Mary Hemings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Hemings, (died c.1834) was born a slave in the Virginia colony, and acquired by future President Thomas Jefferson in 1774, upon the death of his father-in-law John Wayles. Jefferson’s wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson inherited several slaves from her late father’s estate, including an entire family by the name of Hemings. Not incidentally, some of the Hemings family members were related to Martha Jefferson in that they were the children of her father John Wayles and his slave, Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings.
Much has been written about Mary’s sister Sally, but it can be said that Mary also figures prominently in American history, if only for the reason that numerous Americans trace their ancestry back to the nation’s third president through her, as well. Tradition has it that in 1780, twenty-seven year old Mary gave birth to a mulatto son fathered by Jefferson. She named him Joseph, but his birth is recorded simply as Joe in Jefferson’s Farm Book. In 1783 she gave birth to a daughter, Betsy. Oral history holds that Betsy was also fathered by Thomas Jefferson. Historians believe that credible evidence points to William Fosset, a white male apprentice at Monticello as their father, rather than Thomas Jefferson.[1]
One of Mary's descendants was William Monroe Trotter, prominent Boston newspaper publisher, human rights activist, and a founder of the Niagara Movement, precursor of the NAACP. A Harvard College honors graduate, he also earned his Masters degree there in 1896. Trotter was a contemporary of his fellow Harvard College alum W.E.B. Du Bois, and the first African American admitted to Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa society, in 1895. His mother Virginia Isaacs Trotter was, according to family tradition, the great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson and Mary Hemings.
Upon being elected Governor of Virginia in 1780, Jefferson moved his family to the seat of government at Williamsburg, along with a number of slaves. When Richmond became the new capitol the following year in 1781, Jefferson then relocated his family there, along with all servants and slaves. The Hemings family including Mary , Betty, Sally, Robert and Martin were a part of the slave group that accompanied Jefferson, his wife and daughters.
The British attacked the new capitol during the Revolutionary War in 1781, placing all there in grave danger. Governor Jefferson fled with his family, but left the slaves to “hold the fort,” as it were, and essentially fend for themselves as the British, under the command of General Charles Cornwallis, sacked the city. According to Isaac Jefferson’s account, the attack was swift, forcing Mary to quickly rescue her little daughter Molly, who was playing in the yard, out of the line of fire. Slaves remaining in Richmond were part of the spoils. Mary, her children, and her sisters and brothers thus fell into British hands. The family was well treated by their captors, and ultimately rescued when Richmond was retaken by forces of the Revolutionary Army under the command of General George Washington.
Upon the death of his wife Martha in 1782, Jefferson accepted appointment as ambassador to France, leaving the operation of his plantation estate at Monticello to overseers and slaves. It was during this time that Mary was leased to another slave owner by the name of Colonel Thomas Bell. The leasing of slaves to other slave holders for profit was a common practice during that era. Mary was later sold to Col. Bell, for whom she later had two children, Robert Washington Bell and Sally Jefferson Bell. For his part, Col. Bell creditably acknowledged his mulatto children, providing for them and their mother Mary in his will.
In 1800, Col. Thomas Bell died leaving Mary and the Bell children a sizable inheritance. Mary had now become known as Mary Hemings Bell, the first Hemings to be manumitted and an owner of property on Charlottesville’s Main Street.
Mary finished her days in Charlottesville, within sight of the mountain top plantation at Monticello on which she lived and worked for so many years. Her final resting place remains unknown.
[edit] Footnotes and citations
- ^ National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 89, No. 3, September 2001, p. 173, note 47
[edit] References
- Jefferson at Monticello, Recollections of a Monticello Slave and a Monticello Overseer. Edited by James Adam Bear, Jr., Charlottesville, Virginia, 1967, pg. 4. Includes recorded recollections of Isaac Jefferson, c. 1847.
- The family letters of Thomas Jefferson, by Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826. Edited by Edwin Morris Betts, and James Adam Bear, Jr.
- The Hemmings Family in Buckingham County, Virginia, by Edna Bolling Jacques, 2002
