Sarah "Sally" Hemings (c. 1773–1835) was an enslaved woman of mixed race owned by President Thomas Jefferson. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that Jefferson had a long-term sexual relationship with Hemings, and historians now broadly agree that he was the father of her six children.[1] Hemings was a half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Jefferson. Four of Hemings's children survived into adulthood.[2] Hemings died in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1835.[3]

The historical question of whether Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children is the subject of the Jefferson–Hemings controversy. Following renewed historical analysis in the late 20th century and a 1998 DNA study that found a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Hemings' last son, Eston Hemings, the Monticello Foundation asserted that Jefferson fathered Eston and likely her other five children as well. [4] However, there are some who disagree. [5] In 2018, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation of Monticello announced its plans to have an exhibit on the Life of Sally Hemings and affirmed that it was treating as a settled issue that Jefferson was the father of her known six children. [6] The exhibit opened in June 2018. [1]