In 1787, Thomas Jefferson arranged for his daughters to join him in Paris. Traveling with them was an enslaved teenager named Sally Hemings, who would spend the next two decades at the center of one of the most explosive controversies in American history—bearing six children widely believed to be Jefferson’s. Sally Hemings was likely born around 1773 in Charles City County, Virginia. Her mother, Elizabeth Hemings, was enslaved by the plantation owner John Wayles and had six children with him, including Sally.
Under the racial classification of the era, Sally was considered a quadroon, and contemporary accounts consistently described her as light-skinned and good-looking. When John Wayles died in 1773, his estate was sold to cover his debts. His son-in-law, Thomas Jefferson, took possession of Elizabeth Hemings and her six children. Jefferson had married Wayles’ daughter, Martha, in 1772, which meant Sally and her siblings were half-siblings to Jefferson’s wife.
Sally grew up at Monticello, Jefferson’s estate in Albemarle County, Virginia, where she and her siblings worked in the household and held the highest status among the enslaved people there. She became close with Martha and Polly, Jefferson’s daughters, as they were all similar in age. Martha Jefferson died in September 1782 at age 33, after years of declining health. Before her death, she asked her husband never to remarry.
Jefferson, devastated by the loss, honored that wish for the rest of his life and never took another wife. In 1784, Jefferson was appointed American Minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin. Three years later, his daughters arrived in Paris accompanied by Sally and her older brother James. Although slavery was not recognized in France, Sally remained in Jefferson’s household as a ladies’ maid to his daughter Martha.
It was during these years in Paris that Jefferson’s relationship with Sally is generally believed to have begun. She was around 15 years old; he was in his mid-40s. The exact nature of the relationship remains debated, but the imbalance of power was profound—Jefferson was a wealthy diplomat while Sally was an enslaved teenager in his household with little ability to refuse. When the French Revolution erupted in 1789, Jefferson prepared to return to America, and Sally faced a critical choice.
She could remain in France, where she could potentially claim her freedom, or return with Jefferson to a life of slavery. According to the later recollections of her son Madison Hemings, Sally agreed to return only after Jefferson promised that any children they had would eventually be freed. Once back in Virginia, Sally is understood to have had six children. Two died in infancy.
The four who survived were William Beverly, born in 1798; Harriet, born in 1801; James Madison, born in 1805; and Eston, born in 1808. Three of these children were born while Jefferson served as president of the United States. The first public allegations of the relationship surfaced in 1802, when James T. Callender, a former political ally turned enemy, claimed in print that Jefferson kept one of his slaves as a concubine and fathered several children with her.
The story spread quickly and became a favorite attack among Jefferson’s critics. Jefferson himself never publicly addressed the accusations. For two centuries, the relationship was the subject of fierce debate. In the 1850s, Jefferson’s grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph claimed the children had been fathered by Jefferson’s nephew, Peter Carr.
Most historians now reject that assertion, pointing to documentary evidence and a 1998 DNA study that linked the descendants of Sally Hemings to the Jefferson male line. A key piece of evidence comes from Jefferson’s own farm book, in which he recorded the births and deaths of enslaved people. He noted the fathers of children born to enslaved women but conspicuously omitted those details for the children he almost certainly fathered with Sally. Still, some critics note that DNA testing can identify the Jefferson male line but cannot distinguish between individual Jefferson men, leading a small number to suggest alternatives such as Jefferson’s younger brother, Randolph.
The relationship was unusual not because it happened—wealthy slave owners fathering children with enslaved women was hardly uncommon—but because it endured for decades and was conducted in a relatively open manner. Sally never married and effectively became Jefferson’s pseudo wife, living in a room next to his at Monticello while hundreds of other enslaved people lived in outbuildings and quarters. During Jefferson’s presidency, Sally remained in Virginia, and there is no evidence she ever visited the White House. After leaving office in 1809, Jefferson returned to Monticello, where he lived until his death in 1826 at age 83.
He never freed Sally, though he did release some of her children in his last will and testament. Jefferson died bankrupt, a poor businessman despite his political success. Much of his estate was sold by his daughter Martha to repay his debts, and most of his enslaved people were auctioned off. Sally was not among them.
Martha, who was also Sally’s half-niece, allowed her to live as a free woman thereafter. Sally spent her final years in Charlottesville with two of her sons and died there in 1835 at around age 62. Of Sally’s surviving children, Harriet was allowed to leave Monticello in 1822 and was given $50 by Jefferson when she departed. She remained legally enslaved but was never brought back, and she largely disappears from the historical record within a few years.
Beverly was apprenticed to his uncle and permitted to leave as a young man, choosing to identify as white in his adult years. Eston and Madison were officially freed in Jefferson’s will and later moved with their families to Ohio. Eston’s family eventually settled in Wisconsin, and one of his sons became a prominent Union commander in the Civil War. Madison Hemings published an article in an Ohio newspaper in 1873 in which he claimed that he and his siblings were the illegitimate children of the third president.
Combined with the 1998 DNA evidence and the documentary record, most historians now conclude that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children, even if absolute certainty remains impossible. The story of Sally Hemings is not exceptional because it occurred—millions of Americans have ancestors born from relationships between plantation owners and the enslaved. What makes her story remarkable is that it survived generations of efforts to deny, dismiss, or obscure it.
