The Use of Slaves to Build and Capitol and White House 1791-1801
By Bob Arnebeck bobarnebeck@gmail.com
(author of Through A Fiery Trial: Building Washington 1790-1801 Madison Books, 1991, and Slave Labor in the Capital History Books 2014)
| Part
Two: Slaves in Skilled Trades Part Three: Slaves as Laborers |
Part One
Stumbling to a Policy of Hiring Slave Laborers
That slaves helped build the Capitol and White House shocks Americans' sensibilities far more now than it did in the 1790s when building began. The lack of any shock then has little to do with the racism of the time or a matter-of-fact realization that any building south of Mason's and Dixon's line had to utilize slaves. The size of the buildings and their complexity dwarfed worries about who should and should not be building them. In the building trades along the Potomac River, at that time, there seemed to be no strict division of labor along racial and ethnic lines.
That said, the men who did most of the skilled work were whites, many immigrants from the British isles, not slaves. By and large, the 50 to 100 slaves hired each year by the government commissioners in charge of the project, roughly half the work force, were relegated to the less skilled tasks such as cutting trees, squaring and sawing lumber, hauling stone and bricks and helping skilled white masons and carpenters. There were a handful of slave carpenters, some slave quarriers, perhaps a few stone cutters, and at least one slave bricklayer who were hired by the commissioners. They valued slaves because they thought they were a check on the wage demands of free laborers. The slaves' masters were paid $60 to $70 a year, and unskilled white laborers were paid the same. The commissioners fed, housed and provided medical care for the hired slaves and white laborers who were hired on the same terms. There was no organized effort to teach skills to slaves, but some were soon recognized for their skills, and there is no doubt of their essential service, especially as sawyers, helping to free bottlenecks in the supply of materials, for which they, not their masters, were paid extra wages, usually a shilling a day, roughly 13 cents. Private contractors who supplied building materials for the public projects used slaves. It is difficult to ascertain how many were hired and how many were owned by the contractors. It is possible that slaves came to dominate much of the brick making operations by 1800, an issue I'll explore in Part Two of this essay.
We should be scrupulous in analyzing why the commissioners used slaves, and not in knee jerk fashion excuse them for being trapped in their sectional biases. The census of 1790 counted roughly 4 million Americans, and everyone except Indians and African Americans, 757,000 of that 4 million, counted on rapid immigration from Europe to increase that number. In 1790 America there was a shortage of labor, of know-how and of capital, but so confident were elite Americans that men to do any job would soon come from Europe that even George Washington looked askance at the lot the country, especially Virginia, was stuck with at the moment. In 1796 Washington began preparing to rent some of his Mount Vernon farms but was loath to expose his land to the shoddy methods of American farmers. So he wrote to friends in England asking them to send farmers to work his land. "Nor should I wish to do it with such unskilful farmers as ours," Washington wrote to John Sinclair on 20 February 1796, "if there was a prospect of obtaining them from any other country, where husbandry was better understood, and more advantageously practiced." A week later on the 28th he wrote to his overseer at Mount Vernon, William Pearce, that he will "not be in a hurry or fond of renting to the slovenly farmers of this country." Washington may have been the first great American, but he was by no means a believer in Americans first, or the superiority of the Virginia way of doing things.
His attitudes mightily affected the new capital. After selecting the Potomac River as the site of the federal capital, Congress left it to President Washington to pick the exact spot and make it happen in the way he saw fit. From the beginning he saw this as a universal project, not a sectional one. Two of the president's early decisions did stack the deck for the use of slaves. Congress gave the president the power to place the capital anywhere on the Potomac between Alexandria, Virginia, and, roughly, Hancock, Maryland, 110 miles to the west. By placing the capital as far as he could to the east, Washington moved it toward where there was an excess of slaves. But what motivated Washington was his desire to have the capital in a port with access to the Atlantic Ocean that could receive goods from the west coming down the Potomac, that could then to be shipped to the world. There is no evidence that Washington was attracted by the slaves who worked the farms of the landowners on the Potomac. He thought the nation's capital also had to be a great commercial center, and slavery, along the Potomac was a mainstay of an agrarian economy.
His second decision was more telling. As required by the Residence Act, he appointed three commissioners, Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll and David Stuart, to oversee the project. They all owned slaves, 38, 53, and -- respectively according to the 1790 census. But because the commissioners served without pay, it would have been difficult to find men not in the vicinity to serve, and most men of note in the vicinity owned slaves. There is no evidence that Washington appointed them because they were slave holders. In advising Washington on who to appoint as commissioners, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson suggested that they have "some taste Architecture" and reasoned that if they lived "near the place they may in some instances, be influenced by self interest, and partialities; but they will push the work with zeal..." (29 Aug 1790 Jefferson's Draft of Agenda for the Seat of Government.) Congressional leader James Madison made a list of names that might shore up support for the city in other sections of the country, but suggested that the majority of the commissioners reside "so conveniently to the scene of business as to be able to attend readily & gratis." (29 aug 90 memorandum on the Residence Act p 295) Neither Jefferson nor Madison, both slave holders, alluded to any advantage of having commissioners familiar with slavery.
Washington never revealed the reasoning behind his choices. David Stuart's main virtues were his long time association with Washington's family, having married Mrs. Washington's widowed daughter-in-law, and his being from Alexandria, Virginia, a village of 5,000 included in the District of Columbia. Daniel Carroll of Rock Creek lived just north of the District in Maryland and was related to two the of the principal landowners of what was to become the City of Washington. He had also done yeoman service during the debates in Congress over where to put the capital and probably lost his re-election bid because of it. Thomas Johnson, who lived in Frederick, Maryland, was a delegate to the Continental Congress and nominated Washington to be commanding general of the continental army. After the war he succeeded Washington as president of the Potomac Company, the canal building stock company seeking to open the Potomac River valley and the west beyond to world commerce. However, what probably won him his appointment was his skill as a Maryland lawyer. Until Congress moved to the city, the District of Columbia would remain under Maryland law. The commissioners had to get clear title to all the land in the city and withstand challenges in Maryland courts where, in the eyes of many, the leading lawyers in the nation practiced. Washington would soon appoint Johnson to the Supreme Court.
Washington's next decision showed no sectional bias at all. In 1791, he ignored solicitations on behalf of a British bred, Maryland based architect/builder, Joseph Clark, who may have used slaves in his building projects. A 2 August 1790 letter from A. C. Hanson of Annapolis to the president mentioned "the attachment and obedience" of Clark's workmen.
Instead Washington chose a Frenchman then working in New York City, Pierre (or Peter) Charles L'Enfant or P. Charles L'Enfant as he then signed his name, to plan the city, design the Capitol and President's house, and oversee their construction. While Clark's friend highlighted that architect's building talents, in his letter to Washington soliciting appointment, L'Enfant struck the chords appealing to an empire builder:
The late determination of Congress to lay the foundation of a city which will become the capital of this vast Empire offer so great an occasion of acquiring reputation to whoever may be appointed to conduct the execution of the business, that your Excellency will not be surprised that my ------ &the desire I have of becoming a useful citizen should lead me to wish a share in the undertaking.
No nation perhaps had ever before the opportunity offered them of deliberately deciding on the spot where their Capital City should be fixed or of combining every necessary consideration in the choice of situation and altho the means now within the power of the country are not such to implement the design of any extent it will be obvious that the plan should be drawn on such a scale as to leave room for that aggrandisement & embellishment which the increase of the wealth of the nation will permit it to pursue at any period however remote - viewing the matter in this light I am fully sensible of the extent of the undertaking and under the hope of a continuation of the indulgence you have hitherto honoured me....
In March 1791, when L'Enfant came to Georgetown, the small river port city across Rock Creek from the site to be developed, the Surveyor General of the United States, Andrew Ellicott, was already there cutting the boundary line of the Federal district. The Maryland born Ellicott was no parochial surveyor. He had just worked on the boundaries of New York and prided himself on basing his surveys on astronomy not on old fashioned links and chains. His crew of assistants had no slaves, but included another talented Maryland astronomer who was a free black man by virtue of having a white grandmother.
