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.

Hired slaves preparing the city in 1800

"Meanwhile in May, Smallwood placed an ad for 8 men good at ditching. It must have been a come down for a man who once supervised five times that many men. Shortly after placing that ad, Smallwood went to work at the Navy Yard where he could place ads for 30 to 40 men."

I photocopied this page of the commissioners' proceedings because of the order that the overseer of the laborers Samuel Smallwood "keep not less than four Labourers engaged in ditching and levelling..." That laborers, presumably hired slaves, did such work is not surprising, but that so few were assigned to do the job is remarkable. The distance between the White House and Capitol was over a mile, and there were more roads that needed ditching and leveling. This might be described as a token crew deployed to answer particular complaints, not a serious effort to see that the city had good streets with good drainage.

HIred slaves "were a check on the white laborers."

"There were 'none so good for cutting before the Surveyors.'....there were 'none better for tending Masons.'"

Quotes from Slave Labor in the Capital, pages 53 and 86

In their January 5, 1793, letter to Samuel Blodget, the commissioners highlighted the success of their slave hire policy to the man they just hired to take over the day to day handling of their affairs. The commissioners met only once a month. I cut the photocopy I made of the commissioners' letterbook copy of the letter into three parts so that I could scan it. In the first scan they discuss the arrangement with Blodget. In the second, they joke about their trying to get more "foreign mechanicks" than they need and their need for stone cutters. In the third they report that they have enough carpenters, are trying to get a Philadelphia brickmaker and "may have a good many Negro Laborers."

Unfortunately they don't say how many they had in 1792 or had hired for 1793. They do laud those they hired in 1792 for their work with the surveyors and masons. "Cutting before the Surveyors" were hired slave axe men. In saying "none better for tending Masons" the commissioners were quoting Captain Williamson, who I am pretty sure was Lewis Williamson, the son of Collen Williamson the old Scottish mason hired to supervise the stone work at the White House. The hired slaves probably formed part of the crew that moved stone to the stone cutters sheds at the White House. Pity that there is not a fuller description of their work. Of course, the point the commissioners were trying to make is that their slave hire policy was good because the slaves were good workers and put free workers in their place. The commissioners echoed what they had just written to Secretary of State Jefferson, that memorable phrase that the slaves "kept our affairs cool," by telling Blodget that the hired slaves "were a check on the white laborers...."

Blodget was a Massachusetts spectacular who boasted of many talents. Supervising a major building project proved not to be one. He was seldom in the city and soon fired. That's another story well covered in my book Through a Fiery Trial.