THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230300
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
The remains of the old buildings are no more than outlines of foundations now, or the rubble of stone fireplaces.
But the red mountain earth seems to tremble still with the footsteps of those who once lived, worked and died on Mulberry Row, a section of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello estate named for the mulberry trees that used to line it.
About 200 black servants, owned body and soul by a man who helped found America on the premise that all men are created free and equal, worked dawn to dusk for Jefferson until his death in 1826.
They labored in the fields of the 5,000-acre plantation that surrounded Monticello, in the blacksmith or carpentry shops lining Mulberry Row or in the big house.
Food was rationed, a bit of corn and a half-pound of bacon once a week for every adult. Each slave got two sets of clothes, a lightweight set for summer and a heavyweight one for winter. Each got a new blanket and bedroll every three years. Whole families lived together on Mulberry Row in tiny wood or stone cabins with dirt floors and wooden chimneys.
But harsh living conditions, so often the focus in studies of slavery, were not the most striking things about being enslaved, said Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, a historian and the head tour guide at Monticello.
``Lack of control,'' Taylor said, enunciating the words slowly, locking eyes with the history buffs who traveled to Monticello on Sunday to take one of two tours of Mulberry Row offered this month for Black History Month.
The 3-year-old tour is the most visible sign that Monticello researchers are grappling more and more with the gnawing contradiction between Jefferson's actions and his lofty words.
``We think it's very important for all Americans to know and think about that shameful chapter in our history that was slavery,'' Taylor said.
The Monticello gift shop carries such titles as ``The Wolf by the Ears,'' John Chester Miller's analysis of Jefferson's lifelong struggle with the moral issues of slavery.
The 45-minute Mulberry Row tour, offered regularly during the summer, has grown so popular that this year it will be offered six times a day from April 1 to Oct. 31. Last summer more than 33,000 people took it.
The tour evokes sharp images of the daily hardships and indignities of slave life. But often the information provided raises more questions than it answers.
Records during Jefferson's era, 1743 to 1826, are sketchy. Even those that exist can be unreliable. A slave memoir is available, for example, but it was dictated to a white minister, which may have affected its content, Taylor said.
How did the slaves really feel about their lives and their white masters? What kinds of relationships existed among slaves, or between slaves and whites? What about the rumors that Jefferson fathered children with a slave woman named Sally Hemings?
Taylor said she does not try to answer all the questions, even though that sometimes frustrates tour participants.
``We want to preserve the complexity of all these issues,'' she said. ``We don't want to just simplify them.''
Jefferson believed slavery was a ``blot'' and a ``stain'' upon America. Until the stain was removed, true victory in America's struggle for independence would be elusive, he said.
He never really fought openly, however, for emancipation. The Declaration of Independence stopped short of calling for slavery to be abolished. Instead, he hoped the language of freedom would mandate a change.
Historians have many theories about Jefferson's reticence, including his weak stomach for tough politics. Slave owners were a powerful political force, and Jefferson had been raised among their privileged class. He inherited his slaves from his father and father-in-law.
He argued that slavery had been forced upon America by the tyrannical king of England, under whose watch the first slaves were shipped to the Colonies.
In the end, he believed it would be a battle for future generations, and he foresaw the bloodshed that might occur over the issue, Taylor said.
Over the course of his lifetime, he freed only seven slaves - two before he died and five in his will. All were slaves who had learned a trade on his plantation.
He justified this by saying it would be cruel to free slaves who had no training to survive in the white world. Jefferson also seemed to feel strongly that mixing of blacks and whites was wrong, and that if slaves were emancipated, they should be shipped out of Virginia.
``He would have always agreed with the sentiment'' for freeing slaves, Taylor said. ``But we would like to have seen him put his money where his mouth is.
``We wonder, why didn't he do more?''
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, deeply in debt. His slaves were sold at auction, scattered to the winds. MEMO: AT MONTICELLO
Monticello's director of research, Lucia C. Stanton, and historian
Dianne Swann Wright will discuss their continuing research about the
descendants of Jefferson's slave families in a slide presentation at 2
p.m. Sunday at the Monticello Visitors Center.
The center is at the intersection of Route 20 South and Interstate 64
in Charlottesville. For details, call 804-984-9822. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by CHRISTOPHER REDDICK, Staff
Roslyn Thomas and her son William, 8, listen as Monticello tour
guide Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, right, talks about Mulberry Row,
where Jefferson's slaves lived.
by CNB