Summary Of Life Among The Lowly 1873

“Life among the Lowly, 1873”, by Madison Hemings, tells the story of the son of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings. Jefferson married Martha Wales, and after the death of his father-in-law, Martha’s father John Wales’ concubine Elizabeth and their children fell to his wife, and consequently became his property (Madison Hemings, 192). Before his trip to France, his wife Martha fell ill and passed, causing Jefferson to take his daughter Martha with him instead. His slave Sally Hemings (John Wales and his slave Elizabeth’s child) accompanied Martha as a body servant (192). During their time in France, Hemings became Jefferson’s concubine and was impregnated by him. Jefferson wanted Hemings to return with him to Virginia, but she declined his offer. In France, she was considered a free woman and did not want to return to Virginia to become re-enslaved. Hemings was promised “extraordinary privileges” by Jefferson, who “made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years (192).

He explains how his father promised his mother her children’s freedom, and how he was granted his freedom when his father later passed. Hemings continues to explain his family heritage and brushes on how it was growing up as a child of a slave and a slave owner. Life during at that time is extremely different than it is now. Now, it is not deemed necessary to hide their lineage from his or her spouse or their community just because of who their parents are or what their status in society was at that time. Though there remains uncertainty on the severity of the treatment his children faced because of their status as slaves, the children of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson were still able to be free during a time were freedom was a gift, not a privilege, for African-Americans and slaves of other any