The slave axe-men and their overseer

"The slaves worked as much under a man almost the opposite. James Dermott didn’t see them as an object of pity, but as a source of future profit. He worked behind the axe-men and surveyors and saw that the downed tree trunks were moved to the side of the street where the hands, probably slaves, of the original landowner would eventually cut up the trunks into cord wood for heat or burning brick kilns.... Commissioner Stuart, who hired him, had doubts that Dermott could handle slaves since he was just off the boat from Ireland. Indeed, while the slaves were doing familiar work, Dermott was learning on the job, learning about slavery. That Dermott showed he could handle slaves raised his standing with the commissioners, all slave holders. With the money he earned Dermott bought city lots, houses and slaves. Soon he also sold slaves especially girls ready to become servants to people who bought the houses he sold."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 56ff

 

Beginning with their fight with L'Enfant, the commissioners feuded with most of the men they hired to supervise the workers. In the correspondence generated by those feuds, we sometimes get a glimpse of the hired slaves, always as innocent bystanders. The commissioners effort to fire Andrew Ellicott, the surveyor hired by Jefferson and Washington in 1791, generated a thick file of letters. With much of the correspondence of President Washington on-line, there is no need for me to scan the photocopies I used when I wrote Through a Fiery Trail in 1990. However, the portion of the letter about Ellicott referring to slave axe-men is so short, I cut out that portion of it and scanned it below to lend the letter a bit authenticity.

You can find the complete letter here: http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-15-02-0332  And here is the transcription of the portion I snipped:

Major Ellicott cannot but remember that more than once he spoke of Dermott as the readiest Calculator he had met with; and though in the Succeeding Summer he employed him wholly, or nearly so, as an Overseer to overlook the Negroes in cutting down the trees in the Streets and Avenues, previous to the Sale in the fall and preparatory to it, he employed him in calculating the Areas and dividing the Squares.
The Commissioners saw the impropriety of employing Dermott to overlook the cutting down the Avenues and Streets at his wages, and especially as he was an European, he had probably never had any thing to do of the kind: they perceived too, Dermotts uneasiness at his situation, and were glad to see that Ellicott had changed it.
Major Ellicott asserts that he communicated his intention to discharge Dermott, to Doctr Stuart who pointedly opposed his dismission—Doctr Stuart neither remembers or believes it—nor does Mr Johnson or Mr Carroll recollect they ever heard any thing of it. On some joyous Occasion, We believe on the laying a Stone of the Bridge, Dermott was in Liquor and in that State intimated to Doct. Stuart that there were inaccuracies in the work, but so far from a disposition to pick up Matter against Ellicott, Doctr Stuart let Dermott know, that he should take no notice of what he said unless he would at a more Seasonable time address himself to the Commissioners—Dermott did not and nothing more was done at that time—Not long afterwards as Ellicott said, he had discharged Dermott: and as Dermott said Ellicott told him, that there was no present business for him but to be ready against the Axmen should go to Work in the Spring

I think Thomas Johnson, the commissioner who was a lawyer, wrote the letter and he knew how to appeal to his old friend George Washington. I think Johnson exaggerated any awkwardness Dermott felt as he learned to handle slaves because that would alarm Washington who had spent a lifetime dealing with slave overseers. Dermott soon bought and sold slaves on his own account.