Evidence of the Capital's Pernicious Past

It’s often difficult to find evidence of slavery in a modern urban landscape. After the 14th Amendment which abolished slavery, the need for slave quarters and shanties in the back allies of streets disappeared. Often lacking architectural flourish, slave quarters were the first buildings torn down to make way for the new architecture. As Washington shifted from a rural town to a bustling metropolis, evidence of slavery within the District all but disappeared. Yet, in 1860 there were 3,185 slaves (4.2% of the total population of the city) living in the Capital. You could be walking by an old slave quarters on your way to work every day and not even recognize it. Fortunately, there are some telltale signs in recognizing an old slave quarter --and what follows is a guide to help you.

Location relative to the master’s house: Unlike plantations, where slave quarters were set apart from the Big House, lack of space in urban areas meant that slaves were located closer to their masters. A typical urban slave quarter could often be found in back of the master’s house or at a right angle to the house. For quarters that were perpendicular and attached to the main house, the idea was to create a confining space for slaves, essentially keeping their view of the outside world limited.

Construction: Architectural design and layout was more crucial in urban areas than on the plantations—a slave quarter could not be an eyesore that could be hid from the Big House as on plantations. In the city the quarters would be seen, and were therefore constructed out of brick and stucco rather than the mud and logs found in the Deep South. Quarters in the City came with glass windows and shutters.

Size: The quarters typically housed no more than 15 slaves at a time. The structures were usually one to two stories and often long and narrow. On a two-story structure the idea was to create a sense of a compound around the slaves who worked in the backyard. The height of the quarters made it difficult for slaves to see the outside world, a further means of control for the slave owner.

Doors: In order to keep slaves confined there were no doors leading to the street. If the quarters were attached to the master’s house, a slave would have to walk through the Master’s house before leaving for the market or entering the outside world. This was done to give slaves the feeling that their actions were constantly under the surveillance of their masters and mistresses.

Interior: In a two story building, the ground floor held the kitchen and household laundry. The top floor contained the living space which could be one large open room, or small bedrooms meant to provide family space.

The overall theme to take away from the design of an urban slave quarter is that of control. The quarters were meant to be confining, meant to limit contact with others outside of the master’s household, and intended to emphasize the degree to which a master was in control of his slave. The urban slave quarter to some extent reveals the fear felt by a white slave-holding society as well. The masters' need for control came from an ever-increasing sense of fear that their slaves would seak freedom, or worse, revolt. Unlike on an isolated plantation, the city provided a chance for free and enslaved blacks to mix and mingle at markets and at church; white owners did not want their slaves to take to the notion that freedom was possible.

Before you go looking around DC for these slave quarters, I’ll point out that there is only one remaining in the District. It’s located at 1610 H Street, NW and is a part of the Decatur House Museum (seen at left now standing admidst cars rathers than carriages). As far as slave quarters go it is a perfect example of what I have just described—right angle from the main house, two stories, stucco, no door to the street (one has been added in modern times due to fire codes), long and narrow.

The slave quarter at the Decatur House is believed to date back to the 1820s, where it started as a single story structure. The second story was added in the 1830s by house owner John Gadsby. The kitchen was located on the first floor, with slave families living above it. In 1844, there were 17 people living on the top floor, which is about 900 square feet, about the size of a single apartment. The preservation of this structure-- one of only a scant handful left in American cities-- serves as a reminder that slavery did exist in Washington and it existed within sight of one of our greatest symbols of democracy, the White House.

Sources: The Decatur House Museum.
Peter Kolchin, American Slavery.
Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the Cities.

