4. Thomas Jefferson compelled, under false promises, a teenage female slave to serve as his concubine after the death of his wife.
Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the most influential of the Founding Fathers, acting as the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, the inaugural Secretary of State, Third President of the United States, and responsible for the Louisiana Purchase. Less respectably, after the death of his wife, Martha, in 1782, Jefferson initiated a sexual relationship with teenage African slave Sally Hemings. Summoning his slave to France in 1787, Hemings, aged approximately 16, was impregnated during her 26-month residence in Paris. Offered the choice to petition for her freedom under French law, Jefferson manipulated Hemings with the promise of freedom for her children should she return to Virginia and slavery.
Although the child produced in Paris did not long survive, Jefferson is believed to have produced at least six further children by Hemings over a period of more than a decade. Whilst historically their relationship has been portrayed in a romantic light, recent examinations have shed a darker picture on Jefferson’s actions. Hemings, a teenager, could not possibly have refused the advances of her 40-year-old master and categorically was unable to refuse consent. Coerced through unfulfilled promises for her children, Hemings was repeatedly raped by the American legend, even if social norms at the time did not perceive it as such.