Funny she should bring up Sally Hemmings, but not
James Hemmings nor mention
John Hemmings both of whom acquired incredible skills, one as a chef (among other things), the other as a master joiner (cabinetmaker), known as one of the best anywhere.
Despite laws which forbid slaves from being educated, their owners found it expedient to teach them reading, writing, and math, at least at a rudimentary level, but often beyond that.
Trades were useful to any farming operation, from coopers to chandlers, to wheelwrights, carpenters especially, and even those who could fix or build boats. Names today even reflect that, as I have known black Coopers, Smiths (as in blacksmith), Carpenters, Chandlers, and even a Boatwright, surnames which reflected the trades of their ancestors.
Some even took as a surname the name of the family which had owned them upon manumission.
No mention of George Washington Carver in the clip, born a slave, become an agronomist, a chemist, (first African American to earn a Bachelor's Degree), who developed peanut butter (the invention of which is now credited to the Incas) and hundreds of uses for peanuts, soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes.
From
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/george-washington-carverBorn on a farm near Diamond, Missouri, the exact date of Carver’s birth is unknown, but it’s thought he was born in January or June of 1864.
Nine years prior, Moses Carver, a white farm owner, purchased George Carver’s mother Mary when she was 13 years old. The elder Carver reportedly was against slavery, but needed help with his 240-acre farm.
When Carver was an infant, he, his mother and his sister were kidnapped from the Carver farm by one of the bands of slave raiders that roamed Missouri during the Civil War era. They were resold in Kentucky.
Moses Carver hired a neighbor to retrieve them, but the neighbor only succeeded in finding George, whom he purchased by trading one of Moses’ finest horses. Carver grew up knowing little about his mother or his father, who had died in an accident before he was born.
Moses Carver and his wife Susan raised the young George and his brother James as their own and taught the boys how to read and write.
James gave up his studies and focused on working the fields with Moses. George, however, was a frail and sickly child who could not help with such work; instead, Susan taught him how to cook, mend, embroider, do laundry and garden, as well as how to concoct simple herbal medicines.
At a young age, Carver took a keen interest in plants and experimented with natural pesticides, fungicides and soil conditioners. He became known as the “the plant doctor” to local farmers due to his ability to discern how to improve the health of their gardens, fields and orchards.
The issue, the interrelationships between bond servants and owners, were far more complex and often far more congenial than presented in the abolitionist agitprop novel Ms. Stowe wrote.
The folks above lived interesting and accomplished lives, and I urge you to click on the links and read more. One of my ancestors corresponded with George Washington Carver, and exchanged cuttings for fruit tree grafts. I wish those letters had survived the years.
I find it odd, to say the least, that those who were born in bondage were capable of accomplishing so much, while today, it seems so many are willing to use their ancestors' bondage as an excuse to accomplish so little.
