The Truth about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson 

The Truth about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson 

Thomas Jefferson has been under attack since 1802 for his relationship with Sally Hemings.

But as Pontius Pilate said in the Gospel of John, chapter 18; “Truth? What is the truth?”

The truth is that Sally Hemings was a slave freed by Thomas Jefferson in 1787, when she moved to France. France had no slavery in 1787. Jefferson lived there as a foreign diplomat.

The truth is that Hemings and Jefferson then started dating.

The truth is that Thomas Jefferson was single because his wife Martha had died in 1782.

The truth is that Sally Hemings decided to move back to Virginia with Thomas Jefferson in 1789.

Sally Hemings’s son, Madison Hemings, on Hemings and Jefferson:

“My mother accompanied her [Jefferson’s daughter, Maria] as her body servant. When Mr. Jefferson went to France Martha was a young woman grown, my mother was about her age, and Maria was just budding into womanhood. Their stay (my mother and Maria’s) was about eighteen months. But during that time my mother became Mr. Jefferson’s concubine, and when he was called home she was enceinte by him. He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred. She was just beginning to understand the French language well, and in France she was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he promised her extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promises, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia.”

— Madison Hemings, Madison Hemings recollections, Pike County Republican, 13 Mar. 1873

The truth is they dated and were in basically a common-law marriage until Jefferson died in 1826. (Martha Jefferson did not want Thomas to enter into an official re-marriage.)

The truth is that Hemings & Jefferson had six children, with three boys and a girl surviving to adulthood. All were freed in early adulthood.

The truth is that Sally lived free from 1826 until her death in 1835.

What’s the big deal?

The controversy started on September 1, 1802, when muckraker James Callender wrote in the newspaper:

“It is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps, and for many years has kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves.

Her name is SALLY.

…The name of her eldest son is TOM. His features are said to bear a striking though sable resemblance to those of the president himself. He is about ten or twelve years of age.”

Note. This guy, Callender, is upset about inter-racial dating.

Jefferson and Sally Hemings were in a consensual relationship, and what they did behind closed doors was NONE OF CALLENDER’S BUSINESS and NONE OF OUR BUSINESS TODAY.

The truth is that the woke left is upset about a Founding Father engaging in consensual interracial dating LONG BEFORE IT WAS POPULAR and long before it was accepted by the democrat party!

The truth will set you free!