Madison Hemings

James Madison Hemings was the son of the mixed-race enslaved woman Sally Hemings. He was the third of her four children—fathered by her enslaver, 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.