Madison Hemings, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMadison Hemings
American freed slave, son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Date of Birth: 18-Jan-1805
Place of Birth: Monticello, Virginia, United States
Date of Death: 28-Nov-1877
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn 
About Madison Hemings
- James Madison Hemings (January 18, 1805 – November 28, 1877) was the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings.
- He was the third of her four children—fathered by her master, President Thomas Jefferson—to survive to adulthood.
- Madison Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation.
- Born into slavery by his mother's status, he was freed by the will of Jefferson in 1826.
- Based on historical and DNA evidence, historians widely agree that Jefferson was probably the father of all Hemings' children.
- At the age of 68, Madison Hemings claimed the connection in an 1873 Ohio newspaper interview, titled, "Life Among the Lowly," which attracted national and international attention.
- 1998 DNA tests demonstrate a match between the Y-chromosome of a descendant of his brother, Eston Hemings Jefferson, and that of the male Jefferson line. After Madison and his younger brother Eston were freed, they each worked and married free women of color; they lived with their families and mother Sally in Charlottesville until her death in 1835.
- Both brothers moved with their young families to Chillicothe, Ohio to live in a free state.
- Madison and his wife Mary lived there the remainder of their lives; he worked as a farmer and highly skilled carpenter.
- Among their ten children were two sons who served the Union in the Civil War: one in the United States Colored Troops and one who enlisted as a white man in the regular army. Among Madison and Mary Hemings' grandchildren was Frederick Madison Roberts, the first African American elected to office on the West Coast.
- He served in the California legislature for nearly two decades.
- In 2010 their descendant Shay Banks-Young, who identifies as African American, together with one Wayles and one Hemings descendants, who each identify as European American, received the international "Search for Common Ground" award for work among the Jefferson descendants and the public to bridge gaps and heal "the legacy of slavery." They have founded "The Monticello Community" for descendants of all the people who lived and worked there in Jefferson's lifetime.
Read more at Wikipedia