Jasper Hale (born Jasper Whitlock) was born in 1844 and grew up in Houston, Texas. In 1861 when he was almost seventeen, he lied about his age, stating he was 20, and joined the Confederate States Army to serve in the Civil War. Due to his intense charisma, he quickly rose through the ranks and became the youngest Major in Texas, even without considering his real age. Jasper was turned into a vampire in 1863 by a vampire named Maria. Maria had a coven with two other vampires named Nettie and Lucy. Maria was fighting a territorial war for claim on big cities in the south, such as Mexico City. Maria recognized that Jasper was high-ranking in the army, and therefore already had some knowledge of combat skills. She wanted a strong male vampire who could fight alongside her. When Maria found out about his peculiar ability to control the emotions of those around him, she found him even more useful.
Jasper's responsibility was to train the newborn vampires and then kill them when they were no longer useful to Maria, usually after about a year when their strength had begun to fade. After about a century of this, he grew weary of the lifestyle. An old vampire colleague of his, named Peter, persuaded him to escape from Maria. For a time, he wandered with Peter and his companion, Charlotte, but soon came to feel remorse for his prey because he experienced their emotions as he took their lives. As a result, he ran away and wandered on his own until he found Alice Cullen, whom he later recognized as his true love, waiting for him in a half-empty diner in Philadelphia. She had seen through her prescience they would find the Cullens and live there together in peace.
The Cullens tell humans that Jasper is Rosalie Hale's twin brother due to their physical similarities; for this purpose, they both use Rosalie's surname of "Hale". Out of the whole coven, Jasper has the hardest time being around humans, due to his untrained upbringing as a young vampire in an army environment. He was not taught to control or how to regulate his blood lust. Edward Cullen states that all human blood is equally tempting to Jasper, unlike the rest of the family, who can notice the variations in blood scent in different humans.