Sisters, Sisters

Though the Pearl Incident is not widely remembered in US History, it had profound consequences for both the slaves involved and for the abolitionist movement. In particular, it influenced the lives of two slaves, a preacher, and one feisty authoress: Mary Edmonson, Emily Edmonson, Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The Edmonson sisters (At Left: Mary and Emily), Mary (1832-1853) and Emily (1835-1895), were 15 and 13 years old when they attempted escape aboard the Pearl with four of their brothers. Born in Maryland, Mary and Emily were both of fair complexion (a very desirable quality for female slaves), and as a consequence they had been hired out as house servants in Washington. Learning of the planned escape on the Pearl by other slaves, the Edmonson siblings decided the time was right to make their escape. As we know (see previous post), the slaves aboard the Pearl were captured and returned to the District. Their fate was to be sold, and live out a grueling life in the disease ridden swamps of the Deep South.

In Alexandria, the Bruin & Hill Company located on 1707 Duke Street, purchased the two sisters and their four brothers for $4500. Paul Edmonson, a freeman and father of the six Edmonsons aboard the Pearl, scrambled to find the money to purchase his children before they left for New Orleans. Joseph Bruin went around town boasting that he would make $1800 a piece for Mary and Emily. It became apparent that Bruin intended to sell the beautiful fair skinned sisters as mistresses or sex slaves in the popular New Orleans “fancy trade.” After all, the value of a young female slave at the time was closer to $600-800, only those in the “fancy trade” would sell for higher. Local abolitionists were appalled; they and along with Paul Edmondson worked to raise $1000 per sister. But Bruin wouldn’t sell; why accept $1000 when you could get $1800?

The money wasn’t raised in time. The brig carrying the Edmonsons arrived in New Orleans on June 14, 1848. They were held at a slave pen, and forced as fancy women to stand in the front windows to attract potential buyers. The sisters were poked and prodded and subjected to lewd comments from buyers. Fortunately, their luck changed as a yellow fever epidemic broke out in New Orleans. Fearing a loss in profit from the wrath of the disease, Bruin & Hill had the sisters shipped back to Baltimore. With assurance from Bruin that he would reduce the price of Mary and Emily’s freedom to $2500, Paul Edmonson went about raising money for their release. Hearing of their plight in Brooklyn, Henry Ward Beecher and his congregation took action to raise funds as well. Beecher spoke out on the horrors of slaves sold into prostitution by “human flesh-dealers of Christian girls.” His blistering sermons had women donating jewelry and men outbidding each other to donate to the increasingly popular abolitionist cause. By November the money had been raised, and the sisters were freed.

Rejoicing in their freedom, Mary and Emily travelled to New York to join a circuit of abolitionist speakers as celebrity guests. At rallies, Beecher spoke on the need for education for African-American and appealed to the audience to donate money to educate the girls. Mary and Emily told their story to large audiences and participated in mock slave auctions in attempt to further stir sympathy from Northerners.

Where is the feisty authoress in all of this? Ms. Stowe was Henry Ward’s sister, and in being so, she was well aware of the plight of the Edmonsons. In her book, Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she cited the Edmonsons and their escape on the Pearl as inspiration for Uncle Tom’s Cabin--a book some credit with sparking the Civil War. Stowe intervened in the lives of the Edmonsons and had the sisters sent to Oberlin College, the first college to accept African-Americans. Sadly, Mary died of tuberculosis not long after her arrival at Oberlin. Distraught, Emily returned to Washington to be closer to her family and continued her studies at the Normal School for Colored Girls near Dupont Circle. She remained active in the abolitionist cause.

Sources: Josephine F. Pacheco, The Pearl: A Failed Escape on the Potomac.

Mary Kay Ricks, Escape on the "Pearl".

Attempted Exodus

It turns out the largest attempted escape along the Underground Railroad occurred by sea rather than land. On Saturday, April 15, 1848 seventy-six slaves left their owner’s homes in Washington and attempted to gain their freedom by stowing away on a schooner named the Pearl.

