documented (Truth
Establishment, 2004). Jefferson, who served two terms as president of the
United States from 1801 to 1809, owned 154 slaves in Virginia.
On February 24, 2003, The Thomas Jefferson (Memorial) Foundation revised
their statement regarding the children of Sally Hemings:
"Although the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings has been for
many years, and will surely continue to be, a subject of intense interest
to historians and the public, the evidence is not definitive, and the
complete story may never be known. The Foundation encourages our visitors
and patrons, based on what evidence does exist, to make up their own minds
as to the true nature of the relationship."
Based on the evidence alone, it is difficult to prove whether Jefferson and
Hemings had children together. However, it is interesting to speculate what
their relationship must have meant to Jefferson and his fight for
According to Wills (Smiley, 2004): "It was not a healthy relationship.
Slavery never is. After all, he sold 85 of his slaves. You know, he liked
to call the slaves 'My family.' You don't sell members of your family. And
that was a huge proportion of his slaves. The most he ever owned at one
time was 200. So selling them, which at that time meant selling them West
to you didn't know what kind of treatment, was hardly a fair action. And
every time there was a chance of extending slave territory, he pushed it.
He wanted slavery in the territories acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. He
wanted them in Missouri. He wanted them in the Floridas. He wanted slaves
in Cuba, which he was also trying to acquire at that time. There's only one
time that he did anything that was against slavery and that was under the
Articles of Confederation, when he said that slavery should not be extended
into the new territory after 1800. That was kind of a non-proposal because
that gave 14 years for slavery to be...