Slavery

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6. In the 1980s and 1990s some historic properties and plantations began incorporating the story of

slave life through interpretive programs and exhibits, the Smithsonian Institution, Colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon and Arlington House in VA and DC. The Hemmings family of Monticello is one example of the complex Colonial era relationships between master and slave, concubinage and descendants. Much material exists online about the hundreds of Hemmings-Jefferson descendants.
It's known that at least three generations of Hemmings women were kept as slave mistresses by their owners. Bette, Sally's mother was the concubine of John Wayles, Jefferson's father in law. Bette Hemmings mother, and Sally's grandmother, was an African slave woman who was owned by English ship Captain John Hemmings. While in France, TJ, a widower, began an affair with Sally who was 14 and he was 46. Their relationship lasted several decades.

Other noted American family members of mixed race are the Grimkes of South Carolina. Sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimke moved North in the 1850s and became abolitionists. After the Civil War they helped two young mixed race nephews, Francis and Archibald Grimke, sons of their brother who attended Harvard College and Princeton Theological Seminary and became noted civic leaders in Philadelphia and Washington DC.

The Syphax family is thought to be related the Custis family of Arlington House. George Washington Parke Custis was the grandson of Martha and George Washington through Martha's first marriage to wealthy Tidewater planter Daniel Parke Custis. Raised at Mount Vernon, Washy Custis built his home Arlington House on the Potomac River across from the new City of Washington around 1800. Documents exist of his gift of land to Maria Syphax, a young woman of African and white heritage upon her marriage to a slave worker on the property. After his dealth, Custis' Arllington House was inherited by his daughter Mary Fitzhugh Custis, the wife of Robert E. Lee. Account books that R.E Lee kept while owner of Arlington House plantation have been recently released. The records indicate that mixed race slave women of Arlington House who may have been relatives were hired out to local businesses in the Washington area.