The group’s conductor was Daniel Drayton, who was a bit of a zealot, drifter, and abolitionist. For urban slaves, who in general lived a relatively more comfortable life by being employed as domestic servants and skilled labor, the biggest fear was being “sold South” to New Orleans or Natchez. There, in the Deep South, grueling days in the heat of the cotton fields coupled with a higher occurrence of disease led to a decreased life expectancy. Learning of the plight of a slave family about to be separated and sold South, Drayton travelled to Philadelphia to seek out a boat that could ferry the family to freedom. At the docks he met a ship pilot named Edward Sayres, who having no cargo to haul, agreed to sail from Philadelphia to DC and back for the low sum of $100.

Sayres and Drayton, along with the cook Chester English arrived in Washington on April 13th. After selling a load of wood at the 7th Street docks, the Pearl sailed a little further down the Potomac to a place called “White-house Wharf,” which was known to be more secluded than an open dock. Shortly after sunset slaves, hearing of the departing ship by word of mouth, boarded the schooner. They came from all over the city. Among them was a house maid owned by former first lady Dolley Madison.

With a full cargo hold, the Pearl attempted to set sail, however, the Potomac is a tidal river below the Great Falls. Unable to fight the current, the Pearl was forced to anchor near Alexandria. They were loosing precious time; their masters in Washington would soon notice their disappearance. As daylight broke, they were able to sail out toward the Chesapeake. Though the Pearl made progress, luck was not with them. A storm with great winds forced them to weigh anchor yet again, this time at Cornfield Harbor, just above Point Lookout, Maryland.

Back in Washington, the alarm had been raised by church time on Sunday morning. A posse organized to find the missing slaves and set sail to catch the slaves on the Salem, a steamer. Around 2:00 am on Monday morning, passengers on the Pearl heard the blow of a steamer’s whistle. The game was up, the posse had found them. Boarding the Pearl, the posse proclaimed their discovery shouting, “Niggers, by God!” The escaped slaves considered fighting, but they were unarmed and to resist was futile. All passengers aboard the Pearl, were bound and transferred to the Salem.

As the Salem passed Alexandria, crowds on shore cheered to see the captured slaves on the decks. They were greeted at the 7th Street docks, by throngs of people calling for beatings and lynching—particularly the lynching of Drayton. Paraded through the streets, several of the captured slaves wept, but proclaimed that they did not regret their attempt at freedom. The captives were placed in the jail at Judiciary Square, their fates uncertain. Bail for each slave was set at $1,000. For Drayton, Sayres, and English bail was set at $76,000, a nearly insurmountable sum at the time.

After a time, owners of the slaves conferred. It was agreed that all slaves would be sold South. The very fate the runaways feared most had now come to fruition. Families were separated, and not much is known about them once the slaves were sent to New Orleans (The exception to this is the Edmondson sisters, who deserve a posting of their own, so I’ll save their story for another time). English, who had no knowledge of the plot prior to the departure of the schooner from DC, was released. Drayton and Sayres got off relatively easy, considering they could have been hanged. Appeals of their conviction reduced their sentences, and the two were imprisoned for failure to come up with the money for their fines. After four years in prison, abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner appealed to President Fillmore to pardon the men. Both were released in 1852.
But wait! There’s more. After all, how did the posse know to look for the runaways by sea? Especially when escape by land was much more probable? The answer to this may lie with a hack driver. Judson Diggs was a free man of color, who reportedly gave word of the escape plans in exchange for money. Whether or not he was actually the informant has been disputed, but in any case a group of young black men found him after the escape in a square bounded by L, M, 18th Streets and Connecticut Avenue. In anger, the men forced Diggs from the cart, rolled him in to a nearby stream (now actually running beneath the pavement) and stoned him. Surviving the encounter, Diggs was shunned by the black community for the rest of his life.

Sources: Daniel Drayton, Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton.

Josephine F. Pacheco, The Pearl: A Failed Escape on the Potomac.

Mary Kay Ricks, Escape on the "Pearl".

Picture Source: Northern Illinois University, "Slave Auction," Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project.

