January 31, 1715 - John Wayles
Wayles operated at the intersection of colonial Virginia's legal and economic systems, accumulating wealth through both law and the slave trade. His slave-trading activities placed him among those who most directly profited from and perpetuated the forced migration and sale of enslaved people in the colonial period. The inheritance his daughter Martha carried into her marriage to Thomas Jefferson — including more than a hundred enslaved people — shaped the contradictions that would define one of America's founding households.
From Wikipedia
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.
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