Sally Hemings

Who was Sally Hemings?

Sarah "Sally" Hemings was an enslaved woman of mixed race owned by President Thomas Jefferson and known for having a long-term relationship and six children with him, of whom four survived and all gained freedom. The youngest of six siblings by the planter John Wayles and his slave Betty Hemings, Hemings was a half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton.

In 1787, Sally Hemings, at the age of 14, accompanied Jefferson's youngest daughter Mary to London and then to Paris, where the widowed Jefferson, 44 years old at the time, was serving as the United States Ambassador to France. Hemings spent two years there. Hemings and Jefferson are believed by some to have begun a sexual relationship either in France or soon after their return to Monticello. Hemings had six children of record born into slavery; four survived to adulthood. Sally Hemings served as a domestic servant in Jefferson's house until his death.

The historical question of whether Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children is known as the Jefferson–Hemings controversy.