The editor of the Georgetown newspaper hailed the contribution of the mathematician Benjamin Banneker, noting that he was an "Ethiopian, whose abilities as a surveyor and astronomer clearly prove that Mr. Jefferson's concluding that race of men were void of mental endowments was without foundation." [The Georgetown Weekly Record, March 12, 1791] .
In the long debates about the virtues of a capital on the Potomac and in the promotional literature generated by the Potomac's partisans in Georgetown, the needs of the coming empire were always foremost. In promoting that vision no mention was made of slave labor in the vicinity. Not that people in Georgetown were unmindful of slave labor. Masters hiring out their slaves was a common practice in the upper South where there were more slaves than needed to farm the exhausted tobacco lands of Maryland and Virginia. Slaves were generally hired on an annual basis at the first of the year. For example in late 1792, when William Augustine Washington, the president's nephew, offered to supply lumber to the Federal city from wood lots along the lower Potomac, he planned to employ "twelve good Negro carpenters and ten Ax-men." He urged the commissioners to close the deal before Christmas, "as a Number of Negroes are generally hired out in this Neighborhood on New Year's day, after which time it will be difficult to procure them." (W.A. Washington to Comm. 12/11/1792.)
There was no hesitancy in trying to hire slaves for public projects. (I am not aware of the federal or any state governments buying slaves.) George Washington and the men he appointed as commissioners were closely associated with the Potomac Company which was organized to build locks around the many falls of the Potomac. While Washington was president of the company, the frequent absenteeism of indentured Irishmen used as laborers prompted the company to advertise for slaves to hire. Thomas Johnson pushed the idea, writing to Washington in September 1785 that he and co-director Thomas Sim Lee, thought "it desirable to have Negroes as well as purchase servants....." (Bacon-Foster p 161) But, as Washington explained to him in a 20 December 1785 letter, the effort to hire slaves failed:
It is to be apprehended, notwithstanding the great encouragements which have been offered by the Directors of the Company for the hire of negroes, that we shall not succeed in obtaining them. An idea is entertained by the proprietors of them, that the nature of the work will expose them to dangers which are not compensated by the terms. [White indentured] Servants I hope are purchased 'ere this. Colo. Fitzgerald was to have gone yesterday day to George town for this purpose.
Johnson became president of the company in 1789 and shortly after that the company advertised for 200 slaves. (Bacon-Foster, pp. 175-6). I am not sure how many slaves that effort netted, but slaves probably never made up a majority of the workers. As late as 1793 company officials could only muster a crew of 60 hired slaves organized for the express purpose of replacing white indentured servants when they succumbed to the summer heat, at least that seems to be the implication of one official's report to President Washington:
Geotown Feb 19, 1793,
Sir,
Knowing it will give you pleasure to hear of any thing favorable to the Navigation of the Potomac. I take the Liberty to inform you, we have now 150 Labourers employed at the Little Falls, under industrious overseers, and either Capt. Gilpin or myself see them at least once a week and the work goes on equal to our most sanguine expectations. We shall begin to fix the locks early next month & I am fully of opinion by the 1st of August the canal and locks will be compleat for boats to pass through.... - with some difficulty we have obtained about 60 Negroes for the year. They will be a good standby, when the sickly season comes on, when the white will leave us -- William Deakins, Jr.
However, to my knowledge, no one has made a list of all the men who worked for the Potomac Company, let alone counted all the slaves hired. In the George Washington Papers on-line, there is a list of the men, and a few women, hired to work on the locks at Great Falls, judging from their names, all were whites.
In 1791 both Ellicott and L'Enfant hired men in Georgetown as they began surveying and clearing the city site. There is no evidence that they hired or bought any slaves. Is it possible that the high minded rhetoric about the Federal City helped hide the obvious from contemporaries and historians, that slave labor was so commonplace that its use went without saying? Using that reasoning, we can't be certain that they didn't use slaves. But finding men to hire became such an issue that it seems the hiring of a slave would have been noted. For example, in one of his letters to his wife, Ellicott alluded to his frustrations in getting enough workers:
Labouring Hands in this Country can scarcely be had at any rate; my estimate was twenty; but I have to wade slowly thro' with six, - this scarcity of hands will lengthen out the time much beyond what I intended...." [Andrew Ellicott His Life and Letters, p89]
Did "Labouring Hands" mean slaves? If so, one would expect Ellicott to do a bit more complaining about how there could be a shortage of slaves in the South. And could the "rate", the wage for hiring slaves, have been so volatile? As we shall, when the commissioners did hire slaves, in April 1792, there was little variation in their wages. And when the commissioners finally did hire slaves, they were quite explicit about hiring "Negroes" which at that time meant slaves, not "labouring hands".
In 1791 there was no mention of "Negroes". On September 24, 1791, the commissioners instructed L'Enfant
to employ on the first Monday in October next one hundred and fifty laborers to throw up clay at the President's house and the house of Congress and in doing other work connected with the post road and the public buildings as he should think most proper to have immediately executed. [Commrs' proceedings p 30]
L'Enfant was not naive about the realities of the South. As an officer in the Continental Army he served two years there and was wounded in the Battle of Savannah while setting fire to some woods, a heroic action that provided smoke to shield the advance of American troops. He went to Charleston expecting to be an officer leading a regiment of slaves that Col. John Laurens hoped to organize. Despite Laurens connections, his father had been president of Congress, the plan never gained traction, but L'Enfant's connection with it suggests that he knew something about slavery.
Like Ellicott, L'Enfant had trouble finding laborers and soon reported that he could not hire nearly as many as 150, and eventually only got half that. But despite his previous experience in the South, he apparently didn't think of hiring slaves, nor did the commissioners. They encouraged him to offer a month's wages in advance, an unlikely inducement if they were contemplating getting masters to hire out their slaves. As far as I can tell from the commissioners' records, when slave hire became their policy in 1792, masters were never given a bonus for hiring out their slaves. They seemed to have usually been paid at the end of the slave's service or on a quarterly basis. By hiring out a slave, a master already had a windfall profit of sorts. He no longer had to feed the slave. That became the responsibility of the party hiring the slave.
When the commissioners finally made a count of the men working for L'Enfant they didn't note their race. In long January 9, 1792, letter to the president, the commissioners did report that they had figured out that L'Enfant and Ellicott had 75 men working for them, and that L'Enfant had just ordered 25 sent to the quarry he had bought in Aquia, Virginia, to supply stone for the public buildings he had yet to design:
....From what we deduct [deduce] from the Commissary of provisions there are now retained in service about 75 Labourers and their overseers in the City and that Maj. L'Enfant has ordered 25 of them to be withdrawn from there to be employed in the Stone Quarrie under the direction of Mr. Roberdeau who has left Georgetown on that business though previously told by two of the Commissioners separately and by the third on his way that his presence was desired at this meeting....
We know little about these 75 laborers, there are few names, and race was never mentioned. So we are left with reading between the lines to figure out if any of them were slaves. In the letter the commissioners mentioned 75 laborers and "their overseers." We now commonly think of overseers as men who worked and disciplined slaves for plantation masters. But this not what is meant in this letter.
In January 1792 the commissioners fired all the men hired under L'Enfant's authority. This is not something that could have been easily done if any of the men were hired slaves, since any previous contract or agreement with the slaves' masters would have to have been addressed. During this winter crisis the commissioners wrote several letters. The most succinct is one to Valentine Boraff who had been hired by L'Enfant to feed and pay the workers. The brusque tone and actions of the commissioners suggest that they were dealing only with free laborers:
From Commissrs, to Valentine Boraff, January 8, 1792
On Saturday we gave you directions in writing to discontinue the work discharge the hands settle their accounts possess yourself, and take care of their tools, and other public property, and sell the horse purchased at the public expense - We have not seen you since and are well informed that instead of employing the time in effecting our views, you have been into Virginia and seen Mr. Roberdeau and this morning you have gone out after ordering a supply of bread. These circumstances lead to two conclusions - that you in disregard of our orders are determined to persist in your old line and that you act under an idea of perceiving Mr. Roberdeau's orders as superior to ours. This conduct has made it necessary to inform you in the plainest terms that we require you to give up to Elisha Owen Williams every species of property you have in your charge or power belonging to the public who has authority from us to possess himself of the whole in the Federal Territory in whose hands soever it may be, and to warn you that you presume to interfere in digging the soil cutting or doing any act on the land as of your own, or under any kind of public authority we shall order actions of trespass against you and those who may assist you, for you are to consider yourself as entirely discharged by us, from all connection with the business, we are & c.
