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Slavery at the Highland Plantation

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James Monroe's story is only one aspect of Highland. Enslaved women and men lived on the property for several generations, and had deeper connections to this place than did Monroe, who was often away in public office. Like other plantation owners and members of the founding generation, Monroe enslaved as many as 250 enslaved persons in his lifetime. He freed only one: Peter Marks, who was manumitted during the last days of Monroe's life.

We recognize the contradiction that Monroe enslaved dozens of individuals at a time, while also calling for the abolition of slavery. In an 1829 letter, he described slavery as "one of the evils still remaining, incident to our Colonial system" (Monroe to John Mason, 31 August 1829). Abolition, he thought, should be gradual, to avoid disruption of the social order and economy. He advocated and actively worked for the colonization and resettlement of newly freed blacks in Africa and the Caribbean. The contradiction between Monroe's personal practice on the one hand, and his personal beliefs and political action on the other, cannot be denied. Yet his example is instructive, showing him to be a man of his time-aspiring to virtue and justice, yet never moving beyond the dominant views and practices of his historical context.

More importantly, we recognize that the history of the United States is profoundly connected to the institution of slavery. It was enslaved labor that allowed the economic development of the new nation, most notably for Highland, in its agriculture. The legacies of slavery are present in our communities today, and understanding the nation's fraught past is one way to address today's issues. The perspectives of enslaved men and women are as crucial to understanding the United States as are those of U.S. Presidents. At Highland we strive to represent a multivocal history, one in which many voices combine to tell one set of stories.

1794

Slavery was embedded in the families of both James Monroe and his wife, Elizabeth Kortright Monroe. The president grew up on a tobacco farm worked by enslaved people. He inherited legal human property at age 16 (1774), when his father died and bequeathed to him an enslaved boy named Ralph, as well as unnamed enslaved farm hands.

We do not know whether an enslaved woman was taken from her family in New York to accompany Elizabeth Monroe to her new life in Virginia on her marriage, as was common practice. Enslaved women and even very young girls were taken away from their homes by elite marriages-usually without the means to communicate in writing to stay connected to parents and siblings.

One of the two surviving letters Elizabeth Monroe wrote references individuals enslaved by her natal family. Elizabeth had journeyed to New York City to see her dying father. From there, she wrote to her husband about her own inheritance relative to her brother's, which she deemed unfair and included "several slaves."

1800

During his first term as governor, Monroe faced Virginia's most alarming slave uprising. As this newspaper clipping explains, "Gabriel's Rebellion" was named for a slave leader on Thomas Prosser's plantation west of Richmond. Gabriel had been inciting slaves on nearby plantations to rise up against the white population. Monroe quickly mobilized the militia and thwarted the insurrection. At the resulting trial-covered in local newspapers like the one shown-Monroe was torn on how to punish the conspirators, revealing to his friend Thomas Jefferson that he thought he should err on the side of mercy over severity in this case (Monroe to Jefferson, 15 September 1800). The event influenced Monroe's views on how best to eliminate slavery by fueling his fear that immediate abolition could spur violence and race wars.

1810

The Albemarle County, Virginia census showed 49 enslaved people living at Highland in 1810, making Monroe one of county's largest slave owners at that time. Of the 1,500+ households in the county that year, 14 had larger slave inventories-including Thomas Jefferson, who held the most, with 147. Highland's enslaved population included field workers and skilled workers (blacksmiths, carpenters, masons and "house servants"-including valets and maids, and a cook and her assistants). While Monroe was often away pursuing law and politics, the enslaved workers maintained Highland's day-to-day operations and became intimately familiar with the surrounding countryside.

1822

Monroe supported colonization as a means of gradually reducing, and ultimately abolishing, slavery in the United States. He exchanged ideas on the topic with Thomas Jefferson from the early 1800s. In 1817, Monroe's first year as president, the American Colonization Society (ACS) formed for the repatriation of freed slaves to Africa. Five years later, Liberia was established as a place where freed U.S. slaves, as well as Africans captured on foreign slave ships, could be resettled. The country named its capital, Monrovia, after Monroe because of his endorsement of the ACS.

