In 1995, Thandie Newton played Sally Hemings, the slave and "mistress" of Thomas Jefferson - ambassador to France before becoming president of the United States - in James Ivory's Jefferson in Paris . And if the Westworld star doesn't deny what was her first big role, she couldn't approach her character the same way today. "I would have done everything to make the film focus more on the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson," she told Vulture.
The fate of Sally Hemings casts a disturbing shadow over the personality of Thomas Jefferson. Co-editor of the American Declaration of Independence and 3rd President of the United States, the one who was sent to Versailles as ambassador in 1784 was also at the head of a plantation which prospered thanks to the work of slaves. A fervent opponent of race mixing, Thomas Jefferson nevertheless had seven children with Sally Hemings after the death of his wife Martha. If he freed the children they had, Sally Hemings remained her slave. She was only freed after the death of the American president, by his eldest daughter.
"It was rape"
"Did you know that Sally Hemings was half sister to Jefferson's wife?" His father was Jefferson's stepfather. She must have looked a bit like her missing wife. Her children were her stepfather's grandchildren, right? Or his nieces and nephews? They are all connected. What I mean is that she was his slave. It was rape, "said Thandie Newton.
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'Beneath the Benevolence' 2014 (and 'Drawing the Blinds' 2014) by #TitusKaphur. York “This painting is about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and yet it is not,” Kaphar said. “The reason I say, 'And yet it is not,' is because we know from the actual history that Sally Hemings was very fair. Very, very fair. The woman who sits here is not just simply a representation of Sally Hemings, she's more of a symbol of many of the black women whose stories have been shrouded by the narratives of our deified founding fathers. ”
A post shared by Thandie Newton (@thandienewton) on Jul 7, 2020 at 10:38 am PDT
You should know that the attestation of this relationship has been the subject of a long controversy in the United States. A film like Jefferson in Paris , where the relationship was presented as in love, had taken part in relaunching the debate in the late 1990s. And the conclusion was reached in 1998 when DNA research confirmed the filiation between Thomas Jefferson and the descendants of Sally Hemings.
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