The little-know history of slavery at the official vice president residence

WASHINGTON — Three years ago this month, Vice President Kamala Harris moved into her official residence in northwest Washington, a quiet 73-acre enclave where the U.S. Navy keeps an observatory as well as the nation’s master clock. Early in her stay she saw evidence of digging near her house and, after asking around, learned that an archaeological team had recently found part of a foundation of an Italianate villa, known as North View, that had been there more than a century and a half before.

Near the villa, the team had found something else: a brick foundation of a smokehouse used to cure meat. Harris did not have to be told who had used it. Well before moving to the new residence, the nation’s first Black vice president had been told by aides about the 34 individuals who once lived on the property against their will. A subsequent opinion essay for Roll Call was the first mention of it in the news media.

The names of the enslaved people were recorded in a document of the era. Peter, Mary and Ellen Jenkins. Chapman, Sarah, Henry, Joseph, Louisa, Daniel and Eliza Toyer. Towley, Jane, Resin, Samuel, Judah and Andrew Yates. Kitty, William, Gilbert and Phillip Silas. Susan, Dennis, Ann Maria and William Carroll. Becky, Milly, Margaret and Mortimer Briscoe. Richard Williams. Mary Young. John Thomas. Mary Brown. John Chapman. William Cyrus.

They ranged in age from 4 months to 65 years, and in skill from winemaking to carpentry. Five of them would go off to the Civil War as Union soldiers. Another would flee at age 13, destination unknown. For those who remained on a property that was known at the time as Pretty Prospects, the abject conditions of their lives are hinted at in documents now preserved at the National Archives.

Mortimer Briscoe, 30, “had one of his toes frost bitten, but is otherwise sound.” John Thomas, 41, “has three fingers on his left hand injured by a corn sheller” but “can drive the carriage and work as well as before.”

Until these enslaved people and roughly 3,000 others in the nation’s capital were emancipated by an act of Congress on April 16, 1862, the 34 inhabitants of Pretty Prospects were the property of a widow, Margaret C. Barber, who lived in the North View villa. Together they constitute a largely unknown chapter in a historic property whose famous resident today believes herself to be descended from an enslaved Jamaican.

After learning about the smokehouse, aides said Harris asked if any other evidence about the 34 enslaved people had been uncovered. No, she was told. But the discovery, which has now been documented in a new report that will soon be published by the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office, prompted Harris to do some digging of her own.

Aides said she studied the old map that the archaeological team had consulted, dated 1882, which displayed the exact location of North View and the nearby smokehouse. About a quarter of a mile from where she lives now was a long-gone dwelling referred to as “Negro House,” where the 34 enslaved workers lived.

C.R. Gibbs, a local historian, said many tourists are unaware of this chapter in Washington’s history. “What people don’t realize when they come to visit the Smithsonian Museum, the Washington Monument, the Capitol or the White House is that they’re standing on slave-worked land,” he said. “And the same holds true with the vice president’s residence.”