Editing Sally Hemings (section)

==Early life==
Sally Hemings was born about 1773 to the enslaved [[Betty Hemings|Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings]] and her mother's owner, [[John Wayles]]. Betty's parents were a "full-blooded African" slave and a white English sea captain surnamed Hemings. Captain Hemings tried to purchase his daughter Betty from their enslaver, Francis Eppes, but the planter refused out of curiosity about how the mixed ethnicities would turn out in Betty.<ref name="madisonstatement">{{Cite web |date=2000 |title=Jefferson's Blood – The Memoirs of Madison Hemings |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/cron/1873march.html |work=[[Frontline (American TV program)|Frontline]] |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting System]] / [[WGBH-TV]]}}</ref> Upon Eppes' death his daughter, Martha Eppes, inherited Betty, and took her as a personal slave upon her marriage to Wayles.

Wayles was born to Edward and Ellen (née Ashburner) Wayles, in [[Lancaster, England|Lancaster]], England.{{sfn|Gordon-Reed|p=59|2008}} Following Martha's death,{{sfn|Gordon-Reed|p=77|2008}} Wayles remarried and was widowed twice more.{{sfn|Gordon-Reed|p=80|2008}} Several sources assert that Wayles took Betty Hemings as his [[concubine]] and that Sally was the youngest of the six children they had during the last 12 years of his life.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/elizabeth-hemings |title=Elizabeth Hemings |work=Monticello.org |publisher=[[Thomas Jefferson Foundation]] |access-date=January 7, 2012}} Says that Betty Hemings's children by John Wayles were Robert, James, Thenia, Critta, Peter, and Sally.</ref>{{sfn|Gordon-Reed|p=80|2008}} These children were younger half-siblings to his daughters by his wives. His first child, Martha Wayles (named after her mother, Wayles' first wife), married the young planter and future president [[Thomas Jefferson]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson |url=https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/martha-wayles-skelton-jefferson/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120171332/https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/martha-wayles-skelton-jefferson/ |archive-date=January 20, 2021 |access-date=2024-08-26 |website=The White House |language=en-US}}</ref>

The children of Betty Hemings and John Wayles were three-quarters European in ancestry and fair-skinned.<ref name = monticello/> According to the 1662 Virginia Slave Law, children born to slave mothers were considered slaves under the principle of {{lang|la|[[partus sequitur ventrem]]}}: the enslaved status of a child followed that of the mother. Betty and her children, including Sally Hemings and all Sally's children, were legally slaves even though the fathers were their white enslavers and the children were of majority-European ancestry.{{sfn|Gordon-Reed|p=81|2008}}<ref name="autogenerated3">{{cite web |url=http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/John_Wayles |title=John Wayles |work=Monticello.org |publisher=[[Thomas Jefferson Foundation]] |access-date=January 25, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120722015323/http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/John_Wayles |archive-date=July 22, 2012 }}</ref>

John Wayles died in 1773 and the next year his daughter Martha and her husband, Thomas Jefferson, inherited the Hemings family among a total of 135 slaves from Wayles' estate, along with {{convert|11000|acres|ha}} of land.<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Farm Book, 1774-1824, page 11, by Thomas Jefferson [electronic edition] |url=https://www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/doc?id=farm_11&mode=lgImg |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211023082636/https://www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/doc?id=farm_11&mode=lgImg |archive-date=October 23, 2021 |access-date=2024-08-27 |website=Massachusetts Historical Society |at=Page linked shows date. Betty's children are listed under "Elizabeth" on page 13.}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated3" />{{sfn|Gordon-Reed|p=92|2008}} Sally was an infant that year and about 25 years younger than Martha.<ref name="autogenerated3" /> She, her siblings, their mother Betty, and various other slaves were brought to [[Monticello]], Jefferson's home.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-03-01 |title=Farm Book, 1774-1824, page 13, by Thomas Jefferson [electronic edition] |url=https://www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/doc?id=farm_13&mode=lgImg |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140301041842/https://www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/doc?id=farm_13&mode=lgImg |archive-date=March 1, 2014 |access-date=2024-08-27 |website=Massachusetts Historical Society}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated3" /> The [[Multiracial people|mixed-race]] Wayles-Hemings children grew up at Monticello at the top of the enslaved hierarchy, and as such were trained and given assignments as skilled [[artisan]]s and domestic servants. Betty Hemings' other children and their descendants, also mixed race, were bestowed privileged assignments as well. None worked in the fields, but were still enslaved people without any legal status or rights.<ref name="reed160">{{harvnb|Gordon-Reed|1998|page=160}}</ref>

===Appearance===
The former slave [[Isaac Jefferson|Isaac (Granger) Jefferson]] described Hemings' physical appearance as "Sally was mighty near white. Sally was very handsome, long straight hair down her back". Jefferson's grandson [[Thomas Jefferson Randolph]] recalled her as "Light colored and decidedly good looking".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sally Hemings {{!}} Life of Sally Hemings |url=https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/#:~:text=There%20are%20no%20known%20images,straight%20hair%20down%20her%20back.%E2%80%9D&text=%E2%80%9CLight%20colored%20and%20decidedly%20good%20looking.%E2%80%9D |access-date=2024-03-06 |website=www.monticello.org |language=en}}</ref>  She was 14-years old when she went to Europe, but stayed briefly with [[Abigail Adams]] in London before going to Jefferson in Paris, and Adams, who did not know her age, thought she appeared 15 or 16 at that time.<ref>Letter from Abigail Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 26, 1787. {{harvnb|Gordon-Reed|p=194|2008}}</ref>