Betty Hemings facts for kids

Elizabeth Hemings (born around 1735 – died 1807) was an enslaved woman in colonial Virginia. She was of mixed race. She had six children with John Wayles, who owned her. These children were three-quarters white. Because their mother was enslaved, they were also born into slavery. They were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson.

After Wayles died, the Hemings family and about 120 other enslaved people became the property of Martha and her husband, Thomas Jefferson. This was part of Wayles's estate. More than 75 of Betty's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were born into slavery. They were forced to work at Jefferson's plantation called Monticello.

Many of them held important jobs. They worked as chefs, butlers, seamstresses, weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths, gardeners, and musicians. Jefferson sometimes gave Betty's enslaved descendants to his family members as gifts. These individuals then lived on other plantations in Virginia.

Betty's oldest daughter, Mary Hemings, became the common-law wife of a rich merchant named Thomas Bell. He bought Mary and their two children from Jefferson in 1792. He gave them more freedoms than other enslaved people usually had. Mary was one of the first Hemings family members to gain freedom before the Civil War. Betty's daughter Sally Hemings had six children. Four of them survived and were freed by Jefferson when they became adults. Two of them were freed through his will. His daughter Martha Randolph later gave Sally "her time." This meant Sally was informally free and could live with her sons during her last years.

Elizabeth Hemings's Life Story

Family stories say that Betty's father was an English ship captain. Her mother was a "full-blooded African" woman. Madison Hemings, Betty's grandson, wrote in his memoir that the captain's last name was Hemings. The family believed he tried to buy Betty after she was born.

Betty was recorded as property of Francis Eppes IV by 1746. He owned a plantation called Bermuda Hundred. Betty's grandson Madison Hemings said that Betty was born enslaved to "John Wales" (meaning John Wayles owned her mother). The family also said Captain Hemings tried to kidnap his daughter, but Wayles stopped him.

In 1746, John Wayles married Martha Eppes. Her father, Francis Eppes IV, gave Betty and Betty's mother to the couple as a wedding gift. He made sure that Betty would always belong to Martha and her future children. Betty was trained to work in the house on one of Wayles's plantations.

In the 1750s, Betty Hemings had her first four children. Their father was an enslaved man. These children were:

• Mary (1753 – after 1834): She was a skilled seamstress. Thomas Bell hired her and later bought her in 1792. She became his common-law wife and they had two children. He informally freed them and left them his property. Jefferson kept Mary's older children enslaved at Monticello.
• Martin Hemings (1755 - after 1795): He became the butler at Monticello.
• Betty Brown (1759 – after 1831): She was a personal servant to Martha Wayles Skelton. Betty went with Martha to Monticello after Martha married Thomas Jefferson. She was among the enslaved people the Jeffersons took to Williamsburg and Richmond. This was when Jefferson was governor. During a British attack in 1781, Betty and her sister Mary Hemings were taken as prisoners. Betty's sons were Wormley Hughes (1781–1858) and Burwell Colbert (1783 – c. 1862). Both served Jefferson as adults. Colbert was Jefferson's butler and personal valet for many years. Jefferson freed him in his will in 1826.
• Nance Hemings (1761 – after 1827): In 1785, Jefferson gave her to his sister as a wedding gift. Ten years later, he bought her back. She was a skilled weaver, and he had started a cotton factory.

John Wayles was widowed three times. After his third wife died in 1761, Wayles and Betty Hemings had six children together. These children were half-siblings to his oldest daughter, Martha Wayles, who married Thomas Jefferson. Historians like Philip D. Morgan and Joshua D. Rothman have noted that such relationships were common in Virginia. Betty's children with Wayles were:

• Robert Hemings (1762–1819): He bought his freedom from Thomas Jefferson in 1794.
• James Hemings (1765–1801): Jefferson freed him in 1796. James had trained his brother Peter for three years to take his place as a chef.
• Thenia Hemings (1767–1796): She was sold to James Monroe in 1794.
• Critta Hemings Bowles (1769–1850): She married Zachariah Bowles, a free man of color. Critta worked in the house at Monticello from 1775 until 1827. Most of Jefferson's enslaved people were sold after his death. Critta was bought and freed by Francis W. Eppes. She had cared for him as a nurse when he was young. She then lived with her husband on his farm. She had a son, James, who was a carpenter at Monticello. He ran away around 1804 after being treated badly by an overseer.
• Peter Hemings (1770 – after 1834): He became Jefferson's chef after his brother James trained him.
• Sally Hemings (c. 1773 – 1835): She had six children, four of whom survived and were freed by Jefferson. Sally was with Jefferson until his death in 1826. Afterwards, his daughter Martha Randolph gave Sally "her time," meaning informal freedom.

After Wayles died in 1773, all eleven members of the Hemings family and 124 other enslaved people were inherited by Martha Wayles and her husband Thomas Jefferson. The Jeffersons had the mixed-race Hemings children trained for special jobs. They became skilled workers and household servants. No member of the Hemings family worked in the fields.

While living at Monticello, Betty Hemings had two more children:

• John Hemings (1776–1833): His father was an Irish worker named Joseph Neilson. John was freed in Jefferson's will after many years as a skilled ironworker.
• Lucy Hemings (1777–1786): Her father was believed to have been an enslaved man.

In her last years, from 1795 to 1807, Betty Hemings had her own cabin at Monticello. She grew and sold produce to the Jefferson household. She sold things like cabbages, strawberries, and chickens. Her old cabin site is now an archeological site. Researchers hope to learn more about the daily lives of enslaved African Americans at Monticello.

Connection to John Wayles

Historians generally agree that Betty Hemings and John Wayles had children together. Her last six children were multiracial, with three-quarters white ancestry. It is hard to find many written records about relationships between slaveholders and enslaved people. Betty was mentioned in John Wayles's will. This suggests a connection. Also, the marriage contract between John Wayles and Martha Eppes said that Betty, her mother, and their descendants would always belong to Martha Wayles and her heirs.

People at Monticello knew about the relationship. In 1873, Betty's grandson Madison Hemings and Israel Jefferson, both formerly enslaved at Monticello, gave newspaper interviews. They said Wayles was the father of Sally Hemings and several other of Betty's children. Some of Betty's children, including Sally, looked almost white. This was noted in letters from the early 1800s.

Betty Hemings's Descendants

Betty Hemings has many descendants. Here are some notable ones:

From the family line of her daughter Sally Hemings

• Madison Hemings - His great-great-grandson was Frederick Madison Roberts. He was the first African-American state politician in California.
• Eston Hemings Jefferson - His great-grandson was John Wayles Jefferson. He was accepted as white and became a colonel in the Civil War. He was also a rich cotton broker. His great-great-grandson was Walter Beverly Pearson, a white industrialist. John Weeks Jefferson, a white descendant, had DNA that matched the Jefferson male line in a 1998 test.

From the family line of her daughter Mary Hemings

• James Monroe Trotter
• William Monroe Trotter: He was an activist for civil rights and ending slavery in Boston.

Fountain Hughes was a descendant of Wormley Hughes. Wormley was one of Betty's grandsons who worked for Jefferson at Monticello. In 1949, when he was 101 years old, Fountain Hughes lived in Baltimore. He gave the last known recorded interview of a former enslaved person. You can find it online through the World Digital Library and the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.