Betty Hemings

Uncommon card · No. 108750

Elizabeth Hemings (c. 1735 – 1807) was an enslaved woman of mixed ethnicity in colonial Virginia. With her enslaver, planter John Wayles, it is claimed she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were considered slaves from birth; they were possibly half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other enslaved people were inherited, along with 11,000 acres and £4,000 debt, as part of his estate by his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson. More than 75 of Betty's mixed-race children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were born into slavery. They were forced to work on Jefferson's plantation of Monticello. Many had higher status positions as chefs, butlers, seamstresses, weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths, gardeners, and musicians in the household. Jefferson gave some of Betty's enslaved descendants to his sister and daughters...

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