Congressman leads effort to recognize slaves’ work

By JEFFREY McMURRAYAssociated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) _ They’re two of the nation’s most compelling symbols of freedom and democracy, yet nowhere around the Capitol or White House is there any recognition of the slaves who helped build them. Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights leader, is part of a task force trying to do just that. Nearly five years after Congress voted to commemorate the work done by slave labor in building Washington, Lewis’ panel is preparing for its first meeting sometime this summer. “This chapter of our history is sort of swept under the rug in some dark corner,” said Lewis, D-Ga. “There’s a growing movement in America that we shouldn’t be ashamed, trying to hide from our past, but bring it out. Let’s tell the complete story.” If Lewis has his way, the recognition will coincide with the opening in 2006 or 2007 of a state-of-the-art visitor center at the Capitol. But the specific commemoration will be determined by the panel that also includes Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., Rick Santorum, R-Pa., former Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and various historians. “In a sense, this task force will serve as a working memorial to pay tribute to those who made an enormous sacrifice to help construct our nation’s greatest symbol of freedom,” said Lincoln, who in 2000 teamed up with former Sen. Spence Abraham, R-Mich., to sponsor the legislation creating the panel. It was appropriately known as the Abraham-Lincoln bill. Felicia Bell, director of education and outreach at the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, began examining the issue after taking a tour of Congress during which the contributions of slaves were never mentioned. Although the National Archives show they had a role, and historians and journalists would occasionally note this, official Washington has ignored the fact for more than two centuries. “I guess it’s one of those things that’s kind of hidden in plain view,” Bell said. “It’s obvious because you think, ‘Who else would have built the Capitol?’ But I guess people just tend to overlook labor in general and specifically slave labor.” Some of the most extensive research on the topic was done by historian Bob Arnebeck for his 1991 book, “Through a Fiery Trial, Building Washington, 1790-1800.” Arnebeck estimates that slaves contributed as much as half the labor for the original Washington Capitol, working alongside white laborers, freed blacks, and hired contractors who did most of the creative work. Slaves cut logs, baked bricks and poured concrete, usually 14 hours a day during the summer. Their owners rented them out for less than $60 a year, and the government paid for food and lodging. The story also doesn’t cast George Washington in the most favorable light, Arnebeck said. City planner Pierre L’Enfant had been against using slaves, but Washington fired him in 1792, so the project’s commissioners moved ahead with the use of slave labor. Washington wasn’t necessarily opposed to this but had preferred foreign labor instead. That never materialized. “They’re our founding fathers and we think of them as sophisticated guys, but in terms of building a project like this, they were rather naive,” Arnebeck said. Payment stubs issued by the Treasury Department show more than 400 slaves were hired out by the government for construction work, but Arnebeck says it will be quite a task to honor them in a traditional way, such as names on a plaque. That’s because in almost all cases the slave’s last names were omitted, leaving only first names or a series of Xs. However, Arnebeck is convinced it is possible to get a near-complete list by digging up records of which owners rented out slaves to work in Washington and then cross-checking those with property records from the time. “It seems conceivable you could get a fairly good picture of a group of people to say, these guys worked on the Capitol,” Arnebeck said. “Being a historian, it would be nice to have this all printed.” Historians have found that one of the interesting aspects was the role slaves played in a labor strife that was a cloud over Capitol construction for several years. Because slaves were the largest labor pool in 1790 when Congress ordered a new capital city to be carved out of the slave-owning states of Virginia and Maryland, white laborers had to settle for lower pay or would lose their jobs to slaves. Arnebeck says while there are numerous examples of whites who complained about the conditions, the black slaves did not. Although they weren’t chained and had few supervisors, there were few records of escapees. Lewis says he is disappointed that it has taken five years after Congress acted for the task force to be assembled. The use of slaves in the United States was shameful enough, Lewis said, but slaves hired by the government in a project to promote the principles of freedom is “unthinkable.” If the government hasn’t noticed the omission of their story on Capitol tours, Lewis says students from his Atlanta district certainly have. They constantly ask about who built the building, he says. “Young people need to be able to walk through the Capitol and see this,” Lewis said.