{{Short description|American planter, slave trader and lawyer}} {{Infobox person | name = John Wayles | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = January 31, 1715 | birth_place = Lancaster, Great Britain | death_date = {{Death date and age|1773|5|28|1715|1|31}} | death_place = Charles City County, Virginia, British America | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | alma_mater = | employer = | occupation = {{flatlist| * Lawyer * planter * tobacco agent * slave trader }} | title = | height = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|Martha Eppes|May 3, 1746|November 5, 1748|reason=died}} * {{marriage|Tabitha Cocke|1750||reason=died}} * {{marriage|Elizabeth Lomax|January 26, 1760|February 10, 1761|reason=died}} }} | partner = Betty Hemings (1761–1773) | children = 13, including Martha Wayles, James Hemings, and Sally Hemings | mother = | father = | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}
'''John Wayles''' (January 31, 1715 – May 28, 1773) was a colonial American planter, slave trader and lawyer in colonial Virginia. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Wayles married three times, with these marriages producing eleven children; only five of them lived to adulthood. Through his slave Betty Hemings, Wayles fathered six additional children, including Sally Hemings, who was the mother of six children by Thomas Jefferson and half-sister of Martha Jefferson.
==Early life and education== Wayles was born in the city of Lancaster on January 31, 1715.<ref name="Monticello - JW">{{Cite web |url=https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/john-wayles |title=John Wayles |last=Berkes |first=Anna |date=November 12, 2007 |website=www.monticello.org |language=en |access-date=December 31, 2019}}</ref>{{efn|His parents may be Edward Wales and Ellen Ashburner of Bulk, Lancaster, who married on November 11, 1714, about one year before a John Wales was christened on August 14, 1715. They also had a daughter who was born in 1718.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKUoCQAAQBAJ&q=john+wayles+Ashburner&pg=PA32 |title=Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland |first=William G. |date=2015-02-26 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-3984-5 |page=32 |language=en}}</ref> There were Wayles in Lancaster, with a "y" in their last name, and they were of the working class. There are different accounts of how John Wayles arrived in Colonial Virginia. One was that he was already trained as a lawyer. Another account is that he arrived as an indentured servant and later made his fortune.<ref name="Hyland p. 33" />}} The young Wayles likely became aware of the burgeoning transatlantic slave trade and "its ability to make merchants rich".<ref name="Hyland p. 33" /> Wayles emigrated as a young man to the Virginia Colony, likely during the 1730s.<ref name="Monticello - JW" />
==Career== Wayles received his licence to practice law in Virginia in 1741, entering into the profession the very same year.<ref name="Hyland p. 237" /><ref name="Meacham p. 54" /> He began his legal career by traveling on horseback to plantations in the Tidewater, where he obtained work creating legal documents.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J7TePIQzpSIC&pg=PA60 |title=Martha Jefferson: an intimate life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland |first=William G. Jr. |isbn=978-1-4422-3983-8 |location=Lanham, Maryland |pages=60–61 |oclc=880566094|year=2008 }}</ref> He was also a prosecuting attorney in Henrico County.<ref name="Hyland p. 38">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKUoCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 |title=Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland|first=William G. |date=2015-02-26 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-3984-5 |page=38 |language=en}}</ref> In Virginia, Wayles became part of the planter elite. His plantation, called "The Forest",{{efn|"The Forest" plantation was home to Martha Wayles and the site of her marriage to Thomas Jefferson in 1772. The house no longer exists, but a historic marker on State Route 5 commemorates the site of Jefferson's wedding.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/forest |title=The Forest |last=Huff |first=Elizabeth |date=November 11, 2011 |website=www.monticello.org |language=en |access-date=December 31, 2019}}</ref> It is located 15 miles southeast of Richmond.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ek75KZ26-zwC&pg=PA174|title=A Guidebook to Virginia's Historical Markers |date=1994 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-1491-6 |page=174 |language=en}}</ref> During the Civil War, The Forest was owned by a Confederate scout and the house was destroyed when it was set afire by Union troops.<ref name="Tyler p. 214">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h2LjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA214 |title=Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine |last=Tyler |first=Lyon Gardiner |date=1920 |publisher=Whittet & Shepperson. |page=214 |language=en}}</ref>}} was located in Charles City County.<ref name="Tyler p. 214" />
