Building liberty's capital: Black labor and the new federal city

American Visions, Feb-March, 1995 by Robert J. Kapsch

The White House and the Capitol--the gleaming symbols of our great democracy--are situated at the center of the world's first planned capital. Conceived by George Washington and planned by Pierre L'Enfant, Washington, D.C., stands as one of the great successes of planning and architectural history.

Although the story of the design and planning of the new Federal city is well-known, little has been written about the people whose labor actually built this country's most symbolic structures. Few who gaze toward the White House and the Capitol realize that much of the work force that built them was black.

There is a double irony here: Most of the African Americans who raised liberty's capital were enslaved however, had the new capital been situated in the North, African Americans would probably have been prohibited from working on the building sites and thus sundered from the legacy associated with the founding of our nation's most potent symbols.

On July 16, 1790, the first United States Congress approved the Act of Residence to create the permanent seat of the government of the United States. The act empowered George Washington to locate America's capital in the South, along the Potomac River. Washington selected a site on the Virginia-Maryland border at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. He then appointed three capital commissioners to oversee the construction of the new Federal city.

Had the capital of the fledgling republic been situated in Philadelphia or New York (both of which had sought the honor), black labor would probably have been excluded from the construction sites by the powerful building trades organizations that had developed in these Northern cities since the Revolution. And, Maryland-born Benjamin Banneker, a free African American whose astronomical and mathematical skills won him employment in calculating the boundaries of the new Federal district, would now be known to history solely for his 1791 almanac and its accompanying letter to Thomas Jefferson denouncing slavery. But placing the capital between the two Southern slave states of Virginia and Maryland--which between them then contained more than half of America's black population--ensured a special and enduring relationship between African Americans and the new Federal city.

Indeed, building the new capital in a sparsely settled region far from major population centers highlighted an interlocked set of labor and materiel problems whose common solution largely turned on slavery. Thus, although the commissioners initially expected to import workers from Europe to meet their labor needs, it was African Americans, both free and slave, who ultimately provided the bulk of the labor that built the White House and associated structures.

The location of the proposed capital greatly exacerbated the problems the commissioners faced in acquiring finished building materials, such as lumber, bricks, nails and stone (it had been decided that the government's major structures were to be faced with building stone). It was mainly African-American laborers who filled the breach, acquiring and fashioning raw materials into products ready for the builders' use.

The wood for the joists of the President's House came from White Oak Swamp in what is now King and Queen County, Va. Slaves probably made up most, if not all, of the work force that went into White Oak Swamp to cut down and rough cut the wood. These timbers were then sent up the Potomac on rafts and cut by pit saw (a two-manned handsaw) crews in the new Federal city.

Typically, the sawyers were black, both free and enslaved. In August 1795, for example, a team of eight blacks was paid for pit sawyering. One of the men, described as "Negro Simon," was probably a free black and was paid seven shillings and six pence ($1) a day, the same as a white journeyman would have received. Those workers listed simply as "Jerry," "Jess," "Charles," "Len," "Dick," "Bill" and "Jim" were undoubtedly slaves and received 1 shilling per day--probably an incentive pay that they, and not their masters, were able to retain. They were paid for 30 days--meaning that they worked seven days a week straight through the month of August. (August was the high construction month and frequently all workmen would work seven days a week.

Two slave sawyers, however, were known by their last as well as their first names--Geoarg Quean and Sam Birch. In 1798, they received a bonus of 11 pence a day (12 cents)--which identifies them as slaves who received an incentive payment over and above what was paid to their owners.

From records in the National Archives, it can be calculated how fast slaves could cut wood with a pit saw. Two slave sawyers owned by Doctor Blake cut 2,100 feet of oak joists in 21 days. Doctor Blake was paid $33.60 for this work, or about $1.60 a day. Assuming a 12-hour working day, this would have been eight feet of wood sawed every hour--difficult work.

At the time construction began on the President's House, bricks were not commercially produced in the new Federal city. Arrangements therefore had to be made to have brick burned on the grounds of the President's House, and to this end, the commissioners issued contracts to Anthony Hoke and William Hill. Although we don't know whom Hoke and Hill hired to produce these bricks, it probably was both free and slave blacks, as burning brick in temporary ricks was primarily a black trade. Later, Georgetown merchants would establish permanent kilns, such as the Mitchel and Belts Kiln, and sell brick to the commissioners. Again, blacks would provide the labor. Nicholas Voss advertised for "Likely Negro Fellows to work at the Brickmaking Business" at his works at Great Falls.