Slaves Who Built the White House

Slaves Who Built the White House It has never been a closely held secret that enslaved Americans were part of the work force that built the White House and the United States Capitol. But the role of slaves in the building of great national symbols has generally been overlooked, or, even worse, purposely obscured. The role of enslaved workers had been so widely ignored that when First Lady Michelle Obama made reference to slaves building the White House, in her speech at the Democratic National Convention in July 2016, many people questioned the statement. Yet what the First Lady said was accurate. And if the idea of slaves building symbols of freedom such as the White House and Capitol seems odd today, in the 1790s no one would have thought much of it. The new federal city of Washington would be surrounded by the states of Maryland and Virginia, both of which had economies that depended on the labor of enslaved people. And the new city had to be constructed on the site of farmland and forests. Countless trees had to be cleared and hills had to be leveled. When the buildings began to rise, massive amounts of stone had to be transported to construction sites. Besides all the grueling physical labor, skilled carpenters, quarry workers, and masons would be needed. The use of slave labor in that environment would have been seen as ordinary. And that is probably why there are so few accounts of the enslaved workers and exactly what they did. The National Archives holds records which document that the owners of slaves were paid for the work performed in the 1790s. But the records are sparse, and only list slaves by first names and by the names of their owners. Where Did the Slaves In Early Washington Come From? From the existing pay records, we can know that the slaves who worked on the White House and the Capitol were generally the property of land owners from nearby Maryland. In the 1790s there were a number of large estates in Maryland worked by slave labor, so it would not have been difficult to hire slaves to come to the site of the new federal city. At that time, some counties of southern Maryland would have contained more slaves than free people. During most of the years of construction of the White House and Capitol, from 1792 to 1800, the commissioners of the new city would have hired about 100 slaves as workers. Recruiting the enslaved workers may have been a fairly casual situation of simply relying on established contacts. Researchers have noted that one of the commissioners responsible for building the new city, Daniel Carroll, was a cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and a member of one of Marylands most politically connected families. And some slave  owners who were paid for the labor of their enslaved workers had connections to the Carroll family. So its conceivable that Daniel Carroll simply contacted people he knew and arranged to hire enslaved workers from their farms and estates. What Work Was Performed By Slaves? There were several phases of work that needed to be done. Firstly, there was a need for ax men, workers skilled at felling trees and clearing land. The plan for the city of Washington called for an elaborate network of streets and wide avenues, and the work of clearing timber had to be done fairly precisely. Its likely that owners of large estates in Maryland would have had slaves with considerable experience at clearing land. So hiring workers who were quite competent would not have been difficult. The next phase included moving timber and stone from forests and quarries in Virginia. Much of that work was probably done by slave labor, laboring miles from the  site of the new city. And when the building material was brought to the site of present day Washington, D.C., by barges, it would have been transported to the building sites on heavy wagons. The skilled masons working on the White House and Capitol were probably helped by tending masons, who would have been semi-skilled workers. Many of them were probably slaves, though its believed that free whites and enslaved blacks worked at those jobs. A later phase of construction required a considerable number of carpenters to frame and finish the insides of the buildings. The sawing of large amounts of lumber was also likely the work of enslaved workers. When the work on the buildings was finished, its assumed that the enslaved workers returned to the estates where they had come from. Some of the slaves might have only worked for a single year, or a few years, before returning to the enslaved populations on Maryland estates. The role of the slaves who worked on the White House and Capitol was essentially hidden in plain sight for many years. The records existed, but as it was an ordinary work arrangement at the time, no one would have found it unusual. And as most early president owned slaves, the idea of slaves being associated with the presidents house would have seemed ordinary. The lack of recognition for those enslaved workers has been addressed in recent years. A memorial to them has been placed in the U.S. Capitol. And in 2008 CBS News broadcast a segment on the slaves who built the White House.