Slave Labor in the Capital: Building Washington's Iconic Federal Landmarks - Softcover

Arnebeck, Bob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1626197210 ISBN 13: 9781626197213

Verlag: HISTORY PR, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

In 1791, President George Washington appointed a commission to build the future capital of the nation. The commission found paying masters of faraway Maryland plantations sixty dollars a year for their slaves made it easier to keep wages low for free workers who flocked to the city. In 1798, half of the two hundred workers building the two most iconic Washington landmarks, the Capitol and the White House, were slaves. They moved stones for Scottish masons and sawed lumber for Irish carpenters. They cut trees and baked bricks. These unschooled young black men left no memoirs. Based on his research in the commissioners' records, author Bob Arnebeck describes their world of dawn to dusk work, salt pork and corn bread, white scorn and a kind nurse and the moments when everything depended on their skills.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Bob Arnebeck was born in Washington in 1947 and graduated Beloit College in 1969. In 1987 he was a commentator on NPR's Morning Edition. He wrote "Proust's Last Beer: A History of Curious Demises" (Penguin Books, 1981) and "Through a Fiery Trail: Building Washington 1790, 1800" (Madison Books, 1991). In 1994 he moved to Wellesley Island in the St. Lawrence River.

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Slave Labor in the Capital

Building Washington's Iconic Federal Landmarks

By Bob Arnebeck

The History Press

Copyright © 2014 Bob Arnebeck
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62619-721-3

Contents

Acknowledgements, 
Introduction, 
1. Far from Home, 
2. Chocolate Butter for Breakfast, 
3. Axe Men, 
4. Quarries, 
5. Hauling, 
6. Stonecutters and Masons, 
7. Sawyers and Carpenters, 
8. Bricks, 
9. Living Conditions, 
10. 1800, 
Lists of Masters, Their Slaves and Free Workers, 
Sources, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

Far from Home

No one ever described the arrival of any of the slaves hired to build the Capitol and White House. Getting slaves to those work sites would hardly seem to be an issue. In 1790, there were more slaves in Prince George's County, Maryland, than whites: 11,176 to 10,004. That was the county from which the city of Washington was extracted in 1800 when the federal government officially made it the national capital. It is often assumed that all the slaves needed, never more than 100 in the peak years of slave hire, lived nearby. Indeed, around 400 slaves lived a few miles from the site of the Capitol. Over 600 lived in Georgetown, not far from the site of the White House.

But to accurately imagine the arrival of the slaves contracted to work in the city for a year, we have to picture the first preparations for the move taking place on a wharf in the Patuxent River just below a plantation called Resurrection Manor. The master there, Edmund Plowden, could not simply give passes to the eight slaves he hired out — Gerard, Tony, Jack, Moses, Lin, Arnold and two slaves named Jim — and expect them to walk. St. Mary's County, Maryland, is not within walking distance of Washington.

Plowden could have sent his slaves by wagon, but given the nautical bent of Marylanders who lived on the creeks and rivers convenient to Chesapeake Bay, he more likely sent them on a sloop with two sails. Remember, no one ever described this, and if we are left to imagine it, we might as well make the sloop's voyage a memorable one and imagine that it picked up every hired slave along the way as it sailed southeast toward the bay, rounded Point Lookout and hoped for a south wind to push it up the Potomac River.

Its next stop might be St. Mary's City on the other side of the peninsula that forms St. Mary's County. We are not sure if E.J. Millard lived there, but he was a lawyer and county official, and that city is still the county seat. So welcome his slaves Tom and Joe aboard. St. Mary's City is ninety nautical miles from the city of Washington, but our imaginary sloop had to deviate from a true route. The innumerable bays along the river had eased access to tobacco plantations for the past 150 years, and that's where slaves who could be spared for work in the city lived.

