The Life of a Slave in Thomas Jefferson's Home

1. The President and His Dead Wife’s Slave Sister

Another layer of creepiness about Thomas Jefferson and his child concubine is that Sally Hemings was his dead wife’s sister and lookalike. Hemings 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). Hemmings, who was nine years old 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 thirteen or fourteen, he slept with her.

In short, what Thomas Jefferson did with Sally Hemings would be an epic scandal if it had happened today – one that hits just about every icky button there is. Pedophilia? Check. Incest? Check. Violence, coercion, and rape? Check, check, and check. Yet another unsavory layer atop the rest is that Jefferson fathered six children upon Sally, and kept them as slaves. He eventually freed his children, but he never freed his concubine/ Sally Hemings still lived in slavery and was Thomas Jefferson’s chattel property when he died in 1826.

_________________

Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

All That is Interesting – Meet Darya Saltykova, the Russian Blood Countess Who Slaughtered 138 of Her Serfs for Fun

Avrich, Paul – Russian Rebels: 1600-1800 (1976)

Bear, James A. Jr. – Jefferson at Monticello (1967)

Brodie, Fawn McKay – Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Haitian Revolution

Encyclopedia Britannica – Helot

Encyclopedia Britannica – Stenka Razin

Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe I (1990)

Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe III (2002)

Heinl, Robert – Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492 – 1995 (1996)