Thos Johnson, Dd Stuart, Dan Carroll (Commrs Letters pp 53 &54)
The commissioners threat to have Boraff or "those who may assist you" arrested for trespass suggest that none of those who might possibly assist Boraff were slaves, whose behavior was regulated by a special set of codes. After all they were another man's property and could not be simply jailed or fined because of a trespass.
In a few months the commissioners would decide to hire slaves to better establish their control of the work force. But in January 1792, they hit on the idea of hiring workers on different terms, not for wages but on a piece work basis. That is, workers would not be paid for their time, but for the amount of clay they dug up for bricks. After complaining about Roberdeau ignoring their orders, they explained their labor policy to the president:
....we think it advisable, from the nature of the season, for the present at least, to put everything we can on piece work and to discharge the hands engaged on time wages and provisions, and employed in digging: For though pains were taken on our part to get Brick clay turned up this Fall, we have no knowledge or reason to believe that a spade of clay has been turned up for that purpose, but labour diverted to other objects which may correspond to Maj. L'Enfant's designs respecting the Capitol and Palace, but we do not conceive there is certainty enough of the adoption of unprepared plans to warrant the cost of digging long, deep, wide ditches in the midst of winter which if necessary at all might be done much cheaper in any other season....
As we shall see, the commissioners eventually would provide incentives to get more work out of hired slaves, but it was not by paying them for piece work. They offered to pay additional wages personally to the slave, usually 13 cents a day, in addition to the monthly or yearly contract they had with the slave's master.
The day after they sent their stern letter to Boraff, they wrote to Elisha Williams giving him instructions for what work they did want done.
In the unsettled state of things we cannot hold up objects to you with desireable clearness and precision. We wish to save as much as possible by your endeavors, to get possession of and preserve the public property. We are anxious to get a quantity of brick clay turned up this season, sufficient for about two millions of bricks near the Presidents Palace, and if we could about the same quantity convenient to the Capitol, but we can get no certain inference of any fixed design of Maj. L'Enfant's with regard to either. Hands have been set to work it seems near the first place under verbal orders, though several hands without communicating any thing particular as to spot extent or quantity, and taken again from it, we wish if the clay holds good to add to it what will make two millions of bricks and wish it to be done on piece work. You will be furnished with a calculation - If hands cannot be got on piece work, we would submit to have it done on timed wages - If any difficulty advise with Mr. Carroll. We wish your attention in a very particular manner to the posts, and marks in the Federal City their being destroyed or misplaced may occasion a repetition of heavy expenses besides delay equally injurious - In general let your communications to Mr. Carroll as the occasions, and if the difficulties you may meet with, and we expect some should require it he will call a meeting of - sir, yrs, Tho Johnson, Dd Stewart, Danl Carroll
p.s. we also wish an additional number of huts to be set up against the Spring making the whole number 20 these to be added to the same size, and on the lines of the present with 20 feet intervals, which may if necessary be filled up with others - Piece work in his finding timber is most desirable the fitting is to be left to the Spring.
The order to build huts for the workers Williams might hire does not suggest that these workers were slaves. However, the distance from Georgetown, where housing was available, to the work sites was too great to expect free workers to commute from that city to the work sites. The distance forced Valentine Boraff to buy a horse in order to get supplies from Georgetown to the workers, as he explained in an April 1792 letter to the commissioners:
....I entered the employ as Commissary on the 13th of July and I left it the 7th of January last, continuing therein agreeable to my calculations 179 days. For this service I was to receive a Dollar per day - but being afterwards directed by Majors Ellicott & L'Enfant to act as pay master, also this, with the troubles attending it and the frequent calls I had to Georgetown to procure necessaries for the people, obliged me to purchase a horse, finding it too much to do all on foot - he cost me 30 dollars & has been an expense on my hands since I was dismissed [from] the employ. I trust that in considering this you will make me some reasonable compensation for the time I was under the necessity of keeping him in the employ. (Commrs. letters received)
This letter give us another indication that the men hired by L'Enfant and Ellicott were not slaves. Boraff mentions the travail of procuring "necessaries for the people." Slaves were rarely called "people." But to return to the huts for workers, it bears examining if hired slaves would ever be housed in twenty small huts, as opposed to a large barracks, which seems to be how they were housed when they were hired.
Another sentence in the letter to Williams might suggest that the commissioners had slave hire in my mind. If Williams could not hire men on a piece work basis, he was to consult with Commissioner Carroll on hiring men on time wages. Carroll was one of the largest slave owners in the area, but from this time until his death in 1796, there is no evidence that he ever hired out one of his slaves to the public works. In the L'Enfant papers in the Library of Congress there is a note sent by Carroll to L'Enfant suggesting that he hire a man, but the man was a free laborer from Baltimore, likely an Irish emigrant. As one of the leaders of the Catholic community in Maryland, it is likely that Carroll would help co-religionists.
Finally, there are those 25 men hired by L'Enfant's orders who were sent to the quarry in Virginia. Were they slaves? When L'Enfant purchased the Aquia quarry in Virginia, it is uncertain what condition it was in. Hard as it is to imagine a quarry being worked in Virginia without slaves, there evidently were none there. L'Enfant ordered that wages for workers there be increased to keep them on the job, an expedient not necessary for dealing with slave labor in the short term. Slaves could not threaten to quit and, of course, had no interest in getting more money for their master. In the 1790s the system of slave hire was not designed to create a labor force to respond to the changing needs of plantation owners, builders, and quarry owners. For example, the Potomac Company's effort to hire slaves was stymied by an interpretation of existing laws that suggested that hired slaves who worked in another state, that is crossing the Potomac River, might have a legal basis to claim their freedom. I have yet to explore the legal niceties of this situation, but suffice it to say legislation was presented in both the Virginia and Maryland legislatures to allow hired slaves to work out of state but for reasons I have not yet fathomed, these laws were not passed until 1805 in Maryland and ---- in Virginia. As we shall see, when the commissioners did hire slaves to work in the quarry, they were explicit in their orders and relied on the previous owner of the quarry to hire the slaves. So I don't think L'Enfant had slaves working the quarry.
L'Enfant simply didn't see slaves as a source of labor. At the same time he was having trouble hiring laborers, L'Enfant was making plans for building the city he had just designed. He did not seem put off, yet, by the shortage of labor, and didn't make any provision for the use of slaves. He projected a workforce of 1,070 men, understood that barracks had to be built to house them, that they would have to be fed, and in a long memorandum to the president detailed what they were to do and how much they were to be paid. There was no mention of slave hire. (See his work plan: http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/devplan.html ) Because the building sites were so far from Georgetown, everyone working on the project needed accommodations, so plans for barracks for workers in no way suggests that they were needed only to house slaves hired from far flung plantations. L'Enfant cited the lack of a barracks as the main reason why he couldn't hire many men that fall.
The chart below is adapted from L'Enfant's estimate for the number of workers needed to continue work in the city in 1792. L'Enfant listed two categories of workers: mechanics and laborers. That L'Enfant didn't think of the laborers as slaves is suggested by their being paid by the month and receiving the same rations as mechanics, including a half pint of "spirits" and 4 ounces of soap each day, amenities not generally provided to slaves. As we shall see, slaves received a ration of spirits for only especially hard work or as a special incentive. L'Enfant listed three kinds of supervisors: foremen, masters and overseers. While the words master and overseer are associated with slavery, in this context master comes from nautical usage, and, as we shall see, the word overseer was commonly used to describe one who bossed laborers of any race. The two masters listed below are associated with boats and teams of horses, not slaves. In the list below the boss of the mechanics is a called a foremen, and at that time, before the 20th centuries refinement of the managerial classes, only a mechanic could tell other mechanics what to do at a work site, hence a foreman. In the case of laborers, however, to call the man bossing the laborers a foreman, unless he was a slave, would relegate that boss to the low class of men under him. Hence, he was called an overseer, conferring to him his rightful status. The foreman of a laborer is still a laborer.
| 27 Carpenters | @ 12 [dollars a month] |
| 18 Masons | ditto |
| 18 Stone cutters | ditto |
| 23 Bricklayers | ditto |
| 4 Smiths | ditto |
| 10 Foremen for Mechanicks | @ 24 [dollars a month] |
| 20 Boatmen including 1 Master | @ 8 & 15 [dollars a month] |
| 20 Team Drivers & 1 Master | @ 20 [dollars a month] |
| 1 Commissary --- 2 deputies | @ 20 [dollars a month] each |
| 7 Overseers of the Labourers | @ 20 [dollars a month] |
| 360 Labourers | @ 7 [dollars a month] |
| Subsistence for 511 men | @121 [dollars] per month |
| NB This is calculated from beef at 7 Dolls, Pork at 12 - flour at 4 - corn at 2 1/2, Spirit at 50c a galln and proported by the follog allowance 1lb beef or pork, 1 lb flour. 1/2 lb corn meal, 1/2 pint spirit per day & 2 os. each chocolate sugar butter, 4 oz Soap, 1 lb Rice per week |
The list of rations probably reflects what L'Enfant fed the workers he had hired. At least his supplying "chocolate sugar butter" for the workers' breakfast became an extravagance that alarmed the commissioners. Peeved by his not being beholding enough to the commands they gave him at their monthly meeting at Georgetown, and for other reasons, the commissioners were soon trying to build a case for getting the president to dismiss L'Enfant. His providing such a luxury to slaves as "chocolate sugar butter" would have been noted with even more exasperation by the commissioners. Writing to the president about L'Enfant's extravagant plans, David Stuart wryly made chocolate butter the symbol of it: "you will find that chocolate molasses and sugar, are the cheapest articles, with which labourers can be furnished for breakfast." (Stuart to Washington, 26 Feb 1792) If these laborers had been slaves, Stuart likely would have said so to underline the extravagance.
L'Enfant fought back against the insinuations of the commissioners, and in that context he finally recognized that there was a problem getting workers. When L'Enfant warned the president of the deficiencies in the way the commissioners operated, he noted:
Everything yet remains to be done for establishing a regular mode of proceeding- no adequate means of supply provided - no materials engaged proportional to the work to be effected, no measures taken to procure the necessary number of men to employ. Assistance wanted must therefore come from a distance, the season already far advanced, the demand for such hands as might be procured, will increase in proportion as the winter passing will afford them employment at home.
I don't think L'Enfant was complaining about missing the customary January 1 deadline for hiring slaves. One would not use the phrase as the winter passing will afford them employment at home in the context of slave labor. Plantations were not run with such sensibilities, presumably slaves always had work to do on the plantation. When L'Enfant said the neiborhood of the city offering no kind of resources at least none to be depended on, he most likely meant the entire Potomac Valley. In 1790, thanks to slavery, Virginia was the most populous state in the union and Maryland had almost as many people as New York. L'Enfant didn't count slaves when he wrote to the president that the Federal City was "distant from the mass of population." (L'Enfant to Pres. ) He meant the urban centers to the north where workers in the building trades could be found. That Maryland and Virginia were the center of the nation's slave population and that slaves then outnumbered whites in what was to become the City of Washington were not attractions for L'Enfant.
Given that it was customary to use slaves for back-breaking work even in northern cities like New York where L'Enfant had supervised building projects in the 1780s, how could he not think of using them for back-breaking work along the Potomac?
As George Washington noted when slaves could not be hired to work for the Potomac Company, slave owners didn't necessarily like risking their slaves to do other people's back-breaking work unless well compensated. And then most anything could be arranged in a city like New York. Not so in the rural south. There is no evidence that Georgetown had an established system for slave hire. It seemed more important as a port of entry for indentured servants from Europe. The largest slave holder, John Threlkeld, had 41 slaves but there is no record of his having anything to do with the new city other than a contract to supply pork to feed the laborers in the city, which he had trouble fulfilling. There is no evidence that the slave owners across Rock Creek from Georgetown were accustomed to or prepared to hire out their slaves. Notley Young whose plantation spread out on what is now southwest Washington had 260 slaves in 1790. There is no evidence that he ever hired his slaves out to work in the city. (There maybe some confusion here that I am still trying to sort out. Young's daughter married a Brent and several Brents hired out slaves to the commissioners. However, I think all those Brents lived in Charles County, Maryland. I will, of course, change this if I find out if I am wrong.)
Proprietors like Young were allowed to continue working their farms until the streets of the new city were opened which in most cases didn't happen until well into the 1790s. In 1800 he had 71 slaves. Not until Washington appointed a man to fill a vacancy on the commission who was more steeped in the Enlightenment than the ways of the South, did anyone suggest that the commissioners buy slaves and train them. As we shall see in Part Two of this essay, the proposal was not taken seriously.
There is another reason why slaves were not thought of at the beginning of the project. Ellicott and L'Enfant, both retired military officers with the rank of major, thought of their work as a quasi military operation. In the 18th century slaves were enlisted in armies but usually with their eventual freedom as a morale boosting incentive. L'Enfant used the grandiosity of his plan to stoke the morale of every player in the unfolding drama, to prod landowners to develop their properties and laborers to picture themselves in the vanguard of the coming Metropolis. His workers stayed on the job for two weeks after they were fired by the commissioners in January 1792, and Valentine Boraff, the man stuck with the bill for feeding them, still wistfully hoped six months later that L'Enfant would return and "Command the Right wing of the City of Washington." (Boraff to Roberdeau, 6 June 1792, L'Enfant papers) What inducement could L'Enfant give to slaves to increase their morale, save their freedom, which was beyond his power to give?
That all said, there are indications that Ellicott and L'Enfant did not have complete control of the work. L'Enfant encouraged local land owners, all of whom had slaves, to begin improving their land in a spirit of mutual benefit for the public too. "In all parts where the public may derive some advantage from your exertions," L'Enfant wrote to David Burnes, who owned 12 slaves, "you may rest assured of being assisted...." Burnes owned half of the land where the President's house would be built. L'Enfant encouraged Samuel Davidson, who owned the other half, to dig up clay for bricks. (Davidson to Comm. 27 March 1792) Land owners would be paid for this land by the government after it was surveyed so it was in their interest to speed up the process. Notley Young had some huts built on the commissioners' behalf to house workers and the commissioners paid him for that. It's possible his slaves built the huts. George Walker, who owned land along the Anacostia River, was soon making bricks in expectation of selling them for the public buildings. Likely, slaves did some of this work.
The most recognizable work in the city was cutting trees on what would become Capitol Hill. There was no military precision here. Ellicott's assistant Walter Hanson, a father of four, was killed by a falling tree. One of the reasons L'Enfant wanted to postpone an auction of lots scheduled for October 1791 was that there was such a chaos of fallen trees in places that bidders could not see the advantages of various sites.: "the beauties of locale reserved for private settlements all being absolutely lost in the chaos of felled timber...." [L'Enfant to Pres. 19 Aug 1791] Not that Ellicott and L'Enfant blamed slave labor for any of this chaos, but it is hard to believe that some informal arrangements were not made with the land owners for the use of their slaves, but I've seen no evidence that there was.
All work in the city was soon eclipsed by the dispute between L'Enfant and the commissioners. There is no evidence that the use of slaves was at issue in the crisis with L'Enfant. Washington insisted that he work under the commissioners. L'Enfant felt that the commissioners had too narrow a view of the project, only sat in the city once a month, and were loath to spend money, especially to maintain a stable, motivated work force. In that first year of operation when the commissioners and the president addressed the labor problem, slaves were not mentioned. The President was keen on the use of German emigrants. In a March 8, 1792, letter to commissioner Stuart he wrote, "The idea of importing Germans and Highlanders as artizans and laborers has been touched upon in a letter from Mr. Jefferson to the Commissioners. It is, in my opinion, worthy of serious consideration, in an economical point of view, and because it will contribute to the population of the place." (GW to Stuart, 8 March 1792) Several Georgetown merchants had connections in Scotland and sought workers there. In November 1791, the commissioners sent an agent north charged in part to "get some of the most experienced brick makers to come here early in the Spring." (Comm to Cabot 26 Nov 1791.) Plots were soon hatched to lure skilled workers from Philadelphia. At the end of the first year's operations in the nascent city, there was no policy on the use of slaves, not even any apparent inclination to use slaves, largely thanks, in my opinion, to L'Enfant.
