When Thomas Jefferson travels to Paris in 1784 to negotiate trade treaties for America, he takes the enslaved James Hemings with him as his manservant. Living in Paris, where the French had abolished slavery, Hemings discovers an independence, a skill, and a romance beyond his imagination. Torn between family and freedom as the French Revolution erupts, Hemings makes a choice that changes Jefferson and America.
Sharon O. Lightholder’s imagined biography,
Jefferson’s Chef: James Hemings—From Slavery to Freedom
, is based on extensive legal, culinary, and historical research into Hemings’s life and times, including primary materials from the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.
Combining the political and the personal,
creates a unique and intimate portrait of two exceptional men and discloses why Hemings was the only one of Jefferson’s hundreds of slaves who was unconditionally freed during Jefferson’s lifetime. Lightholder uses fiction to expose the astounding story of James Hemings and how his fierce desire for freedom changed his world and ours.