Eze Amos/For The Washington Post via Getty ImagesSally Hemings importance has only recently been acknowledged by Monticello, Thomas Jeffersons historic home.Sally Hemings is one of the most famous women in American history. Rumors, as well as modern DNA testing, have long suggested that she had a decades-long relationship with Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, one that produced four surviving children. However, as an enslaved woman living in the 18th-19th centuries, Sally left behind few records of her own.We dont know how Sally felt about her relationship with Jefferson. We dont know how she felt about having his children. As an enslaved woman, Sally would have had virtually no power, no way to resist him.But we do know that Sally Hemings used her position to win extraordinary privileges for herself and her children. Her negotiations with Jefferson, which began when Sally was just 14 years old, meant that her four children Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston spent their adult lives free.This is the full story of Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who had a 38-year relationship with Founding Father Thomas Jefferson.The Murky Early Life Of A Young Enslaved GirlThough the exact date of Sally Hemings birth is unknown, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation reports that she was likely born around 1773. Her mother was Elizabeth Hemings, an enslaved woman. Her father is believed to be John Wayles, a Virginia plantation owner.Wayles also had a daughter named Martha Wayles Skelton, who would have been Sallys half-sister. In 1772, about a year before Sally was born, Martha married a young Virginia lawyer named Thomas Jefferson. Then, when Wayles died, Martha inherited Elizabeth and her family which included Sally as well as her brother, James. As Madison Hemings, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jeffersons son later wrote: On the death of John Wayles, my grandmother, his concubine, and her children by him fell to Martha, Thomas Jeffersons wife. As such, Sally and the rest of the Hemings family consequently became the property of Thomas Jefferson.Matt Kozlowski/Wikimedia CommonsMonticello, Thomas Jeffersons plantation where Sally Hemings spent most of her life. Sally Hemings was just a toddler at the time. As she got older, she was tasked with being a nursemaid for Jeffersons youngest daughter, Maria. However, little else is known about her childhood. Indeed, there are not even any portraits of Sally Hemings, so we dont know what she looked like. But according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, she was described as light colored and decidedly good looking, and mighty near whitevery handsome [with] long straight hair down her back.Then, when Sally Hemings was 14 years old, her life changed dramatically. How Sally Hemings And Thomas Jeffersons Relationship Began In ParisThe 1780s were a time of tragedy and change for the Jefferson family. In 1782, Martha Jefferson died at the age of 33. According to Encyclopedia Virginia, Sally Hemings may have been present during Marthas final moments. She may have even heard Martha tell her husband that she could not die happy if she knew her children would have a stepmother. To this, Jefferson solemnly promised to never remarry, and he never did. Then, in 1784, Jefferson left for Paris to serve as the Minister to France. Shortly after his arrival, he called for his young daughter, Maria, to join him. An older enslaved woman was meant to accompany Maria, but when she became unable to travel, Sally Hemings was chosen to go instead. National Portrait Gallery Thomas Jefferson in 1786. His relationship with Sally Hemings began around this time when she arrived in Paris.Sally and Maria arrived in London in June 1787, and stayed with Jeffersons friends, John and Abigail Adams, before continuing on to Paris. Abigail wrote Jefferson to inform him of their arrival and to let him know that: The old Nurse whom you expected to have attended [Maria], was sick and unable to come. She has a Girl about 15 or 16 with her. In another letter, Abigail added: [Sally] seems fond of [Maria] and appears good natur[e]d.Sally, who was actually 14 at the time, continued onto Paris with Maria. There, she was reunited with her brother James, who had accompanied Jefferson to France to study French cuisine. According to Gilder Lehrman, Sally likely split her time in Paris between the Htel de Langeac, where Jefferson lived, and the Abbaye de Panthmont, where Maria and her sister Martha were at school. Suddenly, she was in a whole new world: a city with nearly as many people as the entire state of Virginia, the epicenter of European culture. And, legally, she was free. Library of CongressA view of the Champs-Elysees in Paris in the late 1770s. The Hotel de Langeac, Thomas Jeffersons home where Sally Hemings spent much of her time, is visible on the left. That wasnt all that changed. It was during Sally Hemings time in Paris that her relationship began with Thomas Jefferson. The exact circumstances of their relationship are unknown and as an enslaved woman, Sally would have had virtually no power but by the time Jefferson prepared to return to the United States in 1789, Sally was pregnant with his child. Their stay (my mother and Marias) was about eighteen months, Madison wrote. But during that time my mother became Mr. Jeffersons concubine, and when he was called home she was enceinte [pregnant] by him.Then, in a shocking act of defiance, Sally Hemings refused to return to