity for prosperity and success, and to experience an upward mobility not provided for other enslaved human beings for several more decades. While Sally may have lived as a slave, her strong spirit fought with a determined resiliency to see the words “all men [and women] are created equal” become true for her own, making Sally Hemings a true Founding Mother of the United States of America.