![]() ![]() White males deciding the fates of everyone else in the Virginia House of Burgesses Virginia had a number of laws to ensure this rule obtained. The mixed-race children of John Wayles were kept in slavery. Sarah (Sally) Hemings was one of their daughters. After the death of his third wife, John Wayles took his slave Elizabeth Hemings as his mistress, and was the father of six of her children. Elizabeth and her mother came into the ownership of John Wayles when Wayles married Martha Eppes in 1746. It begins with Elizabeth Hemings, the daughter of an enslaved black mother and a free white father. As many as 70 members of the Hemings family lived in slavery at Monticello over five generations. ![]() ![]() The author took the opportunity provided by Jefferson’s fame and record-keeping to profile a slave family, the Hemingses, because accounts about the lives of slaves in early America are few and far between. ![]() The first thing to understand about this book is that it is not just a story about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, nor is it in fact focused on Jefferson, although he naturally plays a large role in this history. ![]()
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