USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Most of the sold slaves either remained in Virginia or were relocated to Ohio. Jefferson freed five slaves in his will, all males of the Hemings family.

Detailed explanation-2: -Jefferson acquired most of the over six hundred people he owned during his life through the natural increase of enslaved families. He acquired approximately 175 enslaved people through inheritance: about 40 from the estate of his father, Peter Jefferson, in 1764, and 135 from his father-in-law, John Wayles, in 1774.

Detailed explanation-3: -Throughout his entire life, Thomas Jefferson was publicly a consistent opponent of slavery. Calling it a “moral depravity”1 and a “hideous blot, ”2 he believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of the new American nation.

Detailed explanation-4: -Years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally Hemings’s children. Four survived to adulthood and are mentioned in Jefferson’s plantation records: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings.