Enslaved Women at Monticello

Bound within a system that denied their freedom and autonomy both as African Americans and as women, enslaved women at Monticello-and indeed, throughout the country-faced unique trauma and challenges.
Please join us as we launch our Women’s History Month livestreams with a conversation about enslaved women at Monticello on Thursday, March 11 at 1:00 p.m. EST. We will share stories about individual women enslaved at Monticello, and discuss how these resilient women lived within, and fought against a system that denied their humanity.
📷: Nathaniel Gibbs

[@debkuppusamy630]

Thank you all for these programs. I have enjoyed all of your work.

[@ruthbarr8054]

Thank you. Both of you are wonderful teachers. So important that our children learn these stories. I can’t wait to come back and bring my grandchildren.

[@lindaboardsen9900]

I am so thankful Monticello is doing such excellent work with regard to enslaved people. Too long this subject was ignored.

[@carolbarry291]

Thanks very much for this video. Very informative.

[@nwadi6408]

Wonderful historical information.

[@jenniferknight1511]

Annette Gordon-Reed is the name of the historian I was thinking of.

[@douglasvilledarling2935]

She is awesome!!!

[@jenniferknight1511]

Interesting. I have been watching many KZbin lectures on Sally Hemming. So Interesting. Can't think of the lecturers name, but she is a brilliant woman and has written several books on her.

[@annepurcell4495]

Annette Gordon Reed.

[@kelliwells7053]

Great video!!

[@hyuigf]

Thank you for sharing!

[@jewjewparkstravis3218]

Thank you I am learning a lot

[@mmarie294]

How can you not have any feelings for women and men separated from their families? I can't imagine and hurt hearing this

[@carolem9134]

Thank you.

[@heidipollick9694]

Really enjoyable! I learned a lot! Thank you!

[@eaglesbrockin3517]

Wow! Such a wealth of info your team provided. Thank you. Fantastic!

[@user-ok8lt3zm4p]

You can say whatever you want but these women were lucky to have a good home and food to eat. ❤

[@jenngraham1812]

Such shame that Sally Hemings was regarded as an object and chattel, so that no painting or record was made of her existence. So sad.

[@minnielee6624]

They need to do a movie about Mary hemming Bell

[@matildadavies6848]

Thanks mum

[@Chainsawctopus]

Amazing stories! Hopefully as time goes on it'll be easier and easier for black folks to be able to find their ancestors and do the family tree thing. Just goes to show: always keep good records and pass down as much as you can so much later generations can find you and know where they came from :)

[@Christianna73]

♡

[@mmarie294]

Let's face it enslaved, she had no right to deny this president. It was a sad difficult time for me to think about but history nevertheless. She improved her condition but this dark period of history should be taught..

[@roryduplantier2158]

All men are created equal,but some,more equal than others...let truth and freedom ring,right?Nothing better than finally getting the truth of the matter,versus that schoolbook, sanitized version.

[@bernicerogersbooker6333]

That is so sad

[@graceleal3910]

Was Bell married already when he & Mary Hemmings had a relationship? Why would Mary ask Jefferson if she could stay with Bell; was she treated more fairly at Bell's estate than at Jefferson's? Are there any historical references as to if Hemmings was biracial?

[@cherylyoung440]

Your right we as white women can’t feel slavery the same way a black woman might. I can tell you that once my grandson was born and this became his history I hurt when I hear stories now.

[@leobigelow7021]

I have a framed document on the wall of my office proving, among other things, that my ancestors owned at least one slave. I also have evidence that the first member of my family, who was white, arrived here as a slave. I had nothing to do with either event, which took place centuries ago. I feel just fine.

[@leskobrandon8998]

Cause you are a bad mother and it led your daughter to make bad choices.

[@Luke-kg7vu]

@@leskobrandon8998 bad choices?

[@bunnybird9342]

@@Luke-kg7vu ignore him he's being racist by saying that it's bad she had a mixed race child

[@juliettecumberbatch5672]

Thank you do you all have slaves from Barbados recorded?.

