3 July 2017
Slave quarters of Sally Hemings,
the maid who gave birth to six of
Thomas Jefferson’s children,
are uncovered and excavated
at his Monticello mansion
after a tourist bathroom
was built over it
- Jefferson had a relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved maid many believe had six of his children
- The room went unnoticed for decades, and was made into a bathroom for tourists visiting the house in 1941
- The bedroom, which didn’t have any windows and was dark, was directly next to Thomas Jefferson’s room
- Archaeologists deduced where the bedroom was from a description by one of Jefferson’s grandsons
- Digging up the bathroom revealed a brick hearth and fireplace, the structure for a stove and original flooring
Archaeologists have unearthed and excavated an area in Thomas Jefferson’s plantation home that was once the living quarters of Sally Hemings – a slave with whom he is believed to have had six children.
Her room, which was built in 1809 and was 14 feet, 8 inches wide and 13 feet long, was next to Thomas Jefferson’s room.
However the area was turned into a bathroom for tourists in 1941.
It was only recently when historians analyzed a description of Sally’s room by one of Jefferson’s grandsons they they concluded it was hiding under a modern day bathroom at the Monticello home.
Archaeologists then found Hemings’ room including a brick hearth and fireplace, the structure for a stove and even the original flooring.
Sally Hemings’ room was discovered at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello mansion, his primary plantation home in Charlottesville, Virginia. While evidence showed that Sally Hemings lived a better lifestyle than other enslaved people on the plantation, her room didn’t have windows and would have been dark and damp
Archeologists have removed a bathroom added to the Monticello mansion in the 1950s which covered up the room where Sally Hemings, who is believed to have had up to six children with Thomas Jefferson, lived in a room adjoining his
Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration of independence and went on to become the third president of the United States; Pictured right, a portrait of what Sally Hemings may have looked like. There is no surviving artistic rendition of her
The location of the room next to Thomas Jefferson’s adds credibility to the claims the third president of the United States fathered several children with at least one of his slaves, Sally Hemings at his mansion in Virginia
The room was unearthed at Jefferson’s Monticello mansion, his primary plantation home in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Sally Hemings (1773-1835) was a slave at the estate, and according to her son Madison Hemings, Sally Hemings’ father was Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law, John Wayles.
She became Thomas Jefferson’s property as part of his inheritance from the Wayles estate in 1774 and came with her mother Elizabeth Hemings in 1776.
She had six children, who are believed to be have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson after the death of his wife Martha Jefferson including Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings.
In September 1802, political journalist James T. Callender, a disaffected former ally of Jefferson, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson had for many years ‘kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves.’
Fraser Neiman, the director of archaeology at the Monticello home, said that digging Hemings’ room revealed a brick hearth and fireplace, the structure for a stove and even the original flooring
Sally Hemings’ room, which was built in 1809 and was 14 feet, 8 inches wide and 13 feet long, was next to Thomas Jefferson’s room
Ellen Wayles Hemings, pictured, was the granddaughter of Sally Hemings. She married her next door neighbour Andrew Jackson Roberts in 1878 and less than a decade later the family left southern Ohio and moved west to Los Angeles
‘Her name is Sally,’ Callender continued, adding that Jefferson had ‘several children’ by her.
Although there had been rumors of a sexual relationship between Jefferson and an enslaved woman before 1802, Callender’s article spread the story widely.
It was taken up by Jefferson’s Federalist opponents and was published in many newspapers during the remainder of Jefferson’s presidency.
Jefferson’s policy was to offer no public response to personal attacks, and he apparently made no explicit public or private comment on this question (although a private letter of 1805 has been interpreted by some individuals as a denial of the story). Sally Hemings left no known accounts.
While Hemings was never technically a free woman, she was allowed to leave Monticello following Jefferson’s death to live with her sons Madison and Eston Hemings in Charlottesville.
It is believed that Jefferson kept his six children as slaves until they came of age, at which point he freed them one by one.
Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration of independence and went on to become the third president of the United States.