1826, March

As the South's economic engine shifted to cotton by the 1820s, Highland's profitability-which came from grain-plummeted, with dire consequences for enslaved field hands. Since cotton does not grow in the Virginia Piedmont, Monroe and neighboring farmers were left behind. Facing potential financial ruin, he listed Highland and his Loudoun County property, Oak Hill, for sale in the Richmond Enquirer. He first sold the house at Highland, and later its farmland, said to be of "the best mountain quality," in close proximity to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, which had just opened (in 1825). The latter sale dispersed a number of enslaved African Americans.

1826, July

Life wasn't easy for Highland's enslaved population. Two slaves named George and Phebe were among those who risked their lives to escape their conditions. After the pair ran away from Highland in July 1826, Monroe placed an advertisement in the local newspaper (shown here), offering a reward for their return. We do not know whether they achieved freedom. Among the difficulties Highland slaves endured was the instability caused by frequent transfers between Monroe's two properties according to work needs.

1828

When Monroe was selling the farmland at Highland in 1828, many of Monroe's enslaved men, women, and children were dispersed southward. Those sold went to a cotton plantation called Casa Bianca in Jefferson County, Florida. The buyer, Colonel Joseph White, may or may not have heeded Monroe's stipulation that enslaved families be kept together.

1908

Highland's slave quarters remained intact until the 1920s. A reproduction was rebuilt in the 1980s based on a 1908 photograph (shown here). Today, visitors can walk through the recreated quarters and see demonstrations of chores that were part of slaves' daily lives at Highland. Research continues to shed new light on this population-their names, relationships, backgrounds, and contributions to building the presidential property.

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James Monroe's story is only one aspect of Highland. Enslaved women and men lived on the property for several generations, and had deeper connections to this place than did Monroe, who was often away in public office. Like other plantation owners and members of the founding generation, Monroe enslaved as many as 250 enslaved persons in his lifetime.

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Monroe Family Tree

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Listen: A Former Plantation Begins To Tell A Fuller Story Of Slavery In America

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Listen: A Former Plantation Begins To Tell A Fuller Story Of Slavery In America

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Just outside Charlottesville, Va., the roads lose their markings as they wind through the woods, passing an occasional church, a cemetery and a plantation known as Highland, owned by America's fifth president James Monroe. For the first time in its 225-year history, the site has begun telling the stories of the African-American men and women who were enslaved there, and consulting with their descendants.

One of those descendants is George Monroe, Jr. As a kid, Monroe, Jr. remembers his father driving these roads to visit relatives who have lived for generations in an area they called Monroetown. On their way, they'd pass Monroe's Highland.

"I used to always say, 'You know what Dad, that's pretty cool, that's our last name,'" recalls George Monroe, Jr.

His dad wouldn't say anything, but as George got older, he persisted. "Are we linked?" he'd ask. It took years, but his family eventually began talking about it. They were descendants of the 49 men and women who James Monroe once enslaved and profited from at Highland. After emancipation, many kept the Monroe name, acquired land, built houses, and created Monroetown.

Today the area is surrounded by wineries and other tourist draws, like Thomas Jefferson's nearby plantation, Monticello. In fact, Jefferson helped Monroe buy the Highland property, which is now run as a historic site, hosting weddings, concerts, and thousands of visitors each year.

Until recently, however, the enslaved weren't much talked about. Guides at Highland knew only that some of the enslaved had been sold and sent to Florida. And then, about two years ago, George Monroe, Jr. paid Highland a visit. He approached a staff member at the visitor's center and said, "My last name is Monroe and my family comes from off this plantation."

Since then, George Monroe, Jr. has been working with Highland's Executive Director Sara Bon-Harper to build relationships with more than a dozen descendants in the immediate area and across Virginia. Bon-Harper wants them to tell the story of Highland.

"The theme of having one's eyes opened to reality that one was completely ignorant of, I think, goes through race relations in Virginia," said Bon-Harper. "And my response is to be completely open to learning the things that I have not known and Highland is really, really, excited to have these contacts now and having the willing collaboration of the descendant communities is tremendous."

