Did slaves build the White House? - Democratic Underground

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Wed Apr-23-08 05:02 PM
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Did slaves build the White House?

Slaves Not Only Built The South, But Also Created The Wealth Of The North
Editorial

HISTORY IS full of surprises. Just when you think the past is safely behind you, some inquisitive soul discovers yet a few more pieces of paper that recasts how you look at our nation's history.

Consider our country's Capitol. Next time you visit Washington, D.C., gaze up at the bronze statue perched on top of the dome. It is called ``Freedom.'' Yet few admiring visitors know that 12 slaves not only cast the statue, but also devised a method for hoisting it up to its present pinnacle. Nor do most visitors know that some 400 slaves also built the Capitol Building and the White House as well.

The legacy of slavery, which has so profoundly affected our society and culture, is still being revealed.

Historians have long known that the slave trade flourished in the nation's capital until 1865. But they knew few details about the slaves who worked in Washington, D.C.

While researching the 200th anniversary of the White House and the Capitol, Edward Hotaling, a local Washington-based television reporter, unearthed pay slips dating from 1792 to 1800 in the archives of the Treasury Department. Each pay slip bears the name of the plantation owner, as well as the $5-monthly wage paid for the work of his slave.

Now, two centuries after George Washington established the nation's capital, lawmakers and historians are trying to decide how to publicly acknowledge the fact that slaves, whose names are still not known, and who were never paid, constructed the nation's most distinguished architectural symbols of freedom.

The revelation of this new evidence has inspired two African America members of Congress, Reps. J.C Watts, R-Okla., and John Lewis, D-Ga., to launch a campaign to create some kind of memorial to the slaves who built the nation's Capitol. Said Lewis, ``We need to find a fitting and lasting memorial for these men in the building they built. It is strange and very sad that the men who laid the foundation of the best-known symbol of our democracy were denied the right to participate in our democracy.''

Together, Watts and Lewis, erstwhile ideological adversaries, have called upon Congress to form a task force to examine the contributions of these unpaid slaves and recommend what type of permanent exhibition of memorial should mark their accomplishments.

Too few Americans realize that slaves not only built the South, but also created the wealth of the North, too. The crime of slavery, moreover, has created a national wound that has never healed. The more we acknowledge the heinous reality of the past, the more we will understand why the legacy of slavery still haunts us today. http://www.commondreams.org/views/072000-107.htm

Construction on the President's House began in 1792 in Washington, D.C., a new capital situated in sparsely settled region far from a major population center. The decision to place the capital on land ceded by two slave states-Virginia and Maryland-ultimately influenced the acquisition of laborers to construct its public buildings. The D.C. commissioners, charged by Congress with building the new city under the direction of the president, initially planned to import workers from Europe to meet their labor needs. However, response to recruitment was dismal and soon they turned to African Americans - slave and free - to provide the bulk of labor that built the White House, the United States Capitol, and other early government buildings.

http://www.whitehousehistory.org/06/subs/06_a04.html