The Wicomico River forms the border between St. Mary's and Charles Counties, and the sloop had to put in there to pick up Bennett Barber's four slaves. A Luke Barber and Ann Barber also hired out slaves to the city. Then our sloop might have to wait for the Reintzell slaves to come down Chaptico Creek — Valentine Reintzell's Mike and George, as well as his brother Anthony's slaves Dick, Jacob, Will, Amos and Charles. The sloop's major port of call was Port Tobacco in Charles County, about forty-two nautical miles from the city of Washington. There we picked up Tom, Jack and Dick, who were hired out by Miss Anne Digges. The five daughters of the late Robert Brent of Charles County — Mary, Elinor, Teresa, Elizabeth and Jane — each hired out a slave or two to work at the Capitol: David, Charles, Silvester, Gabe, Henry and Nace. Assuming they didn't inherit large farms too, here was a way to profit off their inheritance rather than selling their slaves. Then there were Joseph Queen's slaves: Anthony, Moses, Joseph, Walter and Tom.

The Potomac narrows as it snakes between Charles County, Maryland, and Stafford County, Virginia. There were as many Brents living in Virginia as there were in Maryland and many Brent slaves in each state. But the notion was widespread that if a Virginia master hired out a slave for work in Maryland, or vice versa, for over a year, that slave might be able to sue for his freedom. So our imaginary sloop made its stops along the Maryland shore, though as we'll see the commissioners hired slaves to cut timber in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and quarry sandstone in Stafford County.

At Piscataway Creek, which forms a wide bay, our sloop finally reached Prince George's County. The road from Nottingham fifteen miles away came down to the creek. Although also on the Patuxent River, that village was about twenty-five miles from the site of the Capitol, so Robert Young's slave Abraham and Ignatius Boone's slaves Charles, Moses and Jacob might still be sent up in our sloop. A few more slaves belonging to members of the Digges family could have been picked up at Fort Washington, but most of the Prince George's County slaves probably walked to the city. The same can be said for the Montgomery County slaves. Georgetown would become part of the District of Columbia but until 1800 was a part of Montgomery County.

So our imaginary sloop picked up at least thirty-eight slaves. In reality, they all probably never worked in the city at the same time. But judging from the records we have, the slaves of Edmund Plowden and Joseph Queen worked in the city from 1794 to 1799 and likely began working there in 1792. Indeed, many of the local slaves, those within walking distance, were hired by the month, not the year. Most of the slaves on our imaginary sloop were hired out in January and worked until December. (Another reason making our imaginary sloop's voyage unlikely is that, in those days, ice could stop boat traffic on the Potomac in the winter.)

The St. Mary's and Charles County slaves likely appreciated meeting those Georgetown slaves like Jack and Peter, who were owned by Middleton Belt, or Dick, Oliver and George, who were owned by Mary Magruder. Belt hauled building materials for the commissioners. Magruder was probably a member of the Georgetown family that sold Indian meal to the commissioners. City slaves owned by them probably knew what was going on at the work sites and might explain some strange things to the St. Mary's slaves.

For example, they did the same jobs as a handful of free blacks. We know of them because they were listed on payrolls as "Negro Caesar Free" or "Free Isaac." We learned of Isaac's full name because in the next payroll, there is an Isaac Butler. Just below that name is a Rhody Butler, so he was likely a free black too.

We learned about a free black laborer named Jerry Holland because he was an excellent worker. In January 1795, an assistant surveyor attached a note to the December payroll: "Pay Jerry the black man at the rate of $8 per month, for his last months services, he is justly entitled to the highest wages that is due to our hands — being promised it and the best hand in the department — Dorsey excepted." If it wasn't for that letter, we might still think Holland was a free white laborer. (Holland continued to work for the commissioners until 1800, acting as their servant and living in a small stone house next to their office. They bought him a great coat for $7.50 to keep him warm in the winter, but he never got paid more than the hired slaves.)

The number of free white men who did the same work as the hired slaves was probably most surprising to slaves...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HISTORY PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1626197210
• ISBN 13: 9781626197213
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar