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MajesticRZ (talk | contribs) Improved a sentence about Jefferson's sexual relationship |
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Hemings's mother was [[Betty Hemings]],<ref>[http://explorer.monticello.org/text/index.php?id=25&type=7 ''Betty Hemings - Monticello Explorer'']</ref> the [[partus sequitur ventrem|daughter of a female slave]] and an English captain, John Hemings. Sally's father, the owner of Betty, [[John Wayles]], was also the father of Jefferson's wife, [[Martha Jefferson|Martha]]. Therefore, Sally was half-sister to Jefferson's wife and was of approximately three quarters English descent. Martha died during her marriage in 1782. In 1787, when she was 14, Sally Hemings accompanied Jefferson's daughter, also named [[Martha Jefferson Randolph|Martha]], to Paris where they joined Thomas Jefferson. There Sally was a legally free and paid servant as slavery was not legal in France. At some time during her 26 months in Paris, the widower Jefferson began [[sexual slavery|intimate relations]] with her.
As attested by her son, [[Madison Hemings]], Sally later agreed with Jefferson that she would return to Virginia and resume her life in slavery, as long as all their children would be freed when they came of age. Multiple lines of evidence, including modern [[DNA]] analyses, indicate that Jefferson impregnated Hemings several times over years while they lived together on Jefferson's [[Monticello]] estate, and historians now broadly agree that he was the father of her six children.<ref name="stockman">{{Cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/sally-hemings-exhibit-monticello.html |title=Monticello Is Done Avoiding Jefferson's Relationship With Sally Hemings |last=Stockman |first=Farah |date=June 16, 2018 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=July 15, 2018}}</ref> Whether this should be described as rape remains a matter of controversy by historians, as there's no evidence that Jefferson sexually assaulted her, but due to him having near-complete control over her life, the conclusion that Jefferson was coercive is easily reached.<ref>{{
The historical question of whether Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children is the subject of the [[Jefferson–Hemings controversy]]. Following renewed historical analysis in the late 20th century, the [[Thomas Jefferson Foundation]] empaneled a commission of scholars and scientists who worked with a 1998–1999 [[genealogical DNA test]] that was published in 2000<ref name="monticelloreport" /><ref>[https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jefferson/jefferson-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-a-brief-account/research-report-on-jefferson-and-hemings/ Link to report at Monticello.org]</ref> that found a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Hemings' youngest son, [[Eston Hemings]]. The Foundation's panel concluded that Jefferson fathered Eston and likely her other five children as well.<ref name="Brief" /> A rival society was then founded, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, which commissioned another panel of scholars in 2001 that found that it has not been proven that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings's children.<ref name=JHSC>{{cite web |title=The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission |editor-first=Robert F. |editor-last=Turner |publisher=Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society / Carolina Academic Press |url= https://www.tjheritage.org/scholars-commission-pdf |format=[[PDF]] |quote=The question of whether Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by his slave Sally Hemings is an issue about which honorable people can and do disagree. After a careful review of all of the evidence, the commission agrees unanimously that the allegation is by no means proven; and we find it regrettable that public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people. With the exception of one member, whose views are set forth both below and in his more detailed appended dissent, our individual conclusions range from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly false. [The one member concluded that it was more likely than not that Thomas Jefferson fathered Easton.] |orig-year=2001 |date=February 2011}}</ref>
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