Thomas Jefferson Engaged in Rape, Pedophilia, and Incest With His Dead Wife’s Lookalike Sister
Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) was the other American president, aside from Grover Cleveland, whose sexual conduct involved what would count as clear-cut violent sexual criminality today. The Founding Father and leading member of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence was a complicated man, to put it mildly. On the one hand, he penned some of the most stirring words in advocating freedom, liberty, and equality. Jefferson’s phrase in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” has moved and inspired idealists for centuries. On the other hand, Jefferson pursued his happiness in a hilltop plantation, Monticello, leading a life of luxury, that was only made possible by the labor of hundreds of chattel slaves.
He also had a creepy relationship with his slave, Sally Hemmings (1773 – 1835) – although calling it a “relationship” might be misleading: today, it would be considered straightforward rape. Sally Hemmings was a slave, kept in bondage by a brutal system in which violence, including deadly violence, was used to coerce its victims and secure their compliance. She had as much choice in submitting to Thomas Jefferson’s sexual demands as does a modern kidnapped victim, who finds herself chained for years in some psychopath’s basement.
Even if she had not been a slave, there would still have been something super creepy about the age disparity between Sally Hemmings and the famous Founding Father. Thomas Jefferson was 44 years old when he started having sex with Sally. She was all 13 or 14 years old. Even if she had been a willing participant, it would be considered statutory rape today: children that young simply lack the maturity to consent to sex.
Another layer of creepiness is that Thomas Jefferson’s child concubine was also his dead wife’s sister and lookalike. Sally Hemmings was the daughter of a slave woman and John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law. That made her the biological half-sister of Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748 – 1782). Sally, who was 9 when her half-sister died, bore a striking resemblance to the deceased Martha, and the resemblance only increased as she grew. Jefferson missed his dead wife, so when her lookalike sister was 13 or 14, he slept with/ raped her.
In short, Thomas Jefferson having sex with Sally Hemmings would be an epic scandal if it had happened today, hitting just about every icky button there is. Pedophilia? Check. Incest? Check. Violence, coercion, and rape? Check, check, and check. Adding another layer to it all is that Jefferson fathered six children upon Sally, and kept them as slaves. He eventually got around to freeing his children, but he never freed his concubine: Sally Hemmings was still Thomas Jefferson’s slave when he died in 1826.