James Hemmings

I'm working on a creative project about the life of James Hemings (1765-1801). He was a chef de cuisine, trained in Paris, yet he was born into slavery and lived much of his life enslaved. At thirty years of age, he negotiated for legal manumission and began his life as a free man. He traveled and pursued his career as a chef, but unfortunately his career and life in freedom were short due to his tragic and untimely death at age thirty-six. James Hemings arrived at Monticello as a nine year old boy, along with other of his siblings and their mother Elizabeth Hemings. They were a part of the Wayles estate, and among the many enslaved people who came into Thomas Jefferson's possession through his wife's inheritance. Six of Elizabeth Hemings's children were fathered by John Wayles, making James a younger half-brother to Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson. He is the older brother of Sally Hemings, the enslaved young woman who gave birth to Thomas Jefferson's children. https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/james-hemings