Sally hemmings3/14/2023 He informally freed her and their two children, and willed them his estate in Charlottesville. Mary (1753 – after 1834), recognized as a seamstress she was hired out to Thomas Bell and later purchased by him in 1792 she became his common-law wife and they had two children together.In the 1750s, Betty Hemings gave birth to the first four of her twelve children, whose father was a slave. Betty was trained as a domestic servant at one of Wayles' plantations. He stipulated that Betty would always belong to Martha and her heirs (rather than being part of her husband's property). The family said Captain Hemings plotted to kidnap his daughter, but Wayles took measures against this.) Wayles may have sold Betty to Francis Eppes and later regained ownership of her when he married Eppes' daughter Martha as his first wife, or else Betty's grandson Madison may have confused some of the chronology.Īfter John Wayles married Martha Eppes in 1746, her father Francis Eppes IV gave the couple Betty and her mother as part of his daughter's wedding settlement. īetty's grandson Madison Hemings related the family tradition that Betty was born into slavery as the property of "John Wales" (meaning he owned her mother. The place of her birth is uncertain (Hemings said it was Williamsburg ), but by 1746 Betty was recorded as the property of Francis Eppes IV of the Bermuda Hundred plantation. Annette Gordon-Reed speculated that Elizabeth's mother's name was Parthenia, based on the wills of Francis Eppes IV and John Wayles. Madison Hemings in his memoir said the surname of the captain was Hemings the family tradition was that he had tried to buy Betty when he discovered his daughter had been born. His daughter Martha Randolph gave Sally "her time," an informal freedom allowing her to live with her sons during her last decade.Īccording to the oral history of her descendants, Betty was the daughter of a "captain of an English trading vessel" and "a fullblooded African" woman. Jefferson freed all four of her surviving children when they came of age, two of them by his will. Betty's daughter Sally Hemings had six children, all of whom were fathered by Thomas Jefferson, between 17. Mary was the first of several Hemingses to gain freedom before the Civil War. Jefferson gave some of Betty's enslaved descendants to his sister and daughters as wedding presents, and they lived on other Virginia plantations.īetty's oldest daughter Mary Hemings became the common-law wife of wealthy merchant Thomas Bell, who purchased her and their two children from Jefferson in 1792 and granted them greater freedoms than other enslaved people were typically permitted. Many had higher status positions as chefs, butlers, seamstresses, weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths, gardeners, and musicians in the household. They were forced to work on Jefferson's plantation of Monticello. More than 75 of Betty's mixed-race children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were enslaved from birth. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other enslaved people 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. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were enslaved from birth they were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. With her master, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. 1735 – 1807) was an enslaved mixed-race woman in colonial Virginia. 12, including Mary and James, Sally, JohnĮlizabeth Hemings ( c.
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