Chapter One

Raised and Nurtured

On or about 28 February 1801, Montpelier, the Madison plantation in Orange County, Virginia
The old master died in the dullness of February. On their way to the burial in the family graveyard, the house servants passed by the slave graveyard where most of them expected to be buried some day. It was cold and they walked on, passing between the fallow tobacco fields to the east and the original homestead to the west. The Madison family graveyard was located in the backyard of this first home site, the main dwelling long burned to the ground and supplanted by the Georgian mansion whence they had started their third-mile informal procession. Once the household was circled around the open grave, the house servants raised expectant eyes to the new master of Montpelier, James Madison Jr., standing next to his mother, Nelly. There was this day at Montpelier another mother and son present. The mothers name is unknown. The name of the toddler at her skirts was Paul Jennings. From the traditions shared by elders of the earlier enslaved generations, Paul Jenningss mother would have been aware of the history of the Montpelier plantation and especially of the stories connected with the fate of the first master, father of the man

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A Slave in the White House

being buried. Ambrose Madison had acquired the land that was to become the nucleus of the Montpelier plantation through the brokerage of his father-in-law, James Taylor. Taylor was one of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, the expedition led by Governor Alexander Spotswood in 1716 of some of the first men of European background to cross Virginias Blue Ridge Mountains. Taylor appreciated that a certain swath of land in the foothills, land that would become part of Orange County, was rich for farming, and he patented 8,500 acres for himself and helped the husbands of two of his daughters acquire 4,675 acres together in 1723. His daughter Frances had married Ambrose Madison, and the couple was living in Caroline County, fifty-five miles to the east, when they sent a gang of slaves and an overseer to the property to perfect the patent by commencing agriculture and construction, required in order to receive full title. Not until spring of 1732 did Ambrose, Frances, and their three children, the eldest and only son named James, move to the new plantation, accompanied by the rest of their enslaved people and hauling all their household goods. Ambrose would not see the year out. Court documents reveal that he was poisoned by slaves, two men named Pompey and Turk and a woman named Dido. There was much speculation as to how and why this happened, none of which could be voiced above a trusted whisper. Ambrose was thus the first Madison buried in the family cemetery. The slave cemetery that flanked the original house on the other side and farther out may have already received the first slave laid to rest.1 Frances, widowed at thirty-two with three small children, never remarried, which was atypical for the day. One mitigating factor may have been the company and support of extended family in the area. Taylor families held a number of estates in Orange County. The kin connections that Frances had with the Taylor elite were echoed by those among the enslaved individuals belonging to Taylors. The woman whom Paul Jennings eventually would

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Raised

and Nurtured

marry was born into slavery on the plantation of Erasmus Taylor, Francess brother.2 But that union was two decades in the future, unknown of course to the little boy and his mother that winter day; she perhaps holding his hand but hoping not to transmit her anxiety over what might happen next, for the death of a slave master was always a time of tension for his people. They would have little control over decisions about their futures, including the fates of their nearest family members.

Paul Jennings had a close relationship with

his mother, not an anchor every slave could count on. In his surviving letters, he referred to her as mother or my mother, never revealing a name; she lived well into her sons middle age. The preface of A Colored Mans Reminiscences of James Madison states that Jennings was born a slave on James Madisons plantation in 1799. Both Paul Jennings and James Madison had their roots at Montpelier, but only Jennings was born there; in 1751 Madisons mother had chosen to give birth to her first child at her mothers home in Virginias Northern Neck. Jenningss mother was a Madison slave, the granddaughter of an Indian; his father was a white merchant named Benjamin or William Jennings. What role, if any, did his father play on the plantation or in the local community? Was he passing through, an itinerant merchant perhaps, or did he have a sustained relationship with Pauls mother? If he was more to Paul than the paternal progenitor from whence his surname and half his genetic makeup were derived, there is no hint of it in the historical record.3 It must have been his mother who told Paul about the Native American ancestry they shared. The move by James Madison Sr., his wife Nelly, and their growing family to the new brick dwelling took place in the early 1760s. Their

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son James reported that he helped move the lighter pieces of furniture from the old to the new househis token contribution. All of the real work, including building the house, was done by slaves. James Madison Sr. increased his status with this fine Georgian home as well as with the purchase of more land and of more slaves to add to the ten men, five women, and fourteen children listed in the inventory of his father, Ambrose. By the mid-1780s, he was a major slaveholder in the area; by the time he died, the Montpelier enslaved population had increased to 108 people. Of that number, about half were of prime working age; the others were assigned to chores for the very old or, infants aside, very young. The enslaved laborers not only worked in the mansion and in tobacco and corn fields but in various enterprises, including a blacksmith shop, a brandy distillery, and saw and flour mills, profitable ventures turning out goods for neighbors as well as for Montpelier itself. A true entrepreneur, James Madison Sr. also diversified his sources of income by hiring out slaves with specialized skills, such as carpentry and blacksmithing.4 All this involuntary labor gave the future President the freedom to pursue his intellectual interests and subsequent public service inclinations. Thus it was on a summer day in 1769 that eighteen-year-old James Madison set out on an intellectual adventure to Princeton, New Jersey: he was to attend the college there. A slave just his age named Sawney accompanied him: he was to attend the young master. Most Montpelier slaves never traveled more than five miles from their plantation home, within the distance to the county seat, Orange Court House, or to any of a dozen neighboring farms.5 This applied to most of the slaves, but Paul Jennings would later be one in a series of exceptions like Sawney who traveled to new and fascinating places with James Madison. If a horse went lame, if a message needed to be delivered ahead, such attendants would be called into action. Their days were taken up seeing to the masters quotidian needs. Their waiting presence, while constant, was seemingly invisible to the elite class and is rarely noted in period documents. Sawney probably slept on a pal-

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