James Hemings

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James Hemings (1765-1801): Chef, father, enslaved property of Thomas Jefferson

James was the son of slave trader and lawyer John Wayles and the enslaved Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings. John wouldn't claim any of the five children he had with Betty.

 James and the Hemings family arrived at Monticello in 1773 after the death of John Wayles, and the marriage of his daughter Martha Wayles to Thomas Jefferson.  Meaning that James and his siblings were now the property of his own brother-in-law. 

He and his brother Robert served initially as valets helping Jefferson's wife and children escape to safety as British troops invaded Richmond in 1781. 

In 1784, Jefferson requested his presence in Paris for the specific purpose of being trained in culinary arts. He learned haut cuisine and catering from restaurateur Monsieur Combeaux and mastered pastry in the household of the Prince de Conde.

He was appointed chef de cuisine at the Hotel de Langeac, Jefferson's Parisian home that acted as an American embassy. James cooked for international guests, aristocrats, and statesman earning himself a salary half the amount of Jefferson's previous cdc who was white. 

James took his earnings and hired a French tutor, enhancing his abilities to run his kitchen, and exposing him to culture, and politics in the country. French law allowed for an enslaved person, even one from another country, to petition the courts for their freedom. 

James left Paris in 1789 still enslaved property of Thomas Jeffferson. 

In 1790 he sets up his first American kitchen in New York where he prepared a meal that in Jefferson's words, was the meal "to save the union," resulting in an agreement establishing Washington D.C. as the permanent capital, and that the federal government would assume the dept from the American Revolution. 

In 1793, after working with Jefferson in Philadelphia for some time, James and Jefferson reach an agreement in which James would teach another how to cook in his style to the satisfaction of Jefferson, where upon James would be manumitted. 

February 5, 1796 the agreement came to pass, and James was set free. 

He passed away in 1801.

#hemingsandhercules

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