[@andrewsmith9980]

why are the enslaved women who were used for breeding purposes always ignored.

[@60gidget]

So sad her grave is no where to be found. What intrigued me most is, what came of her Mother, and her Mothers pregnancy to John Wales. She had 12 children, Sally was 10th, the first 4 I assumed were not John Wales but from the 6th on wards were John Wales. Who fathered the first 4 children before John Wales and what ever happened to him. And was John Wales relationship a consensual relationship with Sally's mother. This story is not the first or will it be the last. There are many stories like these around the world where white people have lived and have slaves. Children half cast mostly, were born out of wedlock and many mothers had to defend for themselves.

[@kathleencalhoun2225]

I got cut off. Just one last thing I can think of is that I do think T.J. used bad judgment in situating Sally's room nearby his, but I can see that out of convenience due to the nature of her job of laying out his wardrobe, that her room needed to be situated nearby, and that does look suspicious, but it is still not irrefutable proof that a sexual relationship existed. In fact, it could indicate that there wasn't one as Jefferson was not a dumb man, and having her room adjacent to his for that purpose is something he would not want others to think if he knew others would get that impression. It looks suspicious now, but when he was living, I think everyone knew where Sally stayed, that it was in proximity to where he stayed. I think all the enslaved Hemings women other than Sally lived or stayed in the same rooms with their partners, not in adjacent separate rooms.

[@kmaher1424]

Enslaved couples lived in cabins. Sally's relationship with TJ was known during his life. Genetic testing has shown her children were fathered by a Jefferson. Schedules show TJ himself was the father.

[@michaelthomas7246]

DNA

[@bunnybird9342]

@@kmaher1424 the genetic test itself didn't necessarily prove that Thomas Jefferson was the father it only proved that a Jefferson male was. However there were other things going on that suggest he was the father. Such as how in his farm book he listed all of the slaves' parents except he didn't list who Sally's children's father was. Or how whenever he would return to Monticello Sally would have a child nine months later.

[@alicegoodman4544]

Àll humans came from Africa 🌍

[@MBtheArtist.]

Both of you black and white women can’t fully understand the experiences of slaves. Regardless of race. You both do a good job of giving us historical accounts of slavery at Monticello.

[@whathappenedtomyYThandle]

Lost me at don't understand enslaved lives because of race & stopped watching. One because don't need to be preached to and two who did experience it in the context of that time period so they would understand. Disappointing so much focus on challenges and not how gifted many were despite the laws at the times and conditions had no choice to live in. All the new interpretive videos even at other sites do a disservice and denigrate those enslaved by such a rigid focus on blame & negativity. Seems cooks who prepared meals for dignitaries were quite skilled and perhaps world class chefs in a way given their culinary expertise especially working with rudimentary tools & food collection methods comparatively to today. And the multitude of other professions must be more to say then focus on the system of why they were there and all that's wrong that gets repeated over and over again. Not equating what was happening in anytime time period without comparing to what else was transpiring then either better or worse just leaves a large hole in the story and redundantly boring.

[@veronicalake2751]

Alex Halley a writer. He investigated his family history.? Why, his family was enslaved. He named his family story Roots. He found the part of Africa his family came from? Investigated from the beginning up To Himself. He Made A Movie to Tell the world what his truth was & is today. 🙏

[@kathleencalhoun2225]