One afternoon earlier this year, a group of descendants toured the property with a guide. They paused, in deep reflection, as they passed a 300-year old oak tree, which their ancestors would have seen.

"The African-American community can look at trees in a number of ways," says George Monroe, Jr. "You think about family trees, you think about how these branches extend. You can look at trees in terms of the legacy of lynching, a symbol of death. But then this tree, you also think about the fact that it's seen so many different things: the revolution, slavery, civil war, reconstruction. It's seen all kinds of things up until this point. And I think history should be far and reaching just like that."

Once you know the full story, now what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?

In telling that fuller version of history, Highland will have to change, says Bon-Harper. Some of those changes will be major and require a revamped vision plan for the site, so that tourists learn about slavery everywhere they go.

Some of those changes have already started to emerge. Whereas before the story of enslavement stopped at slaves being sold and sent to Florida, guides now tell people about the large, free black community near Highland. The newer story helps bridge the past with the present and opens the door for deeper conversations about Jim Crow segregationist laws, explicit and implicit racism, and white supremacist violence.

Some changes will also be more subtle. On their tour, the group of descendants went inside the big house, which, the guide told them, was built by Monroe. But Waltine Eubanks, a descendant, pointed out that it was more likely constructed by her enslaved ancestors.

"I would like to see the validation of the people who contributed to the phenomenal place that this is," says Eubanks. "And I think that this project will help to bring that to fruition, [so] that when visitors come, they won't think that James Monroe did all of this by himself - that there were people who were beaten, killed, whatever, however horrific the situation was, to make this what it is. It took slave labor, and these were people who were not dummies, they were very intelligent and very highly skilled."

Highland is not alone in realizing they've only told half the story. Earlier this year, about 30 miles away at James Madison's former plantation Montpelier, Bon-Harper and George Monroe Jr. joined about 50 site directors, archaeologists, historians, and descendants at the first ever National Summit on Teaching Slavery. The aim is to create a guide to tell more accurate and complete narratives. That meeting followed a lengthy, scathing report by the Southern Poverty Law Center that found U.S. schools do an abysmal job at teaching slavery.

"What we're doing here now, we have opened the boil related to the slaves and our descendants here on this plantation, that is also relevant to all plantations, and we are willing to do the work - the dirty, nasty, stinky, funky, pussy work --to get our situation healed," said Eubanks.

George Monroe, Jr. agreed. American history is messy and filled with hard truths, he said, so lay it all out and talk about it. "And then let's move on from there," he said. "And you have a personal choice to make, you have a commitment to make at that point. And once you know the full story, now what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?"

What people do with it, he says, isn't up to him. But what is, is making sure the truth is finally told.

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A Former Plantation Begins To Tell A Fuller Story Of Slavery In America

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Just outside Charlottesville, Va., the roads lose their markings as they wind through the woods, passing an occasional church, a cemetery and a plantation known as Highland, owned by America's fifth president James Monroe. For the first time in its 225-year history, the site has begun telling the stories of the African-American men and women who were enslaved there, and consulting with their descendants.

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Read: James Monroe Enslaved Hundreds. Their Descendants Still Live Next Door.

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Read: James Monroe Enslaved Hundreds. Their Descendants Still Live Next Door.

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A statue of President James Monroe at Highland, his former plantation in Virginia.

A small African-American community has existed less than 10 miles from the president's former plantation for generations. Only recently has the full extent of their relationship been revealed.

A statue of President James Monroe at Highland, his former plantation in Virginia. Credit Credit

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - So many Monroes in rural Albemarle County remember the moment they asked a parent or grandparent if they were somehow connected to the nation's fifth president, James Monroe.

The telltale entrance sign to Monroe's plantation estate, now a museum, had been a fixture of their childhoods, part of the landscape on the route back and forth between Charlottesville and the small, predominantly African-American community they called Monroetown.

Ada Monroe Saylor, 79, was riding in her father's green Chevrolet on the way to the grocery store in the early 1950s when he confirmed her suspicions.

