Skip to main content

Sally Hemings

Important new information on the central figure in the early American republic has surfaced with the publication of new volumes of Jefferson's journals and correspondence.

In late autumn of 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was in Germantown, Pennsylvania, then the nation’s temporary capital.

Important new information on the central figure in the early American republic has surfaced with the publication of new volumes of Jefferson's journals and correspondence.

In late autumn of 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was in Germantown, Pennsylvania, then the nation’s temporary capital.

Jefferson had children with his wife, Martha, and then with his and slave, Sally Hemings, and these children lived very different lives as a result of their race.

Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist Jefferson's Daughters:

To call it loaded question does not begin to do justice to the matter, given America’s tortured racial history and its haunting legacy.

A descendant of Thomas Jefferson comments on the quarrel over who can be allowed in the family graveyard, and the missing remains of Sally Hemings. The outcome of the dispute is important to every American.

A Jefferson descendant's thoughts on luck, ancestry, and the meaning of the DNA findings

 

It turns out that my great-grandfather fought to free my daughter.

Bernard A. Weisberger’s balanced look at the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings story (“In the News,” November 1997) led me to wonder anew at both the staying power and the meaning of this tale. Just what is it that is so scandalous here?

Why the possible liaison between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings matters to us.

When the Supreme ruled that President Clinton was not immune during his term of office from Paula Jones’s suit charging alleged sexual harassment, I thought at once of writing a column about the accusations of sexual misconduct brought against previous Presidents.

Three movies newly available on video cast a cold and, occasionally, even scornful eye on their subjects.

When Sunrise at Campobello, Dore Schary’s play about the crippling of Franklin D. Roosevelt, opened on Broadway, Eleanor Roosevelt and two close friends were in the audience as his guests. It is a heroic double portrait in which Mrs.

A STUDY IN HISTORICAL SILENCES

Although he married only once, Thomas Jefferson had two families. The first was by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson; the second, after her death, was by her young half sister, Jefferson’s quadroon slave Sally Hemings.

A seasoned scholar examines in detail evidence that the widowed Thomas Jefferson took as his mistress Sally Hemings, the beautiful quadroon half sister of his late wife

Did Thomas Jefferson, widowed at thirty-nine, take as a mistress Sally Hemings, the beautiful quadroon half sister of his late wife? This careful study of the known facts and of the long, bitter argument on the subject is the work of a seasoned scholar.
Fawn M.

Enjoy our work? Help us keep going.

Now in its 75th year, American Heritage relies on contributions from readers like you to survive. You can support this magazine of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

Donate