death_place death_date birth_place nationality relatives parents birth_date article_title name occupation
baltimore , maryland 1801 1765 guinea , cumberland county , virginia american sally madison hemings , eston hemings , frederick madison roberts , hemings john wayles jefferson , john hemings , mary hemings , betty hemings , john wayles 1765 james hemings
 james hemings chef de cuisine , cook
james hemings

james hemings -lrb- 1765 -- 1801 -rrb- was an american mixed-race slave owned and freed by thomas jefferson .
he was an older brother of sally hemings and is said to have been a half-sibling of jefferson 's wife martha wayles skelton jefferson because their father was john wayles .
as a young man , hemings was selected by jefferson to accompany him to paris when the latter was appointed minister to france .
there hemings was trained to be a french chef ; independently , he took lessons to learn to speak the french language .
he returned to the united states with jefferson , likely because of kinship ties with his large hemings family .
jefferson continued to pay hemings wages as his chef when he worked for the president in philadelphia .
hemings negotiated with jefferson for his freedom , which he gained in 1796 , after training his brother peter for three years to replace him as chef .
said to suffer from alcoholism , hemings committed suicide at age 36 .
