The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family is a work of history by Annette Gordon-Reed, a historian and legal scholar. It tells the story of the Hemings family, enslaved people who were bound by blood and by bondage to Thomas Jefferson. Beginning with Elizabeth Hemings, the book traces several generations of the family across the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, from Virginia to Jefferson's years in Paris and back to his plantation at Monticello. At its center is Sally Hemings, the enslaved half-sister of Jefferson's late wife, and the children she had with Jefferson. Drawing on deep archival research, Gordon-Reed reconstructs the lives of people whose voices were rarely recorded, and she examines how slavery shaped intimate relationships, family identity and the founding of the nation. It won the 2008 National Book Award for Nonfiction.