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Changes
Across the Region
Were
these changes in room size unique to Monticello or were they
typical of the region as a whole? Current evidence - measurement
of 45 slave houses occupied from the beginning of the 18th century
to the Civil War - suggests that similar architectural changes
were occurring across the Chesapeake at about this time. If
the safe-deposit box hypothesis is correct, then we should also
see a sharp decline in the frequency of sub-floor pits throughout
the Chesapeake at the end of the century, just as we do on Mulberry
Row. The data from our regional sample reveals that multiple
sub-floor pits do indeed disappear in the last quarter of the
18th century. So the housing revolution on Mulberry Row was
not unique.
Toward
an Explanation
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Rectangular
patches of darker soil indicate the presence of a filled
in sub-floor pit.
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All
this new construction came at a cost to Chesapeake slaveholders
like Jefferson. Any explanation for this trend must identify
the payoff to slave owners for incurring this cost, and since
the change in housing standards was an improvement from the
perspective of enslaved people, we also need to consider factors
that might have increased slaves' leverage in negotiating
for marginal improvements in their lives.
The
explanation I propose assumes that coercion and physical violence
- both threatened and real - ultimately lie behind all slave
labor systems. But it also recognizes that in some historical
circumstances positive rewards may be important too. The mix
of punishment vs. reward incentives should in theory be one
that yields the greatest labor output and hence profit for
the slave owner. But this in turn depends on the extent to
which the slaves' tasks affords them opportunities to force
owners to include more positive rewards. From this perspective,
the shift to kin-based housing at Monticello must be the outcome
of two sets of strategies: one pursued by enslaved individuals
aiming for kin-based living arrangements, and one pursued
by Jefferson who evidently thinks there is a payoff to acceding
to their wishes.
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