Frederick Madison Roberts was the son of Andrew Jackson Roberts and Ellen Wayles Hemings – the grand-daughter of Sally Hemings. He was the first African American elected to the California State Assembly in 1918
WHO WAS SALLY HEMINGS?
Sally Hemings (1773-1835) was a slave at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate.
According to her son Madison Hemings, Sally Hemings’ father was Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law, John Wayles.
She had six children, who are believed to have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson after the death of his wife Martha Jefferson.
There are no know portraits of Sally Hemings, and one of the few accounts of her by an enslaved blacksmith named Isaac Granger Jefferson said that Sally Hemings was ‘mighty near white…very handsome, long straight hair down her back.’
While this has been subject to debate, a 1998 DNA study genetically linked Hemings’ male descendants with male descendants of the Jefferson family.
Sally Hemings became Thomas Jefferson’s property as part of his inheritance from the Wayles estate in 1774 and came with her mother Elizabeth Hemings in 1776.
As a child, she was probably a nursemaid to Jefferson’s daughter Maria, as enslaved girls from the age of six or eight were childminders and assistants to head nurses on southern plantations.
Sally served as an attendant to Maria Jefferson, as well as Martha Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, accompanying them on various trips to Paris.
After her return to Virginia in 1789, Sally Hemings remained at Monticello and worked as a household servant.
Sally’s son Madison recalled that one of her duties was ‘to take care of [Jefferson’s] chamber and wardrobe, look after us children, and do light work such as sewing.’
While Hemings was never technically a free woman, she was allowed to leave Monticello following Thomas Jefferson’s death to live with sons Madison and Eston Hemings in Charlottesville.
Source: Monticello.org
Gardiner Hallock, the director of restoration for the Monticello plantation, told NBC News: ‘The discovery gives us a sense of how enslaved people were living.
‘Some of Sally’s children may have been born in this room.
‘It’s important because it shows Sally as a human being – a mother, daughter, and sister – and brings out the relationships in her life.’
While Hallock says that the evidence showed that Sally Hemings lived a better lifestyle than other enslaved people on the plantation, her room didn’t have windows and would have been dark and damp.
Although there aren’t many accounts of Sally Hemings, one account by an enslaved blacksmith named Isaac Granger Jefferson said that Sally Hemings was ‘mighty near white…very handsome, long straight hair down her back.’
The workers have stripped back the modern bathroom to find the original features from the early 1800s
Emma Byrd Young, third left, pictured with her her husband George and their 10 children at some time in 1915, was the great-grand daughter of Sally Hemings – whose family left Virginia in 1827 and settled in Southern Ohio
Historians analyzed a description of Sally’s room by one of Jefferson’s grandsons, who described the room as being in the house’s South Wing.
Following this, archaeologists decided to dig the area that was once a bathroom.
Fraser Neiman, the director of archaeology at the Monticello home, said that digging Hemings’ room revealed a brick hearth and fireplace, the structure for a stove and even the original flooring.
The room is being restored, and will eventually be open for public viewings.
Monticello’s Community Engagement Officer, Gayle Jessup White, descends from both the Hemings and Jefferson families – Sally Hemings was White’s great-great-great-great aunt.
White first learned about her ancestry when she was a child, and she has mixed feelings about it.
She told NBC News: ‘As an African American descendant, I have mixed feelings – Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder.’
White says that it’s because of this that the local African American community has not always embraced Monticello, but through her role, she hopes to tell the story of not just Thomas Jefferson, but the enslaved people and their families as well.
The excavation and restoration are part of The Mountaintop Project, a $35-million effort to restore the Monticello room to how it looked at the time Jefferson lived there, and to also tell the story of the free and enslaved people who lived and worked at the plantation.
THOMAS JEFFERSON’S
MONTICELLO HOME
The Monticello estate in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the main plantation of America’s third president Thomas Jefferson and it was a passion project for him, as he built the estate following a hefty inheritance from his father, which included about 5,000 acres of land
The Monticello estate in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the main plantation of America’s third president and it was a passion project for Jefferson, as he built the estate following a hefty inheritance from his father.
