Elizabeth Hemings was an enslaved woman who was given as a wedding gift to John Wayles and Martha Eppes, she spent her life in servitude, eventually bearing children with Wayles, one of whom, Sally Hemings, would later gain prominence for her relationship with Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.
According to oral history passed down by her descendants, Betty Hemings was born around 1735 to an African mother and a “White captain of an English trading vessel” named Hemings. It was said that her father attempted to buy Betty from her owner but was unsuccessful, and she remained enslaved. Some historians speculate that Betty’s mother may have been named Parthenia, based on references in the wills of Francis Eppes IV and John Wayles. While her birthplace is uncertain, her grandson, Madison Hemings, claimed she was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. By 1746, Betty and her mother were recorded as the property of Francis Eppes IV of Bermuda Hundred plantation.
Elizabeth Hemings’ fate changed dramatically in 1746 when John Wayles, a wealthy planter and attorney who would later become the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, married Martha Eppes, the daughter of her master.
As part of the marriage settlement, Francis Eppes IV gave young Betty and her mother to the newlyweds as a wedding gift, specifically stating that Betty would always belong to Martha and her heirs. This act of giving a human being as a gift was a common practice among wealthy plantation owners, showing the dehumanizing nature of slavery at the time.
Betty was trained as a domestic servant on one of Wayles’ plantations, performing household tasks and living in conditions that were typical of enslaved women.
Relationship with John Wayles
John Wayles, who was married three times, became intimately involved with Betty Hemings after the death of his third wife, Martha Eppes. By the time she was around 26 years old, Hemings had already had four children with an enslaved man: Mary, Martin, Betty Brown, and Nance. It was during this period that she entered into a “sexual relationship” with Wayles, which would result in the birth of six more children: Robert, James, Peter, Critta, Thenia, and Sally Hemings.
This relationship between Wayles and Hemings was far from unique in the context of slavery in America. Many female slaves were subject to sexual exploitation by their masters, overseers, and other white men in positions of power. They had no legal protection against such abuse, and any attempts to resist were often met with violence. The children born of these unions were treated not as family but as property.
All of Betty’s children, including those fathered by Wayles, were legally enslaved, a result of the “partus sequitur ventrem” law, which stated that the child’s status followed that of the mother. This law ensured that children born to enslaved women remained enslaved, even when their fathers were freed men or white men of wealth and power.
Sally Hemings, the youngest daughter of Betty, became well-known for her long-term relationship with Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. She would go on to have several of Jefferson’s children. Sally once accompanied Jefferson to France, where she could have claimed her freedom but instead negotiated better terms for herself and her future children, ensuring that they would be freed when they reached adulthood.
Betty’s other children also had noteworthy lives. Some, like Mary Hemings, were able to secure some degree of freedom. Mary, for example, worked in Charlottesville and was eventually able to purchase her freedom, along with some of her children. Other Hemings children, such as James and Peter, were skilled chefs who worked in Monticello, Jefferson’s Virginia plantation.
After John Wayles died in 1773, Betty and her children became the property of his daughter Martha and her husband, Thomas Jefferson, who would later become the third president of the United States. Betty Hemings spent the remainder of her life at Jefferson’s plantation, Monticello. Over time, she gained a measure of freedom. By the last decade of her life, from 1795 to 1807, she lived in her own cabin at Monticello, an unusual privilege for an enslaved person. Betty maintained a degree of economic independence by raising and selling produce to the Jefferson household, including cabbages, strawberries, and chickens.
Betty Hemings passed away in 1807, having lived through decades of servitude and hardship. Despite her status as an enslaved woman, she left a lasting legacy through her children and descendants, many of whom played notable roles in American history.