Eventually becoming a slave trader, Wayles earned a fortune from the institution of slavery.<ref name="Hyland p. 33">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKUoCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 |title=Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland|first=William G. |date=2015-02-26 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-3984-5 |pages=33–34 |language=en}}</ref> He arranged for tobacco sales between planters in Virginia and buyers in Europe. In addition to these businesses, Wayles also worked as an agent for Farrell and Jones of Bristol, included performing debt collection.<ref name="JSTOR - Hemphill" /><ref name="Hyland p. 39">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKUoCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 |title=Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland|first=William G. |date=2015-02-26 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-3984-5 |page=39 |language=en}}</ref> During the period leading up to the Revolutionary War, the tobacco economy was unstable and laws made the tobacco trade difficult for Wayles to conduct tobacco trade and collect debts. The economic and legal constraints led to the "bankruptcy of the Virginia plantation system".<ref name="JSTOR - Hemphill">{{Cite journal |last=Hemphill |first=John M. |date=1958 |title=John Wayles Rates His Neighbours |journal=The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=302–306 |issn=0042-6636|jstor=4246456 }}</ref> Jefferson began legal work for Wayles in 1768.<ref name="Meacham p. 54">{{cite book |title=Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power |last=Meacham |first=Jon |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4000-6766-4 |page= [https://archive.org/details/thomasjeffersona00meac/page/54 54] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/thomasjeffersona00meac |publisher=Random House }}</ref>
==Personal life== ===Marriages and children === On May 3, 1746, Wayles married Martha Eppes (born on April 10, 1721, at Bermuda Hundred),<ref name="Monticello - JW" /> the daughter of Colonel Francis Epps. She was a young widow.<ref name="Malone p. 432">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UwqvCNY5cyYC&pg=RA2-PA432 |title=Jefferson the Virginian - |last=Malone |first=Dumas |date=1948-01-30 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=978-0-316-54474-0 |page=432 |language=en}}</ref>
Their children were:
*Twins, a girl and a boy, who died within hours of their birth on December 23, 1746.<ref name="Monticello - JW" /> *Martha, born on October 31, 1748,{{efn|Some sources state that Martha was born on October 19, 1748.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=3 |title=Martha Jefferson Biography :: National First Ladies' Library |website=www.firstladies.org |access-date=December 31, 2019 |archive-date=October 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009215359/http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=3 }}</ref>}} the couple's only child to survive to adulthood.<ref name="Monticello - JW" />
The infant's 27 year-old mother died five days later on November 5, 1748.<ref name="Monticello - JW" />
Secondly, Wayles married Tabitha Cocke,<ref name="Monticello - JW" /><ref name="Hyland p. 237">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKUoCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA237 |title=Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland |first=William G. |date=2015-02-26 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-3984-5 |page=237 |language=en}}</ref>{{efn|His wife's name is also given as Mary Cocke.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CFV7DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131 |title=Ties That Bound: Founding First Ladies and Slaves |last=Schwartz |first=Marie Jenkins |date=2017-04-06 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-46072-7 |page=131 |language=en}}</ref>}} of Malvern Hill, also of the planter class. They had several children: *Sarah, did not survive to adulthood.<ref name="Monticello - JW" /> *Elizabeth, born February 24, 1752;<ref name="Monticello - JW" /> married Francis Eppes, the first cousin<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J7TePIQzpSIC&pg=PA61 |title=Martha Jefferson: an intimate life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland |first=William G. Jr. |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4422-3983-8 |location=Lanham, Maryland |page=61 |oclc=880566094}}</ref> or nephew of John Wayles first wife, Martha Epps Wayles. Elizabeth and Francis Epps had two sons, Richard and John Wayles Eppes, the latter of whom married Thomas Jefferson's second daughter, Mary Jefferson.<ref name="Malone p. 432" /> *Tabitha, born November 16, 1753;<ref name="Monticello - JW" /> married Robert Skipwith,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Skipwith, Tabitha () {{!}} Seward Family Digital Archive |url=https://sewardproject.org/node/4996 |access-date=2023-12-15 |website=sewardproject.org}}</ref> and *Anne, born August 26, 1756,<ref name="Monticello - JW" /> married Henry Skipwith (born 1751), brother of her sister Tabitha's husband Robert. Wayles's second wife died sometime between August 1756 and January 1760.<ref name="Monticello - JW" />
