Harriet Hemings

Harriet Hemings (May 1801 – after 1822) was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his presidency. Most historians believe her father was Jefferson, who is now believed to have fathered, with his slave Sally Hemings, four children who survived to adulthood.

While Jefferson did not legally free Harriet, in 1822 when she was 21, he aided her "escape".^[1] He saw that she was put in a stage coach and given $50 (~$1,145 in 2023) for her journey. Her brother Madison Hemings later said she had gone to Washington, DC, to join their older brother Beverley Hemings, who had similarly left Monticello earlier that year. Both entered into white society and married white partners of good circumstances. All the Hemings children were legally slaves under Virginia law at the time, in accordance of which they inherited the status of their enslaved mother, who was three-quarters European in ancestry (making them seven-eighths European in ancestry). Jefferson freed the two youngest brothers in his will of 1826, so they were legally free.

Beverly and Harriet stayed in touch with their brother Madison Hemings for some time, and then Harriet stopped writing.