DC's First Race Riot

Even today, DC is a city of segregation and has certainly had its share of racial violence. The District permitted slavery until April 16, 1862. At its peak there were about 4,000 slaves living and working in DC. One slave was eighteen year old Arthur Bowen, who on one drunken occasion in 1835 put events in motion that would lead to DC’s first race riot.

Bowen was owned by the wealthy widow Anna Thornton, wife of the first Architect of the Capitol, William Thornton. Out drinking late on August 4th, Bowen went home to the Thornton house on the 1300 block of F Street. Seeing an ax by the doorway, he carried the ax up to Anna Thornton’s bedroom and stood at the door, reportedly shouting that he had an equal right to freedom as Ms. Thornton. Scared witless, Anna fled the room. Bowen’s mother grabbed him, urging him to flee in to the night. On the run for four days, Arthur was apprehended on the 8th and taken to the city jail in Judiciary Square. With the Nat Turner Rebellion, in which runaway slaves massacred 60 villagers in 1831, still fresh in the minds of whites, fear of uprising was palpable. An angry mob gathered outside the jail, calling for the hanging of Bowen.

The mob consisted mainly of Irish laborers, known as the “Mechanics,” who believed they had much to lose with slaves and free blacks taking their jobs. District Attorney Francis Scott Key—yes, the “Star Spangled Banner” guy—sought to restore the peace by obtaining an arrest warrant for a white doctor said to be in possession of abolitionist literature. The doctor was placed in jail alongside Arthur Bowen, but the crowds were not appeased. The Marines were called in to defend the prison.

Meanwhile, down at The Epicurean Eating House on 6th and Pennsylvania, all hell was about to break loose. Beverly Snow, the proprietor, was a man of mixed-race who got along well with society and ran a profitable restaurant. Now, he had been accused of using very inappropriate language regarding the wives and daughters of the Mechanics. The mob 300 to 400 strong moved from Judiciary Square over to Snow’s restaurant, where they shattered windows, broke furniture, and consumed mass quantities of whiskey. The Mechanics then directed their rage towards black tenements houses, churches, and schools. A “house of ill fame” was torched near Capitol Hill. The mayor of Washington was forced to organize a local militia of 60 men to restore order.

As quickly as it had erupted, the violence ceased on August 13th. Order was restored, and soon it was business as usual. But what happened to the characters of this episode? Francis Scott Key pressed for the death penalty against Bowen, and it was granted. However, it turns out that Anna Thornton was fond of her slave; she changed her story (Bowen never said anything about freedom and rights at all) and appealed to President Jackson to have Bowen pardoned. Ever partial to widows, Jackson granted the pardon. As for Beverly Snow? He returned to DC just long enough to sell his business, then moved to a place where he declared a man can live free. Canada.

Sources: Jesse J. Holland, Black Men Built the Capitol.

Jefferson Morely, “The 'Snow Riot',” The Washington Post: February 6, 2005.

To Market

I am a foodie. I like to cook with Sea Salt. You will not find Velveeta in my fridge. “Imitation vanilla flavoring” may as well be considered profane language. Since moving to DC, I’ve come to appreciate the weekend farmer’s market scene, be it in Eastern Market, Dupont Circle or Arlington. I get inspired by DC Foodies' rundowns on local markets around town. With anticipation of the summer months, when the market will be booming with vendors, today’s topic is the Center Market on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Opening to vendors in 1801 with the encouragement of President Jefferson, the Center Market
was the primary location of commerce in this Tidewater Town. To get the best produce and meat, you had to get their early in the morning and be willing to pay a higher cost. As the day progressed, prices dropped until the market closed in the mid-afternoon. Farmers from Virginia and Maryland occupied the outer, less expensive stalls to sell corn, potatoes, and apples. Early transportation of goods was done on horseback. In his Early Recollections of Washington City, DC-native Christian Hines (1781-1875) described the transportation of tobacco:

The hogshead containing the tobacco, had a hole bored in each head, and an axle run through from one end to the other. To this axle a shaft was attached something like the shaft of a cart. To this the horse was hitched and the tobacco brought to town, up and down hills, over stones, &c. It looked precisely like the roller with which the streets are now rolled.