On January 26, 1760, Wayles married his third wife, Elizabeth Lomax Skelton (she was the widow of Reuben Skelton, an older brother of Bathurst Skelton, his daughter Martha's first husband). The couple had no issue; she died on February 10, 1761.<ref name="Monticello - JW" />
===Betty Hemings and children=== As part of the wedding settlement between John Wayles and Martha Epps, her parents gave the new couple an enslaved African-American woman and her young mixed-race daughter Betty Hemings, whose father was an English sea captain named Hemings.<ref name="madisonstatement">{{cite web|title=Memoirs of Madison Hemings|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/cron/1873march.html|work=Frontline|publisher=Public Broadcasting Service - WGBH Boston|access-date=29 November 2011}}</ref> After the death of his third wife, Wayles began a relationship with 26 year-old Betty Hemings.<ref name="Monticello - Wayles/Hemings">[http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/john-wayles "John Wayles"], ''Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia'', Monticello, accessed 10 March 2011. Sources cited on page: Madison Hemings, "Life Among the Lowly," ''Pike County Republican'', March 13, 1873. Letter of December 20, 1802 from Thomas Gibbons, a Federalist planter of Georgia, to Jonathan Dayton, states that Sally Hemings "is half sister to his [Jefferson's] first wife."</ref><ref name="Monticello - JW" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Blassingame |first=John |title=Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies |page=475 |isbn=0-8071-0273-3 |year=1977|publisher=LSU Press }}</ref>{{efn|Although there are factual sources showing that Wayles fathered children on slave Betty Hemings, author William G. Hyland, Jr. continued to deny it.<ref name="Hyland p. 219">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKUoCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA219 |title=Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland |first=William G. |date=2015-02-26 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-3984-5 |page=219 |language=en}}</ref>|name="Hyland re: Hemings"}} Betty already had four children: Mary, Martin, Betty Brown, and Nance.<ref name="Wiencek p. 32">{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/masterofmountain0000wien |url-access=registration |title=Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves |last=Wiencek |first=Henry |date=2012-10-16 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-1-4668-2778-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/masterofmountain0000wien/page/32 32] |language=en}}</ref>
Wayles fathered six children with Betty Hemings. Children that were the offspring of enslaved persons and the slave owner were sometimes called "a shadow family":<ref name="Schwartz pp. 142-143">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CFV7DgAAQBAJ&q=%2522shadow%2520family%2522%2520John%2520Wayles&pg=PA143 |title=Ties That Bound: Founding First Ladies and Slaves |last=Schwartz |first=Marie Jenkins |date=2017-04-06 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-46072-7 |pages=142–143 |language=en}}</ref>{{efn||name="Hyland re: Hemings"}} * Robert (1762-1819) * James (1765-1801) * Thenia (1767-1796) * Critta (1769-1850) * Peter (1770-after 1834) * Sally<ref>[http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/john-wayles "John Wayles"], ''Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia'', Monticello, accessed 10 March 2011. Note: Thomas Turner letter published in the ''Boston Repertory'' of May 31, 1805, referring to John Wayles and Sally Hemings, said that "an opinion has existed . . . that this very Sally is the natural daughter of Mr. Wales (sic), who was the father of the actual Mrs. Jefferson." ("Natural" as applied to children meant illegitimate.)</ref> (1773-1835)
As their mother was enslaved, the children were all born into slavery under the principle of ''partus sequitur ventrum'',<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=06VyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA287 |title=An Africana Philosophy of Temporality: Homo Liminalis |last=Sawyer |first=Michael E. |date=2018-10-15 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-98575-6 |page=287 |language=en}}</ref> which had been part of the law since 1662.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/historynegrorac00willgoog |title=History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens; Together with a Preliminary Consideration of the Unity of the Human Family, an Historical Sketch of Africa, and an Account of the Negro Governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia |last=Williams |first=George Washington |date=1882 |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historynegrorac00willgoog/page/n637 123] |language=en}}</ref> They were three-quarters European in ancestry<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SuEkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA190 |title=Thomas Jefferson |last=Cogliano |first=Dr Francis D. |date=2006 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-3662-4 |language=en}}</ref> and half-siblings to Wayles's daughters by his wives.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kouri|first= K. |title=The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (Book Review)|year=2009|journal= International Journal of Sociology of the Family|volume= 35|issue=1|pages= 143–14 |jstor= 23028805 }}</ref>
