Object Lesson: 'Build the Negro houses near together'

摘要

Between 1768 and 1826 Thomas Jefferson built an internationally acclaimed 11,000 square foot dwelling on a small mountain in Virginia's central piedmont. Less well known is the even larger construction project he directed during the same time period only two hundred feet south of his highly refined neoclassical house. Known as Mulberry Row, it centered on the important road that ran for twelve hundred feet and served as the Monticello plantation's main street. Under Jeiferson's explicit direction, enslaved workers and hired white workmen built over thirty-two known dwellings, workshops, and service structures there that would, in total, enclose over 12,500 square feet of space. Mulberry Row was also in many ways the heart of the plantation, and it served as a focal point for the communities of enslaved and free workers who lived at Monticello during Jefferson's lifetime (Figure 1).