By the 1830s the Center Market played a significant role in the lives of African-American slaves. Unlike those on the plantation who worked dawn to dusk, slaves living in the cities often worked on a task system. A task system afforded slaves free time once their chores had been completed for their master—free time which could be used to plant a small garden and sell the produce at market. Money earned went toward purchasing freedom.


Starting as an open-air market, an indoor structure two blocks long was built in 1871 to accommodate over 700 vendors, with an additional 300 in stalls outside (at left: outside vendors sell goods, c. 1900). Improved railways and railcars brought oranges from Florida and beef from the Midwest. A streetcar stop carried customers. But as the nation and government grew, the government found a pressing need to protect the rapidly deteriorating documents of our past. Sitting on a prime location on Penn Ave, the market was demolished in 1931, and the National Archives took its place.

Sources: Cultural Tourism DC, African-American Heritage Trail Database, “National Archives/ Center Market”.

Christian Hines,
Early Recollections of Washington City.

National Museum of American History, America on the Move, "A Streetcar City".

A Fence War

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go. ~Langston Hughes

As one of the first suburbs developed in Washington, a home in the gated community of Le Droit Park came complete with a colorful gingerbread exterior, picket fences, and flowerbeds. Bordering the traditionally black Howard University, this “white only” neighborhood was established in the 1870s when it was sold to Howard trustee and real estate developer Amzi L. Barber. No expense was spared by architect James McGill, and the lavish houses cost $4,000 to $10,000 (a large sum for the 1870s). Soon Le Droit Park was referred to as the “Flower Garden of Washington.”

Simultaneously developing in the 1870s was the University. Chartered through Congress in 1867, Howard University’s mission was to educate African-Americans at a time when the concepts of segregation and “separate but equal” were becoming entrenched n American society. Despite the constraints, Howard developed into a reputable university and a home for intellectual thought among African-American elites. Howard professors resided in the predominantly black Howard Town area just north of Le Droit Park. On weekends these prominent African-American citizens would stroll through nearby McMillan Park, by then designated as a black park.

With the increasing influence of the university community, Le Droit Park became the center of a “Fence War.” The mansions of Le Droit Park represented what African-Americans were struggling to achieve, in addition to what white society was trying to keep forbidden from them. Residents of Howard Town grew frustrated with the segregation and inconvenience of having to walk around the neighborhood to get to and from Howard University. In frustration, African-Americans in the community tore down the fences of Le Droit Park, including a board fence on 4th Street across from the University. Subsequently, by securing court injunctions the residents of Le Droit Park reconstructed the fences. The cycle repeated itself from 1886 to 1891, when a compromise permanently removed the fences.

Not long after, the African-Americans moved in to the neighborhood; early residents included poet laureate Paul Laurence Dunbar and the first black municipal judge, Robert Terrell. As has often been the problem with racial tension, where blacks went, whites left. By the early 1900s Le Droit Park became a community for affluent African-Americans, gaining prominence in as a home for African-American congressmen, doctors, lawyers, and a frequent of Langston Hughes in the 1920s.

Sources: “How Le Droit Park Came to be Added to the City,” The Washington Times, May 31, 1903 (page 5).

Jacqueline M. Moore, Leading the Race (Virginia: The University of Virginia Press, 1999).

“Le Droit Park Historic District,” The Le Droit Park Historic Society, DC Historic Preservation Office.

“Neighborhood History,” Le Droit Park Civic Association, available online at http://www.ledroitparkdc.org/ (25 March 2009).

Picture Source: “How Le Droit Park Came to be Added to the City,” The Washington Times, May 31, 1903 (page 5).