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A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons
Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolley Madison in Virginia, later becoming part of the Madison household staff at the White House. Once finally emancipated by Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he would give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War. Based on correspondence, legal documents, and journal entries rarely seen before, this amazing portrait reveals the mores and attitudes toward slavery in the nineteenth century, and sheds new light on famous characters such as James Madison, French General Lafayette, Dolley Madison, and many other long-forgotten slaves, abolitionists, and civil rights activists.
645 pages, Audio CD
First published January 3, 2012
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2890 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
2 books52 followersElizabeth Dowling Taylor received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Over a 22-year career in museum education and historical research, she was Director of Interpretation at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and Director of Education at James Madison’s Montpelier. Most recently a Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Taylor is now an independent scholar and lecturer. She lives in Barboursville, Virginia.
Her latest book A SLAVE IN THE WHITE HOUSE (pub 01/03/2012) follows the inspiring story of Paul Jennings, James Madison's enslaved manservant who began his life on the Virginia plantation of a U.S. president and ended it as a free man.
Her latest book A SLAVE IN THE WHITE HOUSE (pub 01/03/2012) follows the inspiring story of Paul Jennings, James Madison's enslaved manservant who began his life on the Virginia plantation of a U.S. president and ended it as a free man.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 170 reviews
May 5, 2021
America's founding fathers did not practice what they preached.
They claimed to be for freedom....but they owned slaves.
They claimed to believe that all men are created equal.....but slaves and Native Americans were not included.
Basically they were all huge hypocrites.
James Madison was the 4th President of the United States of America and he was the owner of hundreds of Black men, women and children. One of these slaves(or if Republicans get their way Unpaid Laborers) was a man named Paul Jennings.
Paul Jennings was born into slavery, would serve as a slave in the White House and once free he would go on to work(with pay) for the Interior Department. Paul Jennings was an extremely accomplished man, he was one the minority of slaves who could read, write and count. Jennings not only was able to obtain his own freedom but he worked with other like minded people to help other slaves gain their freedom as apart of The Underground Railroad.
The most surprising aspect of this book was that James Madison wasn't the biggest villain, that title belongs to his wife Dolley Madison. I truly hope hell is real and that Dolley has spent the last over 200 years burning in it. That woman was a greedy monster. I cant think of enough awful things to say about her.
I don't recommend this book to the casual reader or to people who dont normally read Nonfiction, because it's not written in the easiest way. This book is definitely for true history buffs.
I also wish it had focused more on Paul Jennings life after slavery. I understand that it was probably hard to find info about that time period but I still would love to know what the last decade of his life was truly like.
They claimed to be for freedom....but they owned slaves.
They claimed to believe that all men are created equal.....but slaves and Native Americans were not included.
Basically they were all huge hypocrites.
James Madison was the 4th President of the United States of America and he was the owner of hundreds of Black men, women and children. One of these slaves(or if Republicans get their way Unpaid Laborers) was a man named Paul Jennings.
Paul Jennings was born into slavery, would serve as a slave in the White House and once free he would go on to work(with pay) for the Interior Department. Paul Jennings was an extremely accomplished man, he was one the minority of slaves who could read, write and count. Jennings not only was able to obtain his own freedom but he worked with other like minded people to help other slaves gain their freedom as apart of The Underground Railroad.
The most surprising aspect of this book was that James Madison wasn't the biggest villain, that title belongs to his wife Dolley Madison. I truly hope hell is real and that Dolley has spent the last over 200 years burning in it. That woman was a greedy monster. I cant think of enough awful things to say about her.
I don't recommend this book to the casual reader or to people who dont normally read Nonfiction, because it's not written in the easiest way. This book is definitely for true history buffs.
I also wish it had focused more on Paul Jennings life after slavery. I understand that it was probably hard to find info about that time period but I still would love to know what the last decade of his life was truly like.
November 20, 2011
Long-time readers of my reviews know that I admire a well-researched book. "A Slave in the White House" is just such a book.
Elizabeth Dowling Taylor's book about Paul Jennings, a man born into slavery on the James and Dolley Madison estate, brings the time period and historical personae to life through a fascinating perspective. Jennings is the author of the first White House memoir, as he wrote about living with the Madisons before, during and after the presidency.(Review based on uncorrected advance proof.) Jennings bought his freedom with the assistance of Daniel Webster and went on to a career as a government clerk as he was one of the few literate African Americans at the time.