George Monroe Jr., a cousin of Ms. Saylor's, spent much of his childhood at the homestead built by his great-great grandfather, Edward Monroe, known as Ned, whose parents were believed to be enslaved by the president and were among the first known to carry his name. For slaves whose African heritage had long been stolen or lost, this was not uncommon.

Mr. Monroe, 45, was about 8 years old when he posed the question to his father, after driving by the plantation, known as Highland.

"I had been seeing that entrance sign all my life," Mr. Monroe said. "We were riding, and I asked my dad if we were the same Monroes, and he said yes, but he wouldn't say much more. We didn't talk about it.

"It was just understood that we were connected to the president, not by blood but by slavery."

For seven generations, members of the Monroetown descendant community have lived less than 10 miles away from Highland, yet until three years ago there had never been a conversation between them and the museum. Now, they are working together to change the way slavery is presented at the former presidential plantation.

The president lived at Highland from 1799 to 1823. The property, which he purchased in 1793, was his family home while he served as a governor of Virginia and president. It is now owned by his alma mater, William & Mary.

As president, Monroe supported abolition, but he enslaved up to 250 people in his lifetime. Daily tours and the Highland website note the contradiction.

Visitors are now told about the nearby descendant community. They are also told about two enslaved men by name - Peter Mallory and George - who built Monroe's guesthouse. A space under the porch of the guesthouse is being refashioned to reflect its former use as slave quarters. Biographies of the enslaved will soon be presented, and William & Mary will begin recording the oral histories of the descendants.

A more layered and complete narrative about the lives of the men, women and children enslaved by Monroe was built upon one family's quest to trace its roots, the discoveries made by two independent researchers and the museum's desire to accurately reflect the role slavery played on the plantation of a founding father. The intersection of those related paths, unfolding as part of a larger cultural reckoning, is an American story.

When George Monroe Jr. eventually made his way to Highland in 2016, he came searching for clues as to "who I come from and what makes me, me." Entering the visitor center, he wanted to know more about his family. Highland wanted to know more about him.

Highland rises against the Southwest Mountains. It was once a 3,500-acre estate, filled with grain crops. Now it is a tourist attraction, about two miles from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

After emancipation, some of the enslaved carried the Monroe name and settled nearby, informally calling their new free community Monroetown. This is where the Monroe descendants' first chapter begins. The family estimates that fewer than 100 Monroes still live in that area.

On a summer Sunday afternoon in 2017, Martin Violette, a part-time researcher and guide at Highland, went to Middle Oak Baptist, a tiny white church in Monroetown. Mr. Violette - and Miranda Burnett, also a Highland guide - had set out on their own to find out what happened to the enslaved men, women and children sold by Monroe to a Florida plantation owner nearly 200 years ago.

What Mr. Violette found instead: an entire community of Monroe descendants right on Highland's doorstep.

In the parking lot of Middle Oak Baptist after a service, Mr. Violette approached a group of African-American women, all in their 70s, members who had worshiped in the church since they were children. He inquired about Monroes.

"You have come to the right place," one of the women exclaimed. "We are all Monroes!"

It turned out that more than half of the church members were part of a large Monroe family tracing back to Highland.

"Up until that point, we had no idea this community was right here," said Sara Bon-Harper, Highland's executive director. "It's a very big thing for an institution like ours to forge these relationships absolutely from scratch, and we had this responsibility to get it right.

"But the question is, what is right?" she added. "Having this connection with the descendant community is the spark for us to tell a more inclusive, authentic history."

By the time Mr. Violette found his way to Middle Oak, following clues left behind by Monroe's records, Mr. Monroe had already visited Highland. He and a cousin, Francis Scott, the family historian, were already chasing their history back to the plantation and learning more about the connections between the president and their community, but no formal conversations had been initiated with the museum.

"We are talking about the pain of slavery and the ties that bind and the start of our story in America," said Jennifer Saylor Stacy, 56, Ms. Saylor's daughter and a lifelong member of Middle Oak. "We want to know more about our ancestors and help to give them back a sense of humanity."

