Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sarah Hemings

Sarah "Sally" Hemings (c. 1773 - 1835) was an enslaved woman of mixed race owned by President Thomas Jefferson and who is believed to have had a long-term relationship and six children with him, of whom four survived and all were given freedom by Jefferson. Hemings was the youngest of six siblings by the widowed planter John Wayles and his mixed-race slave Betty Hemings; Sally and her siblings were three-quarters European and half-siblings of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton.

In 1787, Hemings, at the age of 14, accompanied Jefferson's youngest daughter Mary (Polly) to London and then to Paris, where the widowed Jefferson, 44 years old at the time, was serving as the United States Minister to France. Hemings spent two years there. It is believed by most historians that Jefferson began a sexual relationship with Hemings either in France or soon after their return to Monticello. Hemings had six children of record born into slavery; four survived to adulthood. Hemings was a domestic servant in Jefferson's house until his death.

The historical question of whether Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children is known as the Jefferson-Hemings controversy. Following renewed historic analysis in the late 20th century and a 1998 DNA study that found a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Hemings' last son, Eston Hemings, there is a near-consensus among historians that the widower Jefferson fathered her son Eston Hemings and probably all her children. A small number of historians, however, still disagree.

source: Wikipedia entry 'Sally Hemings'; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Hemings; Wikipedia; Text copied from Wikipedia: 1 May 2016