HISTORY

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AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

For most of its history, Decatur House served as home to numerous enslaved and free African Americans who lived and worked at the site - and its architecture, in several ways, reflects the status of those residents. The two remaining original structures - the 1818 residence facing Lafayette Square and the ca. 1822 slave quarters – generally evidence the living and working conditions of enslaved men and women in urban areas as well as their owners’ desires to hide their activities from plain view.

Architect B. Henry Latrobe designed Decatur House with various access passages for a variety of different people, with the movements of enslaved people in particular tightly controlled to allow for high work efficiency but low visibility. A back stairway and an exit directly out of the kitchen onto H Street provided ways for relatively invisible movement throughout the house. Ironically, whereas the neoclassical style of Decatur House represented the egalitarian ideals of the early republic, the service spaces represented the most glaring contradiction of American democracy – the institution of slavery.

The slave quarters at Decatur House is one of only a few remaining examples of slave quarters in an urban setting and also is uniquely significant as the only remaining physical evidence that African Americans were held in bondage within sight of the Executive Mansion. Though the exact date of construction is unknown, records indicate the quarters were possibly built as a one story structure as early as September 1821 during the tenancy of the French foreign minister, as a bill for $40.40 notes iron work and a “door & frame for oven” for “back buildings,” perhaps suggesting a cooking facility of some sort. Further, a January 1822 bill for more than $1300 also indicates the cost of “erecting a building joining the “house in Presidents Square.”

When John Gadbsy purchased Decatur House in 1836, he likely expanded the structure in order to provide more working and living space for the large number of enslaved people upon which he relied to work in his nearby National Hotel, by widening it with an interior hallway on the courtyard side of the building and also by adding a second story. It is believed that during Gadsby’s ownership, the first floor of the quarters served as a kitchen and laundry, as well as a dining area for the enslaved members of the household, while the second floor served as living quarters for the slaves.

Today, the second floor of the slave quarters contains an exhibit on slavery in Washington, DC and at Decatur House. Although much of the interior architectural features were removed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the mid-1960s, a chimney and hearth with the ghost marks of a mantle are still visible, as are some of the building’s original wall timbers.