Sally Hemings

Sally was born on the land of John Wayles in 1773, a mixed-race daughter of the Wayles and one of his slaves. Thomas Jefferson married John’s daughter Martha (Sally’s half-sister), and infant Sally came to his household as part of Martha’s inheritance. She accompanied Jefferson and his daughter Polly to Paris at age 14 in 1787, and this was probably the beginning of her relationship with Jefferson. Jefferson freed all of Sally’s surviving children, but never freed Sally herself.