The Hemingses, of course, knew of their blood ties to Martha what Martha knew remains shrouded. The Hemings-Jefferson family connection began in 1772, when Wayles’ daughter Martha, born to one of his white wives, married Jefferson. Hemings went on to have eight children with Wayles, including Sally, the descendant of two generations of white man/slave woman relationships. Wayles married three white women and buried them all before he and Elizabeth Hemings became involved. The story begins with Elizabeth Hemings, born in 1735 of a white father and an enslaved African woman, who became the property of John Wayles, an English immigrant to Virginia. Gordon-Reed, author of a previous work on the Jefferson-Hemings relationship, is just the person to cut through the tangle. This “Gordian knot of family relationships” serves as the ligature holding together a remarkable new book, The Hemingses of Monticello.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |