A middleman in the slave hiring process becomes an overseer

"Middlemen soon got involved in the slave hire process. In November 1794, a month before the slave hire contracts were finalized at the first of the year, John Slye offered to bring thirty "valuable Negro men slaves" owned by friends on the condition that they get sixty dollars a year for each slave and the commissioners would hire Slye as an overseer."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 30

The letter below is from William Deakins who acted as the treasurer for the commissioners and also for the Potomac Company. He knew Slye from the Potomac company. Slye came to work for the company with recommendations as to his own character and with "hands." I don't think we can assume that those "hands" were slaves. Slye worked as an overseer at the Capitol for at least two years. I am not sure which slaves Slye brought to the Capitol but it might be possible to find out because those slaves asked the commissioners for inoculation against small pox and if they had been inoculuated, the payment to those masters would have been docked. 

Gentlemen
The bearer Mr. John S Slye wishes to be employed as an overseer in the city, and in order to get him into your employ, his friends, he says, have engaged to hire to the city thirty valuable Negro Men Slaves for one year at 60 dollars a year for each. Mr. Slye had letters of recommendation to me from Mr. Forbes and Mr. Southern. when I was director of the Poto[mac]. Company and he was employed for one year with twenty hands which he brought with him on the Potomac Company's works. If you have a vacancy for an overseer, it may be an object to get Mr. Slye with the number of Labourers he can bring, which he says are valuable slaves.

William Deakins, Jr.

Nov 14, 1794

Advertising for "Labourers," not slaves

"The number of white men who did the same work as hired slaves was probably most surprising to slaves from the tobacco plantations. The commissioners annually passed resolutions calling for "Negro Laborers" but usually the ads in the newspapers just said "laborers."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 25

In their records the commissioners referred to "labouring Negroes" as well as slaves. But their public advertisement soliciting workers usually asked only for "Labourers." I first noticed that as I looked for illustrations for my 1991 book Through a Fiery Trial: Building Washington 1790-1800. I was rather disappointed. I wanted a very public proclamation of the commissioners' desire for slaves. Finding all the ads placed by the commissioners in the several Maryland and Virginia newspapers they used proved too time consuming and not really to the point of my first book so I did not make a study of it.

But in Slave Labor in the Capital, I try to analyze why the commissioners hired slaves. I came to the conclusion that the commissioners thought it important to hire slave and free laborers on the same terms as a warning to free laborers that they could be replaced with slaves and so should be content to work for slave's wages. 

All the language in the ad below, placed in 1798, is geared to attract slave masters. Masters did read newspapers, most lived far from Washington. Most of the free laborers hired were illiterate and it is likely most learned about the chance to work through word of mouth. However, clearly the payrolls equate free and slave laborers. The commissioners were clearly not trying to make" laborer" and "slave" synonymous  so I think the ad served as a contract to be read out loud to free laborers if they expected to be paid more than slaves.

In scanning the photocopy I had of the newspaper, I included the two columns next to the ad about laborers. There was a on-going satirical piece called "Extracts from an old Manuscript" which described the trials of the commissioners with biblical solemnity poking fun, in the main, at Commissioner Gustavus Scott. He periodically went to Annapolis to coax the legislature to loan money to the commissioners. Then the next column over reports that the Maryland legislature refused to buy Potomac Company stock. Most thought the success of the Federal city depended on completion of canals around the Potomac falls.

Those juxtapositions would suggest that the difficulty of getting funding prompted the use of slave laborers in both projects. However, in 1799 the commissioners' financial crisis continued but they hired far fewer slaves.

Laborers and the Potomac Canals, February 19, 1793

"Thomas Johnson,who succeeded Washington as president of the [Potomac] Company, persuaded the directors to hire slaves because "their labor will be more valuable than common white Hirelings."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 44  

George Washington and the men he appointed as commissioners to prepare the City of Washington for the reception of the Federal government thought the success of the capital depended on opening the Potomac to navigation from Georgetown to Cumberland, Maryland. Work on canals around the falls of the Potomac began in the mid-1780s relying mostly on Irish laborers.

While Washington was president of the company, the frequent absenteeism of indentured Irishmen  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 & by the first of October the Navigation will I expect be Compleat from tide Water to the Great Falls so that by a short Portages at the Great Falls, the Navigation may then be in use to New Creek 24 Miles above Fort Cumburland, as boats now come down from thence into the Canal at the Great Falls. we have made Contracts to Compleat during the present Year, almost the whole of the Navigation above the Great Falls. - 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. I am with great Respect Your Obt Servt

Will. Deakins Junr

In the George Washington Paper, there is a payroll of the workers hired by the company in 1786. The laborers do indeed appear to be Irish. No hired slaves are listed. You can find a larger image here: http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw9/002/0003.jpg