Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Sarah Hemings was an enslaved woman of mixed race owned by  President   Thomas Jefferson  and who is believed to have had a long-term relationship and six children with him, of whom four survived and all were given freedom by Jefferson. Hemings was the youngest of six siblings by the planter  John Wayles  and his mixed-race slave  Betty Hemings ; Sally was three-quarters European and a half-sister of Jefferson's wife,  Martha Wayles Skelton . In 1787, Hemings, at the age of 14, accompanied Jefferson's youngest daughter  Mary  (Polly) to London and then to Paris, where the widowed Jefferson, 44 years old at the time, was serving as the  United States Minister to France . Hemings spent two years there. It is believed by most historians that Jefferson began a sexual relationship with Hemings either in France or soon after their return to Monticello. Hemings had six children of record born into slavery; four survived to ad...

  He was a  free African American   almanac   author,   surveyor ,   naturalist   and  farmer . Born in   Baltimore County, Maryland , to a free   African American   woman and a former   slave , Banneker had little formal education and was largely self-taught. He is known for being part of a group led by   Major Andrew Ellicott   that surveyed the borders of the original   District of Columbia , the federal capital district of the   United States . Banneker's knowledge of  astronomy  helped him author a commercially successful series of almanacs. He corresponded with  Thomas Jefferson ,  drafter  of the  United States Declaration of Independence , on the topics of  slavery  and  racial equality .  Abolitionists  and advocates of racial equality promoted and praised his works. Although a fire on the day of Banneker's funeral destroyed many of his...