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Madison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings (18 January 1805 – 28 November 1877), was the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was the third of four children to survive to adulthood. Born into slavery by his mother's status, he was freed by the will of his master Thomas Jefferson in 1826. Based on historical and DNA evidence, historians widely agree that Jefferson was probably the father of all Hemings's children.〔(''Jefferson's Blood,'' ) 2000, PBS Frontline, accessed 10 March 2012. Quote: "Now, the new scientific evidence has been correlated with the existing documentary record, and a consensus of historians and other experts who have examined the issue agree that the question has largely been answered: Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings's children, and quite probably all six. The language of "proof" does not translate perfectly from science and the law to the historian's craft, however. And the DNA findings in this case are only one piece of a complicated puzzle that many in previous generations worked hard to make sure we might never solve. In this section, FRONTLINE has gathered some of the key scientific and documentary evidence which has led historians to believe in Jefferson's paternity, as well as the "dissenting views" of those who continue to maintain that the evidence is not conclusive."〕 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. Some historians continue to debate the issue. After Madison and his younger brother Eston were freed, they each worked and married, living with their families and mother Sally in Charlottesville until her death in 1835. Both brothers moved with their young families to Chillicothe, Ohio to live in a free state. Madison and his wife Mary lived there the remainder of their lives; he worked as a farmer and highly skilled carpenter. Among their ten children were two sons who served the Union in the Civil War: one in the United States Colored Troops and one who enlisted as a white man in the regular army. Among Madison and Mary Hemings' grandchildren was Frederick Madison Roberts, the first African American elected to office on the West Coast. He served in the California legislature for nearly two decades. In 2010 their descendant Shay Banks-Young, who identifies as African American, together with a Wayles' and a Hemings' descendants who each identify as European American, received the international "Search for Common Ground" award for work among the Jefferson descendants and the public to bridge gaps and heal "the legacy of slavery." They have founded "The Monticello Community" for descendants of all the people who lived and worked there in Jefferson's lifetime. == Childhood == Madison was born into slavery at Monticello, where his mother Sally Hemings was a mixed-race slave inherited by Martha Wayles Skelton, the wife of Thomas Jefferson. (Sally and Martha were reported half sisters, both fathered by the planter John Wayles. Wayles was said to have a "shadow family": six children with his slave, Betty Hemings, whom he took as a concubine after his third wife died.) As the historians Philip D. Morgan and Joshua D. Rothman have written, there were numerous interracial relationships in the Wayles-Hemings-Jefferson families, Albemarle County and Virginia, often with multiple generations repeating the pattern.〔Joshua D. Rothman, ''Notorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Interracial Relationships Across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787-1861'', University of North Carolina Press, 2003〕 According to his memoir, Sally Hemings told Madison that his father was Thomas Jefferson, and that their relationship had started in Paris in the late 1780s, where he was serving as a diplomat.〔 Pregnant, she agreed to return with Jefferson to the United States based on his promise to free her children when they came of age.〔 Madison grew up at Monticello. His surviving mixed-race siblings were an older brother Beverly and sister Harriet, and a younger brother Eston. According to his 1873 memoir, Madison was named for Jefferson's close friend and future president James Madison at the request of Madison's wife Dolley.〔(''The Memoirs of Madison Hemings'' ), Thomas Jefferson: ''Frontline'', PBS-WGBH〕 Madison lived as a child with his siblings and mother, who were all spared from hard labor. He described Jefferson as kind but showing little or no paternal interest in the Hemings' children. Like his older brother Beverley, at 14 years of age, Madison was apprenticed to his uncle, Sally's brother John Hemings, the most skilled artisan at Monticello, to learn carpentry and fine woodworking; his younger brother Eston joined him two years later. This gave each of them a valuable trade. All three of the Hemings brothers also studied and learned to play the violin, the instrument associated with Jefferson. Beverley, the oldest, was good enough to be invited to play at dances held by the Jeffersons at Monticello. As an adult, Eston Hemings made a living as a musician and entertainer in Ohio. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Madison Hemings」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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