Portraits of Enslaved People

All | People You Should Know

Slaves of George Washington

Ona Judge – Personal attendant to Martha Washington
William (“Billy”) Lee – Slave-valet to George Washington

Slaves of Thomas Jefferson

James Hemings – Slave of Thomas Jefferson
John Hemings – Slave of Thomas Jefferson
Sally Hemings – House slave of Thomas Jefferson; mother of at least six of his children
Jupiter (Evans?) – Slave of Thomas Jefferson, both born in 1743

Christopher Sheels - Slave of Washington

Betty Hemings
Beverly Hemings
Harriet Hemings
Eston Hemings
Wormley Hughes - Jefferson’s gardener

Recollections of Madison Hemings

Recollections of Israel Jefferson

Despite deceptive appearances, the British were far from luxuriating in Philadelphia while Washington and his army suffered at Valley Forge. Every public building was used to house two thousand sick and wounded British and Hessian soldiers. The army was placed on half-rations, and there was a shortage of medical and hospital supplies that caused tension between the British and the Hessians. Unable to obtain supplies, the city became a prison for as many as fifty thousand inhabitants and troops.

— Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy

The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (2013)