Sally Hemmings Research Paper

I know we have all heard about the great Thomas Jefferson. The one who was the third president of this country, wrote the constitution, and was a significant part of the Louisiana Purchase. What a lot of people don’t know about is his black slave mistress Sally Hemmings. Sally Hemmings was a biracial slave that Thomas Jefferson owned. She was his first wife (Martha Jefferson) half sister. Allegedly, from this union was born six children. It is clear that Sally Hemmings children were fathered by Thomas Jefferson because the DNA results, historical record, and oral evidence proves it. In 1802, a political journalist James T Callender wrote an article in a Richmond newspaper outing Jefferson on having relations with a slave and fathering her children. At the time this was a huge deal, and Jefferson’s daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph denied the …show more content…
There are no records suggesting that she was elsewhere at these times, or records of any births at times that would exclude Jefferson’s paternity.” () Its also a well known fact that she was a maid to his daughter’s Martha and Maria. This puts Jefferson in close proximity with Hemmings when she conceived. It was said that Sally Hemmings children were very light-skinned and could mistaken for white people (three of her children lived as members of the white society). It was also said that Sally’s children strongly resembled Thomas Jefferson. It is also a fact that Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemming’s children. The two older children were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822 and the younger 2 were free in his will in 1826. He didn’t give freedom to any other slave family. Eston Hemmings changed his name to Eston Hemmings Jefferson in 1852. Not only did Eston change his name but he passed down from generation to generation orally where his roots came