A Theft at Monticello

 

Steve Light: One of the difficult aspects about studying slavery is the sources we have often only reveal one perspective, the perspective of a white slave master. So, we're often left trying to guess or figure out what the motive in each story is.

My name is Steve Light, and I am the Manager of House Tours at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

The story I want to talk about today is  about an enslaved man named York, who broke into Thomas Jefferson's private bedchamber. 00:40 

HOSTS:

·      Introduce yourselves and the name of the podcast, “In the Course of Human Events,” a podcast from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

·      Elaborate on concept that we don’t know the entire story—of York, his break-in, or of any enslaved person at Monticello. On the one hand, we know a lot about slavery at Monticello. But on the other, as Steve has pointed out, the records are one-sided. So the focus of the podcast is to fill out the story as best we can.

 

Part 2 Locks

Steve Light: In 1798, Thomas Jefferson was serving as the Vice President of the United States. And for long portions of his year, he was living in Philadelphia, which was still the US Capitol. And according to Jefferson's Farm Book, York was 16 years old at the time, a field laborer, a position where his duties likely did not take him into the main house frequently at all. But, on this occasion, York entered the house, which was probably empty at the time, and broke into Jefferson's bedchamber, which contained his bedroom, his office, what he called his cabinet, and his library. We're talking about Jefferson's most private spaces at Monticello, his kind of most personal, protected spaces.

York had apparently taken the screws out of the lock and before leaving tried to rearrange the lock so that no one would notice that the lock had been tampered with. And if you come to Monticello, you can see this lock. It's unique. And it's something that, clearly, Jefferson put some thought into himself. Not only is it a lock for his door, but the lock was connected by a wire system that went across the room, which enabled Jefferson to lock and unlock it -- we're not exactly sure how -- but from the other side of the room. He didn't need to walk across the room to lock and unlock the door.  With a unique wire system that represents Jefferson the gadget guy. So, it was clearly something that Jefferson thought about as he was  building his own spaces. 02:19

HOSTS:

·      Can you talk about this lock? Didn’t Isaac say that Jefferson made his own locks? It sounds like this is something he would have designed himself.

·      It’s interesting that York found the bedchamber if he had never been in the house. I guess we can’t know how he figured out where to go—or if he even intended to go into that room.

Part 3 An Enslaved Caretaker

Steve Light: One of the interesting aspects of the story is that there is somebody who is in charge of watching after the house while Jefferson is away. And that individual is a man named Jupiter Evans. And Evans was also an enslaved person. Evans was born in 1743, the same year as Thomas Jefferson. He likely grew up as a childhood playmate of Thomas Jefferson. And as a young man, Evans was Jefferson's personal  attendant. So, Jupiter Evans is very closely connected to Thomas Jefferson. And when the family is away from Monticello, Evans is the individual charged with protecting the house. 3:01

HOSTS:

·      This Is kind of a side note but it might be an opportunity to reflect on the different kinds of relationships TJ had with enslaved people at Monticello.

·      Steve says it’s fascinating that Jupiter is charged with protecting the house. I should have asked him why! Can you reflect on this? 

Part 4 The Loot

Steve Light: On January 30th, 1798, his son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph wrote to Jefferson, and then, a couple of days later on February 3rd, Randolph writes a second letter. And he says that he had seen York, quote unquote, "skulking about my plantation with a gun." 

And one of the things that he notes here is that York had a wound on his arm that he had apparently gotten from a fray with a knife. So there's been some sort of conflict, whether it was with another enslaved person, whether it was with an overseer, it's not really elaborated on.

Randolph discovers the items that had been taken from Jefferson's bedchamber. York stole clothing. He took a book on traveling with horses. He took various other objects and trinkets, including a pen knife. And he took a gun. And, so, we can look at the items that York was taking -- clothing. This could be used for warmth or  to disguise oneself. The books, as well as some of the other things he took, York could have been using to sell to gain money from this. And then of course he steals a gun. And this could be used for self-defense. This could be used for hunting. But one of the things that crosses my mind is, was this break-in a step that York was taking towards trying to escape from slavery? 04:41 

HOSTS:

·      I can imagine that Thomas Mann Randolph—and York—would have been pretty petrified by this encounter. It’s all speculation, but do you have any thoughts?

·      Any insights about Randolph that are worth sharing?

·      Any thoughts about the knife wound? It’s a tantalizing detail but of course may be completely unrelated to the break-in. We could delete this section.

·      Any further thoughts about the items York stole and why.?

