Enslaved Washington, DC: 1790-2021 - Livestream History Program with Ed Ingebretsen
This presentation examines the history of enslavement in the original Federal City. We examine the founding of the District of Columbia -- by design -- as an enclave of slaver power in 1790, by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and will see how it still anchors that power in its policies of non-representation.
The creation of the Federal District from the slaver states of Maryland and Virginia was intended to demonstrate -- and enforce -- the power of the Southern investment in keeping human beings like cattle. The history of what would be termed, after 1800, the District of Columbia insured that the 100-mile capital would anchor North to South, the domestic traffic in enslaved blacks, under the support of law and Constitution.
Fact: 12 US presidents (Washington, Jefferson, etc.) owned slaves.
Fact: Enslaved blacks (and some Indigenous) built the District and the buildings therein.
Fact: the popular Broadway play "Hamilton" alludes to the compromise that gave the South the power it wanted -- the symbolic visibility of enslavement as a politic.
Fact: the odd shape of the current district perfectly demonstrates the power of Virginia Slave culture. In 1848, fearing the loss of commercial slavery in the District, Alexandria and Arlington (the Virginia component) separated from the District, leaving the jagged line of the river marking the ever-visible absence.
We examine the buildings and locations, in which enslaved persons, adults and children, were penned, ahead of auction and sale. We examine the constructions -- White House, Capitol, Washington Monument, Smithsonian, among others -- that were built with enslaved Africans and indigenous peoples of the Potomac. We examine where the enslaved hid, and where they were taken when they were captured. We examine the rhetoric of the Founders and successive Congresses who, to this day, "explain" why the District lacks "representation." During its ten-year building phase, the Federal City was known as "the Congo of America." This is the reason.
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Presenter: Edward J. Ingebretsen, Ph.D
Ingebretsen holds a PH.D from Duke in theology and American Culture. He teaches courses across universities in the Metropolitan area on Anglo-colonial race relations; animals, justice and culture; Gay culture and theory. His publications include At Stake: Monsters and rhetoric of fear in American Culture. And Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell: Religious Terror as Memory from the Puritans to Stephen King (1995). He has lived in DC since he began teaching at Georgetown University in 1986.
This program is presented by the non-profit community organization Washington, DC History & Culture.