That inheritance included about 5,000 acres of land at Monticello – a hilltop near his family’s estate.
In 1768, a year after Jefferson was admitted to the Virginia bar, workers started building the estate, which was a decades long process that was completed by 1809.
The house has 43 rooms – 33 in the house itself, four in the pavillions and six under the South Terrace.
About 60 per cent of the furnishings on display at Monticello are or may be items original to Jefferson – other items are period pieces or reproductions of original pieces.
While Thomas Jefferson is remembered for having drafted the declaration of independence, he also drafted the blueprints for Monticello’s neoclassical mansion, outbuildings, gardens and slave quarters.
* * *
He didn’t have any formal training in architecture, but he became an architect years later.
While local white masons and their apprentices did the stone and brickwork, local carpenters, assisted by Monticello slave carpenters, provided the rough structural woodwork.
The fine woodwork (floors, cornices and other moldings) was the work of several skilled white joiners – but one Monticello slave, John Hemings, was trained under the white workman James Dinsmore and became a skilled joiner and carpenter.
While no one has so far managed to calculate the cost of Monticello with any degree of accuracy, Jefferson estimated the value of the house and outbuildings in 1800 at $6,300.
Sources: History.com and Monticello.org
Monticello’s Community Engagement Officer, Gayle Jessup White (right), descends from both the Hemings and Jefferson families – Sally Hemings was White’s great-great-great-great aunt. Left is Niya Bates, a Public Historian of Slavery and African American Life
Jacqueline Pettiford and her family, who are descendants of Madison Hemings, Sally Hemings’ son, standing outside of the Monticello estate in Charlottesville, Virginia
The grounds provide tours of the homes, with some tours that focus on the experience of slaves, and a Hemings family tour.
As part of the restoration project, in 2015 Monticello unveiled Mulberry Row, which included the restoration of two slave-related buildings: An iron storehouse and the Hemings cabin, which were visited by more than 100 descendants of enslaved families in a tree-planting ceremony to commemorate the buildings.
It is believed that Jefferson kept his six children as slaves until they came of age, at which point he freed them one by one. Hemings, however, was never freed.
Since then critics and scholars have been attempting to reconcile the image of Jefferson as a founding father who penned the words ‘all men are created equal’ with a man who would keep a mistress as a slave and enslave his own children with her, for a period of time.
These conclusions are complicated by the fact that Hemings left no written account of the relationship herself, perhaps meaning that she was not literate.
Hemings is mentioned occasionally in Jefferson’s own writings, but not in a way that distinguishes her from the rest of his family.
It is known that Hemings was born in 1773 and served Jefferson at his plantation in Monticello, Virginia, where she acted as nursemaid to several of his children with wife Martha.
Jefferson is thought to have started his relationship with Hemings following Martha’s death in in 1782 and likely continued it until his death in 1826.
While Heming was never technically a free woman, she was allowed to leave Monticello following his death to live with sons Madison and Eston Hemings in Charlottesville.
CONTROVERSIAL NOVEL OF
‘STEAMY RELATIONSHIP’
While little is known about the actual relationship Jefferson shared with slave Sally Hemings, with whom he had six children, readers have slammed the new book as glorifying rape.
Critics and historians argue that it is impossible for sexual consent to be given in any relationship in which one human owns the other.
As a result author Stephen O’Connor has found himself as the subject of some harsh words online for his new book Thomas Jefferson Dreams Of Sally Hemings.
In the book, which has received largely positive reviews, O’Connor imagines Hemings as consenting to the relationship and explores the extent to which she was complicit in making it happen.
One passage, quoted by NPR, features Hemings speaking to Jefferson and reads: ‘I want us always to be as we are here, where we are only our eyes, our hands, those parts of us made for each other by nature, where our only words are the ones we whisper in the little caves we make between pillow, cheek and lips.’
However, that depiction has caused outrage on Twitter.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4662350/Archaeologists-Sally-Hemings-room-Monticello.html#ixzz4mffiP2tj
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