Mitchell to Commissioners

"The negroes I hired from St. Mary's would not answer"

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capitol, page 120, from a letter to the commissioners from brick making contractor John Mitchell: 

This blog has obvious deficiencies as a documentary edition of the correspondence of the commissioners tasked by President Washington to ready a capital city by 1800. I had neither the time nor money to photocopy every document, and even in the case of this important letter, I saved my money by not photocopying the whole document. I won't transcribe the documents presented in this blog for two reasons: in hope that the readers eyes will become obsessed with old handwriting as a portal for discovery and to preserve the iconic potential of the document.

In Slave Labor in the Capital I explain the problems the contractor John Mitchell faced. Suffice it to say here that apart from informing my take on brick making in the city, the phrase "negroes I hired from St. Mary's" establishes a basic point in my book. Slaves hired to work on the public buildings came from as far away as St. Mary's County, Maryland. In the commissioners' proceedings it is also clear that the slaves Mitchell found one wanting had first been hired by the commissioners and sent to Mitchell who then assumed the burden to pay for them. He sent them back and I did not find exactly how that played out in the commissioners' accounts, though certainly the master or masters got their $60 a year for each slave.

The circled number 41 notes the chapter in Through a Fiery Trial where I used this letter as a source.