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I visited for the first time today UVA's new monument to the enslaved laborers who built the university, which was completed in spring 2020:
Etched on these walls are the names of individual enslaved people who were forced to work at or on the university. Usually, only identified by first names, others whose names are unknown are simply listed as "servant..."
The history of the university is narrated on the inner wall of the monument:
"1817: 1825: During UVA construction enslaved people dig foundations, make bricks, quarry stone, do roofing, carpentry...and other tasks."
"1817: 1825: During UVA construction enslaved people dig foundations, make bricks, quarry stone, do roofing, carpentry...and other tasks."
The inner wall also contains general information about slavery in Virginia:
"1776-1865: Virginia holds more enslaved people than any other state."
"1776-1865: Virginia holds more enslaved people than any other state."
There are also excruciating details of the horrifying treatment people enslaved by UVA were subject to at the hands of students and professors alike:
"1856: An enslaved eleven-year old girl is beaten unconscious by a UVA student claiming his right to discipline any slave..."
"1856: An enslaved eleven-year old girl is beaten unconscious by a UVA student claiming his right to discipline any slave..."
"Three students attack a twelve-year old enslaved girl in a field near UVA. The students are expelled."
"1825: In October, rioting students beat a professor's enslaved servant."
"1829: Disturbed in the night by a noise made by negroes passing through the University, a professor proposes that the school institute a regular slave patrol."
Like other people enslaved in Virginia, those forced to labor at UVA also engage in various forms of resistance:
"Tom runs away. He is captured fifty miles from Charlottesville and jailed...before the overseer returns him to work at the university."
"Tom runs away. He is captured fifty miles from Charlottesville and jailed...before the overseer returns him to work at the university."
Terror, depredation, and sorrow existed while seemingly ordinarily life went on...
"Falling ill during her pregnancy, Flora suffers a stillbirth and does not recover for months."
"Falling ill during her pregnancy, Flora suffers a stillbirth and does not recover for months."
Civil War and emancipation:
Isabella Gibbons, who had been enslaved by UVA: "Can we forget the crack of the whip, cowhide, whipping post, the auction-block, the hand-cuffs, the spaniels, the iron collar, the negro-trader tearing the young child from its mother's breast as a whelp from the lioness?"
"Have we forgotten that by those horrible cruelties, hundreds of our race have been killed? No, we have not, nor ever will."
--Isabella Gibbons, 1867
--Isabella Gibbons, 1867
This is a somber and sobering display...almost complete silence reigned, as visitors, including many children, seemed to be processing not only UVA's foundations in slavery, but the United States's own, along with Thomas Jefferson's role in its long continuation:
