Sally Hemings is one of the most famous—and least known—African American women in U. Scroll down to learn more about this intriguing American. Drawn from the words of her son Madison Hemings. Like countless enslaved women , Sally Hemings bore children fathered by her owner. Female slaves had no legal right to refuse unwanted sexual advances.
Sally Hemings was the child of an enslaved woman and her owner, as were five of her siblings. At least two of her sisters bore children fathered by white men. Mixed-race children were present at Monticello, in the surrounding county, across Virginia, and throughout the United States. Whatever we may feel about it today, this was important to her. Unlike countless enslaved women , Sally Hemings was able to negotiate with her owner. Over the next 32 years Hemings raised four children—Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston—and prepared them for their eventual emancipation.
She did not negotiate for, or ever receive, legal freedom in Virginia. For it is there that we can find the absolute best, and the absolute worst, that we have been as Americans.
We should not get too far into the twenty-first century without looking back at the Hemingses and their time to remember and learn. Sally Hemings left no written accounts, a common consequence of enslavement. The exact date and month is not known. Madison Hemings later stated that Elizabeth Hemings and Wayles had six children together. Like her mother, Hemings would go on to bear at least six children to her master.
Few other details of her childhood are known. Paris in the s was at the apex of its grandeur, a global center of politics, culture and the arts. The city itself was home to over half a million people close to the entire population of Virginia at the time , 1, of whom were free black residents.