Having engineered the parting of L'Enfant in late February 1792, the commissioners understood that to keep the project on track they had to show a command of the situation. In late January they refined their orders to Elisha Williams. They authorized him to hire twenty men to dig clay, police the grounds, and to contract out for building eight huts on the President's House square and seven huts on Capitol Hill ready to house workers by March 15. (Cmmrs proceedings 31 Jan 1792)
Most observers in the city supported L'Enfant in the dispute in part because he did at least make decisions, while the commissioners always seemed to be waiting for advice from Philadelphia. With L'Enfant gone the President understood the need for more independent and dynamic commissioners. While he still forwarded his ideas down to the commissioners, reacting to their dithering over a contract to build a bridge over Rock Creek, he asked them to make decisions dealing with day to day operations. A letter from Jefferson explained the President's idea: "Indeed he thinks and wishes that having once consulted him, on the works to be undertaken, you would make your contracts, and proceed in the execution, without farther reference to him." Because of that stricture, the commissioners did not solicit the president's opinion before making the following order to hire slaves at their monthly meeting in April:
| At a meeting of the
Commissioners at George Town on the thirteenth Day of
April 1792; Present Thomas Johnson, David Stuart &
Daniel Carroll Esq. The following resolve was made and a copy thereof handed to Capt. Williams. The Commissioners resolve that to hire good labouring negroes by the year, the masters cloathing them well and finding each a blanket, the Commissioners finding them provisions and paying twenty one pounds a year wages. The payment if desired to be made quarterly or half yearly. If the negroes absent themselves a week or more, such time to be deducted. (Commrs. Proceedings) |
The wage, about $5 a month, went to the slave's master. In 1798, a Polish visitor to city, Julian Niemcewicz, was briefly under the impression that the slaves got the money:
I have seen them in large numbers," he wrote, "and I was glad that these poor unfortunates earned eight to ten dollars per week. My joy was not long lived: I am told that they were not working for themselves; their masters hire them out and retain all the money for themselves. What humanity! What a country of liberty. If at least they shared the earnings! (Under Their Vine and Fig Tree, p 93.)
As their meeting ended the Commissioners wrote to Jefferson on April 14, 1792, that "Nothing very particular has happened in the Course of this meeting." Even when they go on to mention the "satisfaction" Captain Williams has given them, they didn't mention their order to him to hire slaves. The commissioners did not keep detailed minutes of their meetings so we do not know if there was any discussion prior to making the resolve. Perhaps, they were somewhat embarrassed to raise the issue because, in an April 11 letter to Jefferson, they intimated that there was no shortage of laborers at all:
The situation of things here is very different from what we expected, or you perhaps have any idea of. People are on tiptoe to come from all parts, we might possibly have 2,000 mechanics and labourers here on very short notice. (April 11, 1792) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(nc000121))
Slaves, of course, could not tiptoe to the city.
So, why did the commissioners establish a policy of hiring slaves?
The commissioners' records for 1792 give us a glimpse of what the slaves hired did, though I am not sure how many were actually hired. There is a note in their April proceedings that "if Capt. Williams' Negroes come" the "best axe men" should work with Ellicott's surveyors. (Proceedings, 14 April 1792) After spending the winter in Philadelphia, Ellicott was back in the city, and the note quoted above certainly suggests that Ellicott was not adverse to the use of slaves after all. However, in the letters Ellicott wrote to the commissioners at this time, there was no request for slave axe-men. He was more interested in making changes to L'Enfant's plan, including moving the site of the Capitol further back on the hill. This was rather a high stakes gamble on his part. If he succeeded, the plan would become as much Ellicott's as L'Enfant's. Indeed L'Enfant accused him of trying to destroy his plan. Ellicott knew that the president was not inclined to make changes, so he needed the help of the commissioners. Ellicott likely agreed to using slaves to placate them.
When slave axe men did join the surveying crew, there is no mention of Ellicott dealing with them. In a letter to Washington, in which Commissioner David Stuart recalled the summer of 1792, he wrote that he worried when an Irishman named James Dermott, hired as an assistant surveyor, was made overseer of a crew of slaves. He thought someone fresh from Europe would not know how to handle slaves. (As we shall see, Dermott soon became a part-time slave dealer, and also so undermined Ellicott that he replaced him as head surveyor.) Politics aside, however, clearly a portion of the hired slaves cut trees to clear the way for surveying streets.
The major task that summer was digging the foundation of the President's house. One eyewitness of that work was President Washington, who came to the city in late July on his way to Mount Vernon. He must have seen some of the slaves just hired digging the foundation for the President's house but the only man he seemed to notice was the newly hired Irish architect James Hoban who "has laid out the foundation which is now digging and will be back in a month to enter heartily upon the work...." Which is now digging made it sound like the foundation was digging itself. A barn, 50 feet by 24 feet, with a 9 foot entrance, had been built on the site, perhaps to house slaves, which the president didn't mention in his letters.
Despite hiring slaves, the commissioners still offered, in a 5 July 1792 letter to a Scot named John Laird, to pay12 shillings Sterling a month for laborers he might find in Scotland, single men only. They also sought indentured servants, promising freedom to common laborers after two years work, less time required from mechanics:
They will be employed in public work only, and their living found as free men, we desire the Mechanicks to work only, Sixteen Months, and the Laborers two Years, from their arrival at this Port. (Commrs to Damen 4 July 1792, pp 97-8 C's Letterbook vol 1)
Not that as the summer wore on, the commissioners became disenchanted with slave labor. Late in 1792 the commissioners worried about a lack of stone coming from their Virginia quarry. Judging from an order in their proceedings on April 10, 1792, there were 20 men working there and the commissioners authorized a daily ration of one pound "good pork", one and a quarter pounds of beef and one pound of flour for each man. In September they ordered the man in charge, William Wright, to hire more hands and "as many of them should be good Negroes as you can get." Evidently Wright did not hire enough slaves. Soon after their September order, the commissioners asked George Brent, previous owner of the quarry and a kin of Commissioner Carroll to hire 30 to 40 slaves at 12 Pounds Virginia currency. (C's to Brent 6 Nov 1792) That evidently proved difficult because a month later the commissioners ordered the hiring of 25 slaves, at 15 Pounds Virginia currency, to work in the quarries. (Proceedings. 4 Dec 1792).
The number of slaves hired to work at the quarry is not known with certainty. In his History of Slave Laborers in the Construction of the Capitol, published in 2005, William C. Allen writes "Wright's workmen were, no doubt, also slaves." However, I don't think the evidence supports that assertion. Though Wright protested "has there not always been stone ready?" (3 Dec 1792 WW to Commrs.), the commissioners fired Wright, replacing him with Collen Williamson, a Scot emigrant, who had been hired in the summer to oversee the work of stone masons at the President's house. Work had not started on the Capitol. (See his contract at http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw4/109/0700/0704.jpg) I assume that the commissioners fired Wright because he did not hire slaves. Hence his protesting about getting stone out despite not following the commissioners' orders to hire slaves.
While Allen's essay is a valuable contribution, he is among those many historians who assume that because Maryland and Virginia had a large surplus of slaves they must have been used on the public buildings in Washington. And once historians assume that slaves were doing the work, they can't resist making us contemplate the irony of slaves cutting out the stone that was shipped up the Potomac to build those citadels of freedom, the White House and Capitol. Then other commentators suggest that the buildings were dependent on the skill of the slaves quarrying the stone. The White House Historical Association website chooses to put a fine gloss on this, having the Scot emigrant Williamson teaching slaves how to quarry and cut stone:
Master stonemason, Collen Williamson, trained slaves on the spot at the government’s quarry at Aquia, Virginia. There slaves quarried and cut the rough stone that was later dressed and laid by Scottish stonecutters to erect the walls of the President’s House.