Part 5 Separating a Family

Steve Light: We don't have an account about this incident from York himself or from the perspective of an enslaved person. But we can look at a couple of things that we do know about York's life.

We do know that York's life was about to change. He had just been promised as a wedding gift.  In the fall of 1797, just a few months before this break-in occurs at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Maria Jefferson, married a man named John Wayles Eppes. And as part of that wedding, Jefferson provided a dowery, including enslaved people. And enslaved people were treated as property. Property could be sold.  Property could be given away as gifts.

York, along with his mother Judy Hicks and his father, a man named King, and some of his brothers and sisters, but not all of them, were going to a new plantation outside of Petersburg, Virginia. York had a few younger brothers that Jefferson employed at Monticello's nailery, a shop making nails, which was quite profitable and so those younger brothers were not included as part of the dowery. A change in ownership for any enslaved person was a moment where the reality of their powerlessness in the system was obvious. 06:14

HOSTS:

·      Could you reflect on the trauma of family separation? I think people assume physical violence is the worst punishment.

·      If York was 16, his brothers at the nailery were even younger. I don’t think people realize that kids and parents were separated.

·      It’s very powerful when Steve describes York and part of his family being given away as a wedding gift. It brings home the issue of humans being treated as property. Do you have any other thoughts about this?

Part 6 Punishment

Steve Light: In terms of what happens to York, unfortunately, the sources don't tell us. We know from records of other enslaved individuals, the types of punishment that could have been possible. There's an enslaved person named James Hubbard who runs away from Monticello multiple times, and when he is captured and brought back, he is sold away from the plantation, as well as  instructions sent from Jefferson to having him, quote unquote, flogged in the presence of his fellow nailery workers, as an example. There's another enslaved person named Cary, who is  involved in a fight at the nailery. Jefferson also instructs that he be whipped in front of the other enslaved people as an example and then sold away.   

But we don't know what happens to York, in part, because York is part of this dowery that's going to the Eppes family, which means he's no longer going to be in Jefferson's records. 07:20

HOSTS:

·      I don’t know if there is anything to add about Jamie Hubbard and Cary and punishment in gneneral?

·      This definitely goes to that question, “Was Jefferson a good slave owner?”

Part 7 Living in Fear

Steve Light: We don't know what York's motives were. But it's interesting that he took a gun, I think. Because if you study the plantation South, you know that  there's plantation owners who are constantly fearful of uprisings and slave revolts.

Monticello was a plantation. It was a place where almost 200 people lived at any one time. And the vast majority of those people would have been enslaved. And I've had people ask me before on tours, you know, what, why is there such a big lock there  on Jefferson's door? And, of course, the reality is that Jefferson is surrounded by people that he is forcibly enslaving, forcibly holding against their will. There was always the potential for violent uprising.

And that is something that  he thinks about. In Notes on the State of Virginia, he says, "I tremble for the fate of my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice will not sleep forever." And he talks about the possibility of a revolution of the wheel of fortune, in which he's imagining such an uprising of enslaved people claiming their freedom.

And, of course, some of these writings are taking place against the backdrop of instances where slave uprisings do take place. Jefferson observes from a far the revolution in Haiti, where enslaved people threw off their oppressors. In 1800, near Richmond, Virginia, there's a thwarted uprising called the Gabriel's Rebellion that Jefferson is familiar with. And in one letter that Jefferson writes about this time, he says, "Without solving the question of slavery, we are to be the murderers of our children."

The most famous Jefferson quote on slavery, I think, is a letter he writes around the time of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, where he writes quoting a old Roman proverb. He says that slavery is like holding the wolf by the ears. You don't like holding on, but you don't dare let go. And people are familiar with that quote, but they're not familiar, often, with the next sentence he writes, which is, "Justice is in one scale and self-preservation is in the other." In one sense, people read that as  Jefferson's wealth, that Jefferson's lifestyle is tied to slavery, this institution. But in another sense, he also could very well be referring to the idea that self-preservation is actually self-preservation. That without the institution of slavery that there would be, in essence, a race war.

And that aspect of the plantation, that aspect of what a plantation meant in Jefferson's time, is hard for us to view today, because we have this tendency to see the beauty of the mountaintop, and we do not look upon the horrors of slavery, often, at a place like Monticello. 10:42

HOSTS:

·      Steve is pretty thorough but do you have any final thoughts on Jefferson’s fears about slavery and violence?

·      Any reflections on the way Monticello looks today – its beauty – and the difficulty of interpreting slavery?

·      Thanks to Steve for the story and thanks to listeners for tuning in.