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Enslaved Non-Residents Hired to Residents of Washington City, 1818-1827 and 1839-1851

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Enslaved Non-Residents Hired to Residents of Washington City, 1818-1827 and 1839-1851 Enslaved Non-Residents Hired to Residents of Washington City, 1818-1827 and 1839-1851 An engraving of Fanny Jackson and children at the Washington Jail, from an 1836 American Anti-Slavery Society broadside, “Slave Market of America.” Courtesy of Alexandria Library Local History Special Collections. n May 25, 1808, the relatively new Council of the City of Washington, District of Columbia enacted a law requiring the licensing of enslaved persons hired from slaveholders who were not city residents, including those domiciled in the other portions of the District, i.e., the independent towns of Georgetown and Alexandria, and Washington and Alexandria Counties.1 Fees would bring 1 Acts of the Corporation of the City of Washington Passed by the Sixth Council (Washington: A. & G. Way, 1808), pp. 17-18. 1 in much-needed revenue for schools and other local expenditures, but the law was primarily intended to track and discourage the employment of alien slaves. To be effective, of course, the law had to tax non-residents more than Washingtonians.2 The non- resident slave licensing law balanced competing interests of Washington’s white residents: increasing perceptions of security from insurrection by diminishing the number of enslaved strangers; permitting access to a much larger pool of regional labor; and privileging local slaveholders who wished to hire out their own enslaved people. Whether hiring out for an entire year or a portion only, the law demanded that the non-resident owner pay the full license fee: $15 for men (over age 18), $6 for women (over 16), $8 for boys and $4 for girls. Owners and employers of slaves who failed to comply were each subject to a fine of $20 for the violation, plus $5 for each month it might continue after citation.3 This schedule illustrates the greater perceived threat to the social order posed by males, but also the substantially greater economic value assigned to male labor, as a much higher fee was necessary to discourage their hire. Because women were already more widely hired, mainly as domestic servants, the lower tax rate on females quickly became the source of complaint from more Washingtonians. Six months after passage of the law, the Council reduced the fee on women to $1, and shortly thereafter agreed to refund the difference between the adjusted amount and the original higher fees already paid.4 More than a decade later, Council lowered fees for men and boys (ages 15 to 18) to $5 and $2, respectively, while raising that for women to $2.5 In part, this may have been an acknowledgement of the trend toward female urban household labor and an effort to glean more revenue from it.6 It is conceivable that it was also meant to make male slave labor more competitive with that of Washington’s increasingly large population of free blacks. But in 1823, the year following Denmark Vesey’s uprising in Charleston, Council adjusted the schedule a final time, hiking the fee for men under age 46 back up to $20 and that for boys between 12 and 18, to $12. Hiring women between ages 15 and 45 still cost $2. About the same time, the Council resolved to have city officials strictly enforce the regulation of the free black population in the face of increased migration from the hinterlands.7 This act required that the license be paid for within twenty days of the arrival or hiring of the enslaved person, and it remained in effect until emancipation in 1862.8 2 The personal property tax on enslaved men was generally $1.50 at this time, and on women, $1. By the late 1820s, the rates were $2 and $1, respectively. Acts of the Corporation of the City of Washington Passed by the Seventh Council (Washington: A. & G. Way, 1809), p. 19; Registers of Licenses, 1818-1876, Vol. 6, Entry 72, Records of the Government of the District of Columbia, Record Group 351, National Archives and Records Administration. 3 Violators were almost certainly required to pay the license fee retroactively. Otherwise, there was little disincentive to hiring out men without paying as, by 1823, the fine was equivalent to the fee. 4 Acts of the Corporation of the City of Washington Passed by the Seventh Council (Washington: A. & G. Way, 1809), pp. 22 and 38. 5 Laws Passed by the Eighteenth Council of the City of Washington (Washington: Way & Gideon, 1821), p. 32. 6 Mary Beth Corrigan, “Imaginary Cruelties? A History of the Slave Trade in Washington, D.C.” in Washington History, Vol. 13, No. 2, Fall/Winter 2001-2002, pp. 7-8. 7 Laws of the Corporation of the City of Washington Passed by the Twenty-first Council (Washington: Way & Gideon, 1824), p. 54. 