I'm not aware of any contemporary description of this. Williamson wrote to the commissioners on March 23, 1793, reporting on his inspection of the quarry, where of 34 men working, 16 were "recommended" to him as "good hands." A cursory examination of the commissioners' records, especially their wanting 25 slaves at the quarry might lead one to assume that many of the 34 men there were slaves. But, as Washington had learned in 1786, asking for slaves was one thing, actually getting them was another. And the problems Williamson addressed in his letter were clearly the problems of free workers. There was no mention of training slaves, rather he mentioned the desire of the men there to be paid more for summer work, certainly not a prerogative of hired slaves whose wage went to their masters. And the 34 men there wanted their number increased to 40, an unlikely demand from hired slaves. They also complained of their rations being cut off when they got sick, a practice that was illegal if done to a hired slaved.
Washington March 23d, 1793
On my return from the quarry, I presume to give the folowing information. the quarry is managed acording to my direction and I expect will prove good. John Watson hath exerted himself to my satisfaction and the good of the work. there is at present about thirty four men at work, the greatest 16 of which is recommended to me as good hands, and willing to forward the work but hath been threatening to leave the work if they be not allowed seven dolors per month for sumer season, and be allowed forty hands. they are to Don their best to keep the three vesels still going. there is an old hand the name of waters who is watsons asistant he is present pd 3sh 9 d per day no racions [food rations]. he pleads to be helped. I think he should be alowed raciones which will make about 10 pence over and above his present wages. he also complains that if any of them is taken sick there raciones is kept off. I think that excepting particular cases they should have there racions for some time if they are really sick, because they will need attendance. all the above I presumed to lay before the commisioners with respect, Collen Williamson (Commrs. letters received, National Archives)
In a letter to Williamson on the issue of wages, the commissioners dropped their previous refrain to hire slaves to work at the quarry, and were anxious to keep the stone cutters there happy.
On Considering the Demand of the Stone Cutters, to have their Wages advanced to 10/ a Day, though we think the Crown very Handsome considering the Employment they have had all Winter, and the Certainty and manner of payment, yet we advise you if necessary, to give the addition rather than part from them, provided they agree to work, till the 10th of September and then both Parties to be at Liberty to make a new Agreement, or not, at pleasure. (Commrs Ltrs p 165 11 March 1793)
Here too, it is obvious that the commissioners were not addressing the concerns of slave or their masters, simply because if slaves were involved, all negotiations would be with the masters who, as far as I can tell, never associated together to negotiate agreements for slave hire. That the commissioners set the date September 10 to make a new contract, suggests that a these workers made a yearly contract on September 10, 1792, which was just after the commissioners ordered William Wright to hire as many slaves as he could. But advancing the wage to 10 shillings a day would mean these hands were paid far more than the 15 Pounds the commissioners offered for the hire of a slave for one year. One could argue that when Williamson noted that there were sixteen good hands, he was distinguishing the free white stone cutters from the slaves. I don't think that is the case, and it would be a stretch to suggest that the sixteen good hands were about to train the others. Or it is possible that slaves were there and that Williamson simply ignored them. There is evidence that Williamson did not care for slaves.
Since building recommenced in the city in April, it is unlikely that Williamson returned to the quarry. The commissioners layed off Williamson in 1795 (thinking he was too old for the work) and for a number of years Williamson pursued a suit against the commissioners and asked both Presidents Washington and Adams to reinstate him. While especially proud of his work raising the first story of the President's house in the summer of 1793, he never mentioned his experience at the Aquia quarry. In a letter to President John Adams in 1797, he deprecated the service of slaves claiming that six could not do the work of one good hand (I transcribe the letter almost in full in Part Two of this essay,) but this did not seem to be in reference to his experience at the quarry, but rather a way to denigrate his successor supervising construction at the President's house, James Hoban, who did use slaves. In the December 22, 1794, Virginia Herald, the men left in the charge of the quarries, Brent and Cooke, advertised for "sixty strong, active Negro men for whom good wages will be given - they shall be well used and fed." (Allen, p 6) Perhaps they did hire 60 slaves, but I have not found any record of it.
Still, though the evidence of the use of slaves by the commissioners in 1792 might not support the image of the skilled Scot teaching the art of stone cutting to hired slaves, it is clear that the commissioners thought their policy of hiring slave laborers was successful. On January 3, 1793, the commissioners once again resolved to ask Captain Williams to hire laborers for the year. They did this despite their just receiving a long letter from the President outlining his ideas about creating a labor force. The transcript of the letter from Fitzgerald's edition of Washington's papers is placed in the scroll down box below. Once again the president urged that workers be brought from Europe. He thought that by paying passage the commissioners could contract for the services for a number of years and thus fix their labor costs. Washington does not mention slaves in the letter. Of course, Washington put a premium of skilled workers, and only addressed the need for laborers by adding that those emigrants found lacking the requisite skills could "be obliged to serve their time as common laborers."
It could be argued that Washington's not mentioning slaves showed that he was comfortable with their use and that he knew he didn't have to talk about getting laborers because slaves were available. But Washington had a penchant for being thorough. He was so taken with the idea that indentured skill laborers, contracted to work for up to four years, could stabilize the commissioners' labor costs, that if he favored slave hire, one must assume that he would have added that to his money saving calculations.
Not until the commissioners responded to a 23 December 1792 letter from Jefferson, again hammering on the idea of getting workers from far away places, this time Connecticut, did the commissioners finally discuss the importance of slave hire in their labor policy. Jefferson wrote about the possibility of hiring men in Connecticut who seemed to work for lower wages though they had to be fed. [Jefferson to commrs., 23 Dec 1792 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(nc000156))] In a January 5 letter to Jefferson, the commissioners dismissed idea out of hand. There were carpenters aplenty to be had for the same wage, and the commissioners had stopped the wasteful practice of feeding skilled workers. They still had to feed laborers, but since they could hire slaves, too, free laborers, who they continued to hire, muted their wage demands:
there are Carpenters enough who may be had on the spot. And we shall want but a few additional masons next Season, for some in each line have already purchased [lots in the city] and agreed to sink the price [of the lots], by their work, so that we think it can be no object to introduce others from connecticut. Yet we are almost certain that there will be Employment for a great many Mechanicks in the City, and George Town next Season, on private buildings on Connecticut wages which are rather lower than here. the provisioning of workmen draws after it so many Expences, and so much waste that we have hitherto left them to provide for themselves, we are under a necessity, of doing otherwise as to the labourers, a part of whom we can easily make up of negroes & find it proper to do so. Those we have employed this Summer have proved a very useful check & kept our Affairs Cool. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(nc000157))
The commissioners' phrase a very useful check & kept our Affairs Cool got some explication from another letter. On the same day that they wrote to Jefferson, the commissioners wrote to Samuel Blodget, the man they just hired to superintend the development of the city. In that letter they gave a rough description of their measures to find workers and touched on the advantages of hiring slaves as a "check on white Laborers":
We have taken the measures the most likely as we judge to succeed for the introduction of foreign Mechanicks - the number we have attempted is greater than we want, we shall probably fail of some and if all should come, the only possible bad consequence will be distressing our friends in no great degree - Plain Stone cutters we most want and they have been our principal object, without a good many we shall be at a stand wherefore if it should be in your way we wish you to forward an immediate increase. We are strong enough we are told, in Carpenters, some work for Lots and so do some common Masons. Mr. Hoban is to endeavor to get a good Brickmaker from Philadelphia, if we do not agree with him, will pay the Expences of his Journey - we may have a good many Negro Labourers none so good for cutting before the Surveyors and none better for tending Masons - Captain Williams on tells us he could not have done with them the Summer, they were a check on the white Laborers who will indeed only at price work." (Comm to Blodget 5 Jany 1793)
The last passage in the paragraph is confusing. This is from a letterbook copy of the letter retained in the commissioners' records. The letter sent to Blodget has not been found. It probably actually read: Captain Williams tells us he could not have done without them this Summer. They were a check on the white Laborers who will indeed only work at price work. It is unlikely that "Captain Williams on" refers to Collen Williamson. He was never referred to as a "Captain." In the letter the commissioners listed three advantages to having slaves, and each advantage is expressed somewhat obliquely. None so good for cutting before the Surveyors confuses me. One would think the surveyors would mark where the axe-men should cut. None better for tending Masons does tell us that they attended masons, but not exactly what they did. The writer seems more interested in parallel structure None so good/None better than in giving a clear statement of what slaves did. And the word none in this context only distinguishes the slaves from free workers. That raises the question: why were slaves better than free workers when it came to cutting trees and tending masons? The writer answers: they were a check on the white Laborers who will indeed only at price work. I think there are two ways to read this. One reading is somewhat complex: since the surveyors and masons insisted on being paid by the day, not by the amout of work done, by having slaves cutting trees before the surveyors and having them bring stone to the masons, that set the pace of the work preventing the surveyors and masons from setting their own pace. A simpler explanation is that slaves hired by the year for $60 forced white laborers to accept the same terms.
