Labor strife with stone cutters May 1, 1798

"The Negroes Alone Work."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capitol, page 11

John Miller was drawn into the affairs of the city by the bankruptcy of James Greenleaf. With other Philadelphia merchants and speculators he was one of the trustees trying to manage the Washington property of Greenleaf so that his creditors could be paid. It was a rather large problem. Greenleaf had just over $2 million in debts and few wanted to buy Washington real estate. In this letter, Miller was commiserating and trying to bolster the courage of one of the commissioners who faced the same problem. The sale of building lots in the city was supposed to finance the construction of the Capitol and White House.

Alexander White was a former Virginia congressmen and spent most of his time as a commissioner lobbying for appropriations and loan guarantees from congress then meeting in Philadelphia where he likely became acquainted with Miller.

Then as now when things were not going well, the ruling class was prone to blame the working class, in this case the stone cutters. The number "68" on the scan of the photocopy is mine and refers to chapter 68 of my book on the founding of Washington, Through a Fiery Trial. As it turned out, I wrote about this dispute with the stonecutters in Chapter 67. In a nutshell, the commissioners fired their stonecutters on expectation of getting replacements from Philadelphia, as per Miller's letter. But then they were persuaded that no one would come down from Philadelphia to get the same wage. An agreement was reached but the whole month of May 1798 was a difficult one for labor relations. Carpenter were also disputing their wages.

However, there was no problem with the yearly hires, the vast majority of them slaves. This was when the Polish tourist Niemcewicz visited and noted that "The Negroes Alone Work." I think he got that impression because of the surly disposition of the free workers until wages and working rules were settled. In addition, the task at hand was getting the heavy timbers of the roof in line and I think skilled workers were loath to stoop to such labor. Surely, if ever the whip was used on the slaves as they worked on the Capitol this was the time, but Niemcewicz was there and didn't see it or hear about for surely he would have reported it. I don't think he would have reported on the labor dispute. At least, his diary showed no interest in that, while he did comment on the treatment of slaves.