Thomas Jefferson and John Freeman

Thomas Jefferson and John Freeman

In September 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Papers project at Princeton University began, for the first time ever, a concerted effort to search, catalog and make copies of all the Jefferson materials in the National Archives from his two terms as president. As the editors complete volumes 30-32, carrying Jefferson through the election of 1800, they will begin to lay the groundwork for the presidential volumes. The result of this search has been the discovery, in sometimes out-of-the-way places, of materials that shed light on Jefferson’s management of his administration, his interaction with diplomats and foreign dignitaries, and his handling of domestic issues. However, researchers are also discovering materials that help “fill the holes” in his personal life. Among the most interesting of these is a document relating to a slave named John Freeman.

On 1 June 1801 Thomas Jefferson recorded in his memorandum book the £10 he had paid John Freeman, a slave the new president rented from Dr. William Baker on a monthly basis.[1] While Freeman might have been an uncommon and ironic name for a slave, the rental arrangement was not unusual, either for Jefferson or for thousands of other slaves and their masters in the early republic. However a simple rental note does not tell much about either the slave, or, more importantly for scholars of Jefferson and slavery, the relationship of the slave to Jefferson’s White House. Luckily, in the chain of documents Freeman did not completely disappear. The story told by the records details the somewhat unusual circumstances of the slave’s “employment” in the Jefferson White House, and the search for records themselves shows the unusual ways in which documents are uncovered in the National Archives.

The trail that leads to the Freeman-Jefferson White House connection begins with Jefferson’s Memorandum books. From the vegetables planted, to groceries and whiskey, to loans, to the purchase of boot hooks, to the five dollar bill Jefferson lost in 1812, this daily record of what, in many ways, is the minutiae of his life nonetheless gives historians some of the most personal glimpses into the larger issues of how Jefferson ran his plantation, his White House, and his life.[2] From 1801 through 1804 Jefferson rented Freeman on a month-by-month basis. The slave received anywhere from four to ten dollars as well as additional money to cover travel and household expenses. Apparently literate, Freeman in 1804 signed his name to a document stating that he had received eight dollars for his wages for the month of June.[3] That same document also conveyed the offer from Jefferson’s friend and longtime correspondent Baker that should Jefferson want “to purchase [Freeman] . . . He must be free at the end of Eleven years.”[4] However, although Jefferson took the deal, neither Jefferson’s letters, nor his memorandum books, nor his personal papers contained any record of the actual purchase.

While rented and owned by the president, Freeman worked in the White House dining room, though the records also list him as a more general “footman.”[5] At the same time, he accompanied the president on trips to visit Monticello, showing that the slave may have been among Jefferson’s more favorite and trusted servants in a White House staff that included ten to twelve servants and a steward.[6] A memorandum entry showing that on one trip to Monticello Jefferson borrowed the cost of a horseshoe from Freeman, repaying his slave some time later, highlights the close relationship between the two men.[7] Unfortunately we have no record of what portion, if any, of the money Freeman was able to keep, and what went to the master Baker. It would not have been unusual for the slave to receive some portion of the rental money, but he also might not have received any. Jefferson did give the slave traveling expenses when Freeman accompanied others on trips to and from Monticello, and Freeman returned the leftover funds to Jefferson.[8] As with many of the details of slavery in Jefferson’s time period, what we know of Freeman we know from the records left behind by slaveowners. Because of Jefferson’s meticulous accounting, we know more about Freeman’s activities during the rental period than during the time that Jefferson owned him.

A short entry in the memorandum books, as well as letters in the Madison and Jefferson Papers, shows that on April 19, 1809, the newly inaugurated President Madison purchased Freeman’s “remaining term of . . . service.”[9] Several unresolved questions remain for Jefferson scholars. When did the transfer of ownership to Jefferson take place? How was it accomplished? What were the exact terms of the transfer? The answers emerged during the course of a routine search of the National Archives for presidential material. Filed away in Record Group 351—Records of the Government of the District of Columbia—is an unusual bill of sale recorded March 8, 1809. Broken into several sections, the document tells us that William Baker formally sold a slave, John, to Jefferson for $400 on the condition that John be freed at the end of eleven years. The transaction also contained standard language to prevent John from being reenslaved after his term of service. Further, we know from the language of the document that John was a slave and not a servant, because Baker sold Jefferson “the Negro John” rather than John’s labor, and then noted that John would “belong to, and be the property of” Jefferson. In October Jefferson signed the bill of sale.[10]

Yet a small mystery remains. Why was the transaction recorded five years after it took place? How did the records end up in the archives of the Government of the District of Columbia? And why did Jefferson sell a man who was obviously a trusted house slave. Several possibilities exist. Jefferson’s original copies of the papers may have been lost, and the need to reaffirm Freeman’s eventual emancipation, despite the subsequent sale to Madison, could have required that Jefferson and Baker write out another contract. If this was the case, then all parties displayed a remarkable prescience. On October 22, 1827, a year after Jefferson’s death, Freeman appeared before a county clerk in the District of Columbia to prove his freedom. Shown a copy of the earlier bill of sale that Freeman had apparently retained through the years, the clerk attested to the physical description of the former slave and that the man standing in front of him, now approximately forty-six years old, was the same man who had served as Jefferson’s dining room servant, traveling companion, and sometime moneylender.[11]

The discovery of this document will probably not lead to any serious revision of our understanding of either Thomas Jefferson or his presidency. However, this comprehensive search of the National Archives holdings will certainly unearth a treasure trove of material that will contribute to a more textured understanding not only of Thomas Jefferson the world close to him, but also of the larger world of the early republic.

[1] James A. Bear, Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds. Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts With Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Volume II, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series, 1043.

[3] William Baker to John Barnes. 28 June 1804. Massachusetts Historical Society.

[9] “Enclosure No. 2” TJ to JM, April 19, 1809. Robert A. Rutland, et al., eds. The Papers of James Madison. Presidential Series, Volume I. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984), 124; Memorandum Books, 1245.

[10] William Baker to Thomas Jefferson, March 8, 1809. RG 351, Records of the Government of the District of Columbia, Deed Books, 1792-1869.

[11] Certificate of Freedom, William Brent, Clerk. October 22 1827. DLC Negro Papers.