Stonemason Collen Williamson trained enslaved people on the spot at the government's quarry at Aquia, Virginia. Enslaved people quarried and cut the rough stone that was later dressed and laid by Scottish masons to erect the walls of the President's House. The slaves joined a work force that included local white laborers and artisans from Maryland and Virginia, as well as immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and other European nations.
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 American—enslaved and free—to
provide the bulk of labor that built the White House, the United States
Capitol, and other early government buildings.
A slave coffle
passing the Capitol grounds, 1815, published in A Popular History of the United
States, 1876.
The payroll to slaveowners shows
that the government did not own slaves, but that it did hire them from their
masters. Slave carpenters Ben, Daniel, and Peter were noted as owned by James
Hoban. National Archives andRecords Administration