Wayles was not known to acknowledge his children by Betty, nor did he free her or them in his will. To do so would have communicated his relationship with Betty and would have required a change in Virginia manumission laws at that time. He did, though, allow certain freedoms for his children. For instance his two oldest children were taught to read and write, allowed to earn their own money, and allowed to travel by themselves. The youngest boy, Peter, was three years old when Wayles died.<ref name="Schwartz pp. 142-143" />
Hemings had two more children while she lived at Monticello named John and Lucy.<ref name="Wiencek p. 32" />
==Death and estate settlement==
John Wayles died at age 58 in 1773. He left substantial property, including many enslaved persons, but the estate was encumbered with debt.<ref>Death notice from ''The Virginia Gazette'', June 3, 1773: "On Friday last died, at his house in Charles City, JOHN WAYLES, Esquire, attorney at law."</ref> Upon Wayles's death, Betty Hemings and her six children with John Wayles were moved "without hesitancy" to Monticello to prevent the Hemingses from being separated.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/thomasjeffersona00meac |url-access=registration |title=Thomas Jefferson |last=Meacham |first=Jon |date=2012 |publisher=Random House |pages=[https://archive.org/details/thomasjeffersona00meac/page/60 60]|isbn=978-1-4000-6766-4 }}</ref>
The estate was worth £30,000, but Wayles was in debt to Farrell and Jones for £11,000. Wayles's three sons-in-law, including Thomas Jefferson, decided to break up the estate and its debts.<ref name="Meacham p. 70">{{cite book |title=Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power |last=Meacham |first=Jon |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4000-6766-4 |page= [https://archive.org/details/thomasjeffersona00meac/page/70 70] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/thomasjeffersona00meac |publisher=Random House }}</ref> Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson inherited the Willis Creek and Elk Hill plantations and a total of 135 enslaved persons, including members of the Hemings family.<ref name="Schwartz pp. 142-143" /> They also inherited £4,000 in debt.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K1m1tRlh7xQC&pg=PA148 |title=Jeffersonian Legacies |last1=Onuf |first1=Peter S. |date=1993 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-1463-3 |language=en|page=148}}</ref> Jefferson and other co-executors of the Wayles estate worked for years to clear the debt.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zWT90lWyLqEC&pg=PA15|title=Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt |last=Sloan |first=Herbert E. |date=2001 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-2093-1 |pages=15–26 |language=en}}</ref>
==Notes== {{Notelist}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==Sources==
*Nash, Gary B.; Hodges, Graham R.G. (2008), ''Friends of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull. A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, ''and'' A Tragic Betrayal Of Freedom In The New Nation'', pp. 129–130, New York: Basic Books
==Further reading== *Annette Gordon-Reed (1997/1998), ''Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy'', reprint with new foreword about DNA evidence, Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. *Annette Gordon-Reed, (2008), ''The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family'', New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. * Robert F. Turner (2001/2011), '' The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission '', Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. *Cynthia H. Burton (2005), '' Jefferson Vindicated: Fallacies, Omissions, and Contradictions in the Hemings Genealogical Search'', Charlottesville, VA: Self published.
==External links== *[http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/getting-word-african-american-family-histories "Getting Word; African Americans at Monticello"], ''Plantation & Slavery'', Monticello
{{Slavery in Virginia}} {{Thomas Jefferson|state=collapsed}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wayles, John}} Category:1715 births Category:1773 deaths Category:18th-century American slave traders Category:Lawyers from colonial Virginia Category:People from Lancaster, Lancashire Category:British emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies Category:18th-century owners of plantations in the Thirteen Colonies Category:Owners of plantations in colonial Virginia