Virginia with Jefferson. In France, she was free. But Jefferson wanted her to come back with him, and so he agreed to her conditions. To induce her to [return] he promised her extraordinary privileges, Madison Hemings wrote, 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.Sally Hemings Life Back In VirginiaWith her conditions met, Sally Hemings returned to Monticello, Thomas Jeffersons Virginia plantation. Over the next 38 years, her relationship with Jefferson quietly continued. They would have six children, four of whom survived into adulthood: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston.According to Madison, Sally was tasked with taking care of [Jeffersons] chamber and wardrobe [and to] look after us children and do such light work as sewing, etc. Plantation overseer Edmund Bacon additionally said of Sally and her daughter: I was instructed to take no control of them.MonticelloThere are no surviving photos of Sally Hemings children, but the man pictured here on the left, Beverly Frederick Hemings, is her grandson. He is seated alongside his three sons. Meanwhile, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jeffersons relationship continued even after Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1801. At the same time, rumors about Jefferson and Sally began to spread. They reached a fever pitch on Sept. 1, 1802, when James Callender, a journalist known for his smear campaigns, published an explosive expose in which he claimed that the president was having an affair with an enslaved woman. It is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps, and for many years past has kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is Sally, Callender wrote in the Recorder. He even claimed that the president had had several children by her.Some believed Callender; others saw his allegations as baseless political slander. That said, visitors to Monticello often noticed the resemblance between Jefferson and some of the enslaved people living there. Public DomainJames Callender was the first to publicly accuse Jefferson of having children with Sally Hemings.According to Gilder Lehrman, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jeffersons grandson, later told a biographer that there were enslaved children which resembled Mr. Jefferson so closely that it was plain that they had his blood in their veins Randolph continued that, in one case that the resemblance was so close, that at some distance or in the dusk the slave, dressed in the same way, might be mistaken for Mr. Jefferson.However, Jefferson himself never responded to the allegations. Callender died the next year and his story faded though it never entirely went away. But despite the scrutiny, Thomas Jefferson was good to his word: He eventually granted Sally Hemings children their freedom. Madison and Eston (born in 1805 and 1808, respectively) were freed in Jeffersons will after Jeffersons death in 1826. Beverley and Harriet (the couples eldest pair of children born in 1798 and 1801, respectively) were permitted to leave Monticello in 1822 after which they both passed themselves off as white. No other enslaved people at Monticello were freed.Sally Hemings Place In American HistoryThe true nature of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings will never be known, but Callenders 1802 article was the start of a deluge of gossip and rumors that have continued over two centuries. Since 1802, theyve become an essential part of American history, the subject of frequent debate between historians. Did Jefferson have a decades-long relationship with Sally Hemings? Did she give birth to his children? For a long time, many historians dismissed the rumors about Sally Hemings as little more than idle gossip. Jeffersons family also claimed that they were false. However, Sallys descendants long insisted they were true.MonticelloAfter 1800, Sally Hemings likely lived in Monticellos South Wing.Then, in 1998, DNA testing of samples taken from both Jefferson and Hemings descendants did indeed indicate that there was a link between an individual carrying the male Jefferson Y chromosome and the Hemings family. Although the testing could not identify the specific individual, the study concluded that the simplest and most probable explanation was that Jefferson had fathered Hemings children after all.Today, it is more or less accepted as fact that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a relationship that lasted 38 years and produced four surviving children. This history is accepted even at Monticello.But Sally Hemings remains an enigmatic figure in American history. She left no records of her own, so historians know little about her early life, her time in Paris, her relationship with Thomas Jefferson, or her thoughts and feelings about having his children. Even the location of her grave is unknown. What is known is that Sally Hemings ended her life as a free woman. Though Jefferson never formally freed her himself, she was given her time and thus emancipated by his daughter Martha. In an 1830 census, Sally, Madison, and Eston are all listed as free white people.She died in 1835, leaving behind far more questions than answers.After reading about Sally Hemings, discover the story of Maria Reynolds, whose affair with Alexander Hamilton became the first sex scandal in U.S. history. Then, learn about these stunning the presidential sex scandals.The post Sally Hemings, The Enslaved Woman Who Had A 38-Year Relationship With Thomas Jefferson appeared first on All That's Interesting.