I read one Annette Gordon-Reed's books about the Sally Hemings-Thomas Jefferson alleged "relationship" and have also listened to the Jefferson Institute's explanation, and I have to say I must side with the Jefferson Institute's view, just based on the evidence, that the current and prevalent view that Sally was Jefferson's mistress isn't correct, isn't proved despite the DNA evidence as that DNA only proved the bloodline could be traced to a Jefferson male but cannot pinpoint the specific Jefferson male. Thomas Jefferson's brother Randolph was a frequent visitor there and is just as likely and more probable the one who sired some of Sally's children. The book mentioned a particular sea captain who was being overly-familiar with Sally while enroute to Paris, and he very well could have impregnated her. From the sound of Jefferson's entreaty offering "extraordinary privileges" in order to convince her to return with them, it could have been taken out of context, meaning that Jefferson viewed Sally not as a concubine but as a wayward daughter and considered keeping the family together (after all, Sally was his wife's half-sister). That is a possibility no one ever considers. The thing which stirred up the concubine rumor was alleged by a person who had a axe to grind against Jefferson (John Callender) because Jefferson did not assign him a particular position he wanted and expected, so I think he exacted revenge on him by fabricating that story about his involvement with Sally. Jefferson denied it vehemently only once because he felt people would know it was hogwash considering the source, yet people today take it as a hardcore fact. Madison himself said that Sally's children referred to Thomas Jefferson as "uncle," and not "father." Sally herself never revealed to any of her children that T. Jefferson was their father, not even on her deathbed, and you think she would he indeed was their true father. I think Madison was either getting senile or had an overactive imagination when he revealed his story to the newspaper, or maybe he wanted to tell a good yarn. The Jefferson's themselves thought that Sally horsed around with the Carr's, and she probably did. The overseer of Jefferson's plantation admitted he saw someone (not T. J.) slipping into her room in the wee hours of the morning. I do not Sally was taken advantage of, but was a willing partner to those trysts she had with men. She never complained to anyone that she suffered to my knowledge, not according to all that I've read. Common sense tells me that if she had a sexual relationship with Jefferson, everyone at the time would have been aware of it just as everyone was aware of all the other Hemings women's involvements with their men-- Betty and all her daughter's included because all their relationships are on record. I could relate even more than this to debunk that there was any sexual relationship because there are other things that would get anyone looking as this objectively by basing everything on facts alone

[@kathleencalhoun2225]

to get one to question the Annette Gordon-Reed theory. The only thing I think Jefferson could have handled better was to have. Sally housed somewhere else than he did. As her job was to lay out his wardrobe, he probably did want her room nearby out of convenience, but it also looks suspicious, especially for people who want to read into things.

[@shirleyanthony5840]

Don’t matter rather the children was T Jefferson or his brother slave women was rape they had no damn but to have sex they were property please understand that

[@leskobrandon8998]

A comment and a book are not the same thing.

[@S955US84]

Monticello started going woke years ago - it's only gotten worse.

[@bscottb8]

Jefferson invents a country, founds a university, and designs masterpieces, but all wokesters yak about is the help.

[@cheri4903]

Made about the truth. He was a hypocrite. He did good for America but not all Americans.

[@cheriwilks731]

Not the help. Slaves. He owed human beings. But he said all men are created equal. What a hyprocrite he was.

[@S955US84]

@@cheriwilks731 - And research for yourself who was rounding up their fellow africans to sell to the slave traders.

[@marcybrooks3425]

I have been to Monticello a few times now and my recent trip was the greatest disappointment. I get it that Jefferson owned slaves. So did the majority of early Americans. Even poor women would have at least one man and woman to help with the chores. I get it that he had a mistress of Sally Hemming. But, again, that wasn't uncommon in the European Gentry and thus the New American Gentry. In other words, you're trying to judge this great man by modern standards. I couldn't believe my entire tour was about slavery, (except for the clock). When I asked the guide why he didn't even mention Lewis & Clark, one of the Jefferson's greatest contributions short of the Declaration of Independence, he laughed and said, "Well, I can't talk about everything." Give us back our history and give these great men and women back their honor. If it hadn't been for them, you'd be in the jungles of Africa or serving as a char-woman in England.

[@cheriwilks731]

What a racist you are.

[@mmarie294]

not judging, but considering this history was hidden not shared for years. Understand if you can people want to know another history about the man and his lifestyle. Learn from it, you can read many books that have been in print for years about other history. You "got it" but you don't want to hear about it as others do. 225 people at best were enslaved, history needs to be taught.