8 Anonymous (“A Member of the Washington Bar”), The Slavery Code of the District of Columbia (Washington: L. Towers & Co., 1862), p. 38. 2 The following data are drawn from the Records of the Government of the District of Columbia (Record Group 351), Entry 72, Registers of Licenses, 1818-1876, held by the National Archives and Records Administration. Within this larger series are four volumes that include entries for non-resident slave licenses paid in the years 1818 through 1826 and 1839 through 1850.9 All of the information for the former span of years is contained on several pages of Volume 1 under headings such as “Statement of monies received for tax on Slaves the property of Non residents for the year ending…” Most of the entries for the later period are similarly presented in a Volume 5. Much of this later information is recapitulated, and mixed indiscriminately with contemporary entries for all other types of licenses, in Volumes 7 and 8. Volumes 7 and 8 contain, at most, four additional slave licenses not recorded in Volume 5, plus the only mention of an actual fine for hiring out a slave without first paying the tax (see the 1847 entry for “Nourse” in the second table below). 10 This was certainly not the only instance of violation and punishment, however. The Acts of the Corporation of the City of Washington record numerous instances of the City Council legislating the refund of such punitive fines, seemingly in cases of sincere ignorance of the law, as in instances where the slave-owner had not disclosed to the employer his non-resident status.11 The data are arranged in two tables, the first for the period 1818 to 1827 and the second for the years 1839 to 1851 (beginning on page 15).12 The entries nearly always include the name of the owner and usually the name of the enslaved individual, frequently with a surname given for the latter. About half the time, and typically during the earlier period, the name of the person hiring is supplied. Within each table, the information has been arranged alphabetically by the name of the owner, and thereunder chronologically, for the reason that owners’ names were more commonly reported and slave surnames usually omitted.13 Perhaps more important, common ownership sometimes indicates kinship among slaves, so grouping by owner aids the search for family relationships. The spellings have generally been reproduced as found, as have entries with erasures or cross-outs, which presumably indicate dissolved contracts. There are slight differences between the tables. During the earlier era, the license ledgers nearly always clearly indicated the identity of the owner as distinct from the person hiring. During the later period, the records were kept by the name of licensee and often included an additional name of an agent actually making the payment.14 As the law made the owner responsible for the license, the licensee is presumed to be the owner, and the other individuals probably those hiring, but one cannot be absolutely certain from the evidence of each record alone. 9 Information for hiring during roughly three decades, 1808 to 1817, 1827 to 1837 and 1851 to 1862, has not come to light and is likely not extant. 10 The data cannot be compared and reconciled entirely with confidence, as the entries in Volumes 7 and 8 are not as complete. 11 In 1822, for instance, Benjamin King’s fine was refunded because his hiring of a non-resident slave was determined “unintentional.” Laws of the Corporation of the City of Washington Passed by the Twentieth Council (Washington: Way & Gideon, 1823), p. 11. 12 In both cases, the terminal year, 1827 and 1851, indicates the period of expiration of the licenses issued the year before. 13 Compared with most contemporary records, however, these are remarkably rich in surnames. 14 At first glance, these entries can be confusing, as the two categories are kept in distinct columns, but the order is often reversed and will sometimes indicate “X [paid] for Y” and others, “X[’s fee paid] by Y.” 3 There is no consistent pattern of total length of service; some slaves labored for a new boss each year, while others remained with the same for several. A single term of hire was usually a full year, although there is one instance of two years being paid up front. There are several cases of shorter periods, despite the disincentive of having to pay the full year’s fee. Dates given below consisting of a commencement date followed only by a hyphen indicate a year-long term; the terminal date was either the same date the following year or the day prior to it. Many entries indicate that the owner was also the party to whom the enslaved was hired, suggesting that these may have been living in Washington but had not established residency.
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