Work arrangements before slave hire

"The commissioners encouraged Williams to hire men who work by the job, not on time wages and expecting chocolate butter for breakfast...."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital page 42

One result of the commissioners firing L'Enfant's workers in January 1792 was that they had to find somebody to organize the work that had to be done and this time they would not give nebulous orders to proceed, as they did with L'Enfant. They tried to give explicit orders. That was difficult because they really didn't know how to go about such a huge and unprecedented project, unprecedented in this country at least.

I share the scans of two documents I photocopied from the microfilm reels of the commissioners' proceedings made by the National Archives. The first is the commissioners' contract with Elisha Williams who they put in charge of the work. The second is their instructions to Williams outlining what they wanted him to do after the commissioners' adjourned and left Georgetown.

I didn't crop the first scan to exclude other matters the commissioners dealt with. I am always accused of sharing too much detail in my books. Here's a chance to show the many details I didn't share.

Four months after hiring Williams, the commissioners instructed him to hire slaves. That raises the question: when they hired Williams did they already expect to hire slaves? Williams was to be the "overseer," be in charge of "provisions" for workers, prepare for brick making and get timber to build huts to get ready for work in the Spring. Another order asked him to get the huts built by Spring.

But he was to overseer of those laborers those "who do work on priced time." When the commissioners hired slaves, they hired them for a year. If they expected Williams to exclusively handle slaves, they might of simply said he would oversee yearly hires.

These documents show that the commissioners were not thinking of hiring slaves but trying to arrange that all the work be done on a piece-work basis. That is, they wanted him to contract with men who would dig clay for bricks or cut timber for huts for a certain price. (They soon instructed Williams to hire men on a piece work basis to build the huts.) The amount of time it took them to do it would have no bearing on what they were paid. Of course, this may have invited slave owners to bid for the job and use their slaves to do it but it would free the commissioners from having to hire workers paid by the days, month or year, free or slave.