In their 1792 ad the commissioners did specify that they wanted Good Labouring Negroes, but clearly they wanted whites too, for they dutifully, and in vain, tried to get emigrants. This explains the curious phrasing of their boast in that January 5, 1793, letter to Jefferson about laborers, a part of whom we can easily make up of Negroes and find it proper to do so. The phrase proper to do so might be taken as an indication that some may have looked askance at the use of slaves. But the commissioners were speaking of strategy not morality. They went on to explain, Those [slaves] we have employed this Sumer have proved a very useful check & kept our Affairs Cool. Hiring slaves was not born of a real need for their labor, and certainly not in hopes of training them to do skilled work. Slaves were hired to cheapen the price of free labor.
But what evidence is there that free laborers, most of them white, were hired on the same terms as slaves? That was the linch-pin of the commissioners' system, even though it clashes with our modern assumption that whites were always careful to put blacks in a subservient position, if not constantly in shackles. Perhaps the best piece of evidence in the National Archives showing that free and slave laborers were paid at the same rate is a receipt given to Thomas Dixon. He was paid for three months work in 1797 as a laborer at the President's House, and he received money "for negro Will at same rate." Slave and free laborers were also listed in the same payrolls credited with the same wage, though, of course, the masters got the wages of the slaves.
On December 24, 1792, Thomas Hardman, overseer, and 24 laborers working under him were paid for 64 days service for assisting the surveyors. I was unable to find a list of the laborers for that year or the year after, but a December 1794, payroll lists 26 laborers working under Hardman. Only thirteen were slaves:
| James Cafery Labr. | |
| Jonas Breeden Do. | |
| Joseph Calender Do | |
| Alben Hardman Do | |
| Robert Drury Do. | |
| Covetin Lewis Do. | |
| Francis Nebel Do. | |
| William Smith Do | |
| Gustavus Higdon with George Fenwick | |
| Rezin Talbert Do | |
| Ruben Gibson Do. | |
| Jerry Holland Do. | |
| Joseph Johnson Do. | |
| N Tom Miss A Diggs | |
| N Dick Do. | |
| N Frank Wm D. Beall | |
| N Peter Middleton Belt | |
| N Liverpole Richd. Brown | |
| N Dick Miss McGruder | |
| N Manuel Olley Scott | |
| N Will Mary Simms | |
| N Nace Alex Chisley | |
| N Gererd Ewd. Plowden | |
| N Tony Do | |
| N Jack Do | |
| N Tony Jas. Stone | |
| illegible |
The slaves are easily identified as slaves. "N" denoted a "Negro", which was synonymous with slave in the city at this time. Each slave had a first name followed by the name of his owner. This was less to better identify the slave than to make sure the slave's owner was properly compensated. (It is possible, perhaps likely, that these slaves had last names. As we shall see in Part Two of this essay, Jack Fuller in the quarry was known as Jack Fuller to his master, but in the records he was listed as Negro Jack.)
The other thirteen men in the above list were not slaves. Gustavus Higdon may have been George Fenwick's indentured servant, or may have simply been detailed to work exclusively with Fenwick who was one of the surveyors. The other twelve with a first and last name were likely free and not indentured, but they were not all white. A letter written in 1795 referred to Jerry Holland as "the black man." Were the other eleven also free African Americans? Probably not. Alben Hardman was probably a young relative of the overseer Thomas Hardman. Just as Gustavus Higdon sounds like a white man's name (he would eventually buy a lot in the city), so do the three obviously Irish names Cafry, Breeden, and Calender. Rezin Talbert, Reuben Gibson, and Joseph Johnson, listed close to Holland, might have been free blacks. (That said, judging from a Google search of genealogy inquiries, there was a white Ruben Gibson in Louisiana in 1810 and a white Rezin Talbert in Kentucky in 1829.)
Paying free and slave laborers at the same rate was the essense of the commissioners' labor policy. They wanted to equate working for wages with slavery and thus make working on a piece work basis more attractive. As we shall see in Part Two of this essay, eventually they would negotiate a piece work contract with masons, with dire results.
And exactly how did this strategy, forwarded by the use of slaves, keep the Affairs of the commissioners Cool? Then as now the word "cool" was suggestive of control. L'Enfant used the phrase "coolness and Resolution" in describing his program for the city. He explained to the president that "to organize a machine so complicated & to insure regular action in all the parts demand coolness and Resolution...." The commissioners' use of the word also suggested control of the situation, but since they combined it with the word "check" as in Those we have employed this Summer have proved a very useful check & kept our Affairs Cool, this suggests another nuance of meaning. After getting rid of L'Enfant and his workers, and trying to ditch L'Enfant's plan, the proprietors roundly accused the commissioners, especially Thomas Johnson, of putting a chill on the development of the city. L'Enfant's assistant Roberdeau wrote to L'Enfant, "the confidence of the people here is destroyed and few believe now in the success of the establishment, and none are willing to interest themselves in it." [Roberdeau to L'Enfant, 2 July 1792] There is reason to believe that to Johnson to "cool" meant to slow down, to stop the feverish pace of development urged by L'Enfant.
While all three commissioners agreed on the slave hire policy and signed the letters extolling it, I think Thomas Johnson can be credited for the policy. He had been trying to get hired slaves for the Potomac Company since 1785 when he wrote to Washington that he thought they were necessary. All observers of city affairs recognized Johnson as the prime commissioner. A small man once known as the "Little Cock", he was heavy handed in dealing with inferiors and had a penchant for abruptly firing underlings. When the surveyor Isaac Briggs refused to comment on the work of another surveyor, James Dermott, explaining, "I will have no intercourse with that man...." Johnson replied "with much promptness, 'Then by God, Mr. Briggs, we wish to have nothing more to do with you.'"[Briggs to A. Ellicott, 6 Jan 1794, Ellicott Papers.]
To be sure, Johnson thought the policy of hiring slaves was bowing to necessity. Due to slow sales of city lots and the inability to get a loan on city lots, the commissioners did not have money to spare and needed to get laborers as cheaply as possible. But for Johnson personally there may have been more involved. As we reconstruct the lives of the men in the Founders' generation we tend to see them as men of native talent confronting the novel challenges of creating a new nation. The c.v. of Thomas Johnson seems to show just this, as he combined high political office, and brief military service, during years of revolution. Then in a period of nation building he was a lawyer, administrator, entrepeneur, and while serving as commissioner, at the time a non paying job, Washington appointed him a justice of the Supreme Court, and wanted to make him Secretary of State.
| In the flux of the life of
someone so evidently prized as a problem solver, it is
easy to overlook his own overriding sense of entitlement.
