Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States andÌýa principal author of the Declaration of Independence. His political opponents spread rumours that he had taken up with his slave girl and fathered her children – stories that were long dismissed by historians. DNA testing has since corroborated the story. In her award-winning book, Annette Gordon-Reed pieces together the story of that slave, Sally Hemings, and the shared bonds of the Jeffersons and Hemingses. So what do the hidden lives of Sally Hemings and her kin reveal about families, freedom and slavery in America’s formative years? Jenni talks to Annette Gordon-Reed, Professor of Law at New York Law School and a Professor of History at Rutgers University.
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon Reed is published by W. W. Norton & Co, ISBN-13: 978-0393064773