A small group of Monroe descendants gathered at Highland in March 2018 to begin the first of several discussions on how best to incorporate its family history. The meetings have also become a space to talk about the legacy of slavery, racial inequities and reparations, now a part of the national dialogue.

"It's hard to put into words what it feels like to grow up this close to the plantation where your roots are," Ms. Saylor said. "Once I knew we came from there, I often wondered what became of our people."

Last year, Brent Leggs, executive director of the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, an initiative led by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and a group of historians, preservationists, descendants and site directors, gathered for the first National Summit on Teaching Slavery at James Madison's Montpelier to talk about engaging descendant communities. Both George Monroe Jr. and Ms. Bon-Harper attended. That same year, Monticello opened its first exhibition of the living quarters of Sally Hemings.

"Most of the narrative about the black experience is about a painful past, but we have an opportunity today to uncover the hidden stories of activism and resistance and black agency rooted in slavery," Mr. Leggs said. "This is about expanding beyond the typical stories of brutality and injustice to stories of black life and black love and how our community overcame the most difficult chapter in American history."

At Highland, visitors learn about Monroe's vision for a federal government and his opposition to European colonialism in the Americas, known as the Monroe Doctrine. In 1828, Monroe sold up to two dozen enslaved people for $5,000 to Joseph Mills White, the owner of Casa Bianca, a cane and cotton plantation just outside Monticello, Fla., to pay off mounting debt after his presidency.

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Miranda Burnett and Martin Violette are researchers working to locate Highland descendants.

Mr. Violette, a ninth-generation Virginian and Ms. Burnett, a reference librarian, started their research of the sale by asking basic questions: How many of the enslaved were sold? Did they leave Florida after emancipation? Then, after visiting Middle Oak, they wondered: Could they be related by blood to the Monroe descendants in Virginia?

The researchers pored over archival records documenting shipping manifests, property inventories, bills of sale, death certificates. In a letter to James Madison, Monroe said he had arranged to have the enslaved taken in families. At least three couples - Dudley and Eve, Toby and Betsy, Jim and Calypso - along with their children, were sent to Florida, yanking apart the larger Highland enslaved community.

"The more we were able to find, the more we knew how important it was to try to help reunite these two communities," Mr. Violette said.

Fifteen months after Mr. Violette visited Middle Oak, he and Ms. Burnett visited another small church, this time in Florida. It was founded, in part, by children once enslaved at Highland. The researchers met about a dozen people in Monticello, including a woman whose grandfather was a descendant of Dudley and Eve, one on the enslaved couples sold to Florida, and the first direct link between the two descendant communities in Florida and Virginia.

Ms. Burnett cried as she described piecing together the life of Garrett Sanders, a son of Toby and Betsy, who was about 18 when he was sold with his parents and sent to Casa Bianca. After emancipation, he appeared in the 1870 census with his occupation listed as a blacksmith. He registered to vote in 1867, and cast a ballot in the 1876 presidential election.

"It means he made it. He made it to freedom," Ms. Burnett said. "It is an incredible discovery to find the evidence that an enslaved person was finally able to live free."

Ms. Burnett and Mr. Violette hope to identify more Highland descendants in both states, and this August, the two communities - connected by slavery but separated by centuries and hundreds of miles - could be brought together for the first time.

Once Ms. Burnett and Mr. Violette shared what they had learned in Florida with those in Virginia, Waltine Eubanks, a Monroe descendant in Virginia, suggested inviting the Florida descendants to attend the annual Monroe homegoing celebration in Virginia next month.

"I want the treasure hunt to go on so that we find even more connections between these two communities," Ms. Eubanks said. "We have the same roots, and we might even have the same bloodline. We might be cousins."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Connected to a President, by Slavery. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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James Monroe Enslaved Hundreds. Their Descendants Still Live Next Door.

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A small African-American community has existed less than 10 miles from the president's former plantation for generations. Only recently has the full extent of their relationship been revealed. A statue of President James Monroe at Highland, his former plantation in Virginia.