As became clear shortly before he left the commission,
Johnson intended to profit from the development of the
federal city. While still a commissioner he advertised
the sale of almost all his property in and around
Frederick, Maryland, including "several good negro
foremen." He explained to the President that he
wanted "to avail myself of the moment which I saw
and has almost past away to benefit myself by the rise of
the city to which a long friendship for Potomack and
every exertion in my power in its favor fairly intitle
me." (Johnson to Washington, 23 Dec 1793) In a March
13, 1795 letter, his successor as commissioner, Gustavus
Scott, hoped that a favorable opinion from Attorney
General against Johnson's quest to buy water lots in the
city would "have the happy effect of quieting the
appetite of the little man." (Thornton Papers) This
suggests a motive for his antipathy to L'Enfant who not
only had the original proprietors in the city worked up
in a white heat of expectation, but was amassing a work
force with earth moving morale even in the dead of
winter. The dismissal of L'Enfant cooled the proprietors
who recognized that losing someone tied so closely to the
venture lessened, for the moment at least, the value of
their land. Hiring slaves chilled the expectations of
workers. In this cool environment, the city would
progress slowly, which allowed Johnson to bide his time
until he sensed the time was right to buy city property. The right moment for Johnson came in late 1793 after he negotiated an extensive sale of 6,000 city lots to the Boston speculator James Greenleaf. Johnson was persuaded to sell lots so cheaply because Greenleaf also offered to raise a loan for the commissioners, pay for the lots in seven equal annual installments which would pay for work on the Capitol and President's house, build 140 brick houses in the city and, in private negotiations, to buy the private lands Johnson had offered for sale. (See my Tracking the Speculators: http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/speculators.html) |
The President and the dozen or so original proprietors of the land agreed that all land not used for public buildings, parks, and streets, would be surveyed by the government into small house lots that would be equally divided between the commissioners and the proprietors. Based on that, the following development strategies were devised:
The periodic auction of the commissioners' lots would established a high value for lots and sales would generously supplement the $192,000 in seed money provided by the states of Maryland and Virginia, providing upwards of $4 million dollars for the public works.
Enough of the commissioners' lots would be mortgaged to secure a $1 million loan from Dutch banks and the money would be used to landscape the public grounds and begin construction of the public buildings. That would increase lot values and subsequent sales of lots would pay off the loan and supply additional money to finish the public buildings
6,000 lots were sold to Greenleaf and his associates Philadelphia speculators Robert Morris and John Nicholson, for about $140 each, payable in seven annual installments, with condition that 140 private brick houses would be built. By mortgaging lots for a loan from Dutch banks and by selling lots and houses as they were built, Greenleaf would pay seven annual installments of $72,000 to pay for construction of the public buildings needed for the federal government in 1800 Unable to get a loan, Greenleaf only made one installment, and sold out to his partners who were unable to meet any installments. The enormous debts of all three speculators left title of all the lots sold to them in doubt. The commissioners secured loan guarantees from Congress and then loans from the state of Maryland, and eventually a $50,000 appropriation from Congress. |
In tracing the genesis of the use of slaves in the city, it is clear to me that their employment was not a matter of policy initiated or even explicitly approved at the highest level, that is, by Washington and Jefferson. Our current conception of the nation's founders is one of men of grace, genius and gravitas hemmed in by the rude conditions of the times. We chaff at the idea that they could be manipulated by underlings. While Washington supported the commissioners and thought so much of Johnson that he asked him to take complete charge of the city, he never explicitly commented on the use of slaves. One might argue that their use of slaves was reassuring to a slave owner like the president, and, because of that, Johnson remained in Washington's good graces as others not interested in slaves, like L'Enfant and Ellicott, fell from favor. However, in his will Washington tried to free his slaves, which suggests that he harbored some doubts about the institution. In their book George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America, (Oxford U Press 1998) Robert F. Dalzell, Jr. and Lee Baldwin Dalzell note Washington's disgust at his own slaves. On February 16, 1794, he wrote from Philadelphia to his overseer William Pearce about them: "It appears to me, that to make even a chicken coop, would employ them all week; buildings that are run up here in two or three days (with not more hands) employ them a month or more." Combine that attitude with his constantly urging the commissioners to get emigrant workers, and one has to think that a propensity to employ slaves did not endear a man to Washington.
The money-saving, labor-intimidation policy of Johnson and his fellow commissioners was not the only impetus for the use of slaves. During a southern tour in the summer of 1791, his hosts in Charleston, South Carolina, introduced Washington to a talented Irish builder named James Hoban. Washington mentioned the need for builders in the new city. Hoban sailed to Philadelphia, won the design competition for the President's house, and with the president's blessing went to the city to superintend the construction of the building he designed. Then Hoban returned to Charleston to fetch other workers, probably including several slave carpenters. (It is also possible that he purchased the slaves sent by William Augustine Washington to the city in the spring of 1793.) Peter, Tom, Ben, Harry and Daniel were soon listed in payrolls, now in the National Archives, working not as laborers, but as carpenters. In some payrolls they were listed as "Negro Peter" or "N Tom," and in some payrolls Peter and Tom earned the same wage as some white carpenters. However their wages were received by Hoban and his assistant Pierce Purcell. That these carpenters were slaves is not based solely on how they were listed on payrolls. In a 1796 work plan for the President's house, Hoban listed "slave carpenters." In a 1797 letter to the commissioners, reference is made to "Purcell's Negro Tom." I was unable to find payrolls for carpenters in the National Archives for 1792 and 1793. The 1795 payroll below lists Hoban's and Purcell's slaves, and also shows thay most of the work was done by white carpenters with Irish names.
We do hereby acknowledge to have received of Chas. Redmond the sums prefixed to our respective names being in full for wages due to us as Carpenters employed at the President's House in the City of Washington in the month of January 1795, Witness our Hand, this___ day of February 1795
| name | days | rate | pounds | shillings | pence | wage | signature | |||
| Peirce Purcell | 27 | 15/ | 20 | 5 | 0 | Twenty Pounds, five shillings | Peirce Purcell | |||
| Mich. Dowling | 27 | 8/4 | 11 | 5 | 0 | Eleven Pounds, five shillings | Michael Dowling | |||
| Peter Lynox | 27 | 8/4 | 11 | 5 | 0 | Eleven Pounds, five shillings | Peter Lenox | |||
| James Duncan | 21 | 8/4 | 8 | 15 | 0 | Eight Pounds, fifteen shillings | Js. Duncan | |||
| Redd. Purcell | 19 1/2 | 8/4 | 8 | 2 | 6 | Eight Pounds, two shillings, six pence | Redd Purcell | |||
| Samuel Curtis | 19 1/2 | 8/4 | 8 | 2 | 6 | Eight Pounds, two shillings, six pence | Samuel Curtis | |||
| Timoy Sheedy | 17 1/2 | 8/4 | 7 | 5 | 10 | Seven Pounds, five shillings & ten pence | Timothy Sheedy | |||
| Robert Aul | 18 | 8/4 | 7 | 10 | 0 | Seven Pounds, ten shillings | Robt Aull | |||
| Simon Toole | 22 | 8/4 | 9 | 3 | 4 | Nine Pounds, three shillings & four pence | Simon Toole | |||
| Jn. McCorkill | 27 | 7/6 | 10 | 2 | 6 | Ten Pounds, two shillings & six pence | James Hoban | |||
| Peter Smith | 27 | 6/6 | 8 | 15 | 6 | Eight Pounds, fifteen shillings & sixpence | Peirce Purcell | |||
| Peter | 21 | 6/6 | 6 | 16 | 6 | Six pounds, sixteen shillings & six pence | James Hoban | |||
| Tom | 20 | 6/6 | 6 | 10 | 0 | Six pounds, ten shillings | Peirce Purcell | |||
| Ben | 23 | 5/ | 5 | 15 | 0 | Five pounds, fifteen shillings | James Hoban | |||
| Harry | 27 | 4/ | 5 | 8 | 0 | Five Pounds, eight shillings | James Hoban | |||
| Daniel | 27 | 4/ | 5 | 8 | 0 | Five pounds, eight shillings | James Hoban | |||
| Sam McCorkill | 27 | 7/ | 9 | 9 | 0 | Nine Pounds, nine shillings | Peirce Purcell |
In Part Three of this essay, I will share as many details as I was able to find in the commissioners' records about the slaves hired as common laborers, and almost all of the slaves working for the commissioners were common laborers. But the image of whites exploiting skilled slave carpenters and masons is a popular one today, and often projected on the work done on America's Temples of Liberty, if you will. So in Part Two of this essay, I'll examine to what extent skilled slaves were used in the public works.
Were Slaves Used as Skilled Carpenters, Stone Masons and Bricklayers?
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