[whitney69]

So, what’s the big deal? When this would have happened Mr Jefferson was not married, and couldn’t marry her for fear of her, at least, being forced to leave the state if he freed her. Sally Hemings was an enslaved woman owned by Thomas Jefferson at his Monticello plantation in Virginia and because of the laws and realities of chattel slavery, they could not legally marry.

A 1691 colonial law made interracial marriage illegal and banished any white person who intermarried with a Black or Indigenous person. Therefore, a freed Black woman could legally marry a free Black or free man of color, but not a white person.

In Virginia, a 1792 law imposed heavy fines and jail time on interracial couples, as well as the ministers who performed the ceremonies. The Virginia General Assembly passed a strict manumission statutes requiring any enslaved person freed to leave the Commonwealth of Virginia within one year. So for her safety and sercurity, he couldn’t free her either.

wy69

[Verginius Rufus]

Jefferson was a widower. There is a legend that he promised his wife not to remarry. In any event he would not have married a slave (even one who was mostly of white ancestry--his wife's half-sister).

He freed Sally's children in his will but not Sally herself--but she apparently spent her last years living with one or another of her own children. Jefferson was in debt so he was limited in how many slaves he could free.

[Tell It Right]

Agreed. If this is indeed true, it means Jefferson was ahead of his time in race relations. You'd think the left would honor him over it instead of pillage him over it.