Taylor not only reviewed letters and historical documents to learn Jennings' story, but also spoke to his descendants who had not only carried on the oral history about their ancestor but also had some of his belongings and letters themsleves.
Taylor presents a multi-faceted man who took advantage of his environment (being in the room when discussions about freedom, etc., took place among his "master" and guests) to achieve success during a time when the deck was very much stacked against him.
Highly recommended.
Elizabeth Dowling Taylor's book about Paul Jennings, a man born into slavery on the James and Dolley Madison estate, brings the time period and historical personae to life through a fascinating perspective. Jennings is the author of the first White House memoir, as he wrote about living with the Madisons before, during and after the presidency.(Review based on uncorrected advance proof.) Jennings bought his freedom with the assistance of Daniel Webster and went on to a career as a government clerk as he was one of the few literate African Americans at the time.
Taylor not only reviewed letters and historical documents to learn Jennings' story, but also spoke to his descendants who had not only carried on the oral history about their ancestor but also had some of his belongings and letters themsleves.
Taylor presents a multi-faceted man who took advantage of his environment (being in the room when discussions about freedom, etc., took place among his "master" and guests) to achieve success during a time when the deck was very much stacked against him.
Highly recommended.
October 14, 2012
When James Madison died, he still owned about one hundred slaves. He freed none of them, not even Paul Jennings, his valet. Jennings could read and write, and in fact published the first White House memoir, declaring that Madison was "one of the best men who ever lived." Modern biographers of Madison, such as Richard Brookhiser and Jeff Broadwater, have frankly acknowledged the shocking truth that such a politically astute and sensitive founding father utterly failed to address the problem of slavery seriously. But most, including not only Mr. Brookhiser and Mr. Broadwater, but also Kevin R. C. Gutzman, Andrew Burstein, and Nancy Isenberg, treat the issue of slavery as a thing apart, in separate chapters, instead dealing with the place of the "peculiar institution" in Madison's life in the years after he left the presidency.
And yet there never was a time when James Madison (1751 - 1836), a third-generation slave owner, did not believe slavery was evil -- or a time when he did not recognize the capabilities of African Americans. In 1791, Madison wrote admiringly about the "industry & good management" of a free African American landowner who could read, keep accounts, and supervise six white hired men on a 2,500-acre farm. In April 1800, Madison dined with Christopher McPherson, a confident and free African American, who came as a guest to Madison's plantation home, Montpelier, to deliver books and letters that Madison and Jefferson sent to each other. During Madison's terms as president, he often heard out his private secretary, Edward Coles, who objected to slavery as a violation of the natural rights doctrine that Jefferson and Madison espoused. In 1816, Jesse Torrey, a zealous abolitionist visited Montpelier and treated Madison to a tirade against slavery, afterwards sending a letter of apology -- only to receive, in reply, a letter from Madison saying no apology was necessary. In 1824, Madison endured with good grace the disapproval of Lafayette, then on a triumphal tour of the United States, who visited Montpelier and told off the retired president, expressing disgust that both Jefferson and Madison, such champions of liberty, should still own slaves and support such a vile institution. In 1835, Harriet Martineau, an outspoken abolitionist and an old friend of Madison's, visited him for the last time, afterwards reporting that her host "talked more on the subject of slavery than on any other, acknowledging, without limitations or hesitation, all the evils with which it has ever been charged."
Like Madison himself, his biographers treat slavery as a kind of dirge, faintly heard off-stage and nearly drowned out by the stirring music of the freedom fighters making an American Revolution and the framers of the Constitution going about the glorious work of creating a democratic republic. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, however, wants us to listen to that more troubled theme, and the result is a revelation. In A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons, we're asked to consider Madison as a "garden-variety slaveholder": "He followed the basic patterns and norms for slaves' living conditions and treatment that had long been established on Virginia plantations and like most owners respected the customary "rights" -- such as Sundays off -- that enslaved people had come to consider their due." If it is not oxymoronic to say so, Madison was a humane slaveholder. He was also not very enterprising, in that his human holdings constituted -- as they did for Jefferson -- a losing economic proposition. As soon as her husband died, Dolley Madison, whose Quaker father had freed his slaves, sold off batches of her slaves in order to pay off debts.
Ms. Dowling crafts a narrative in which African Americans are virtually never out of sight. And that makes a great deal of sense: it is unlikely that Madison ever spent a day without relying on the services of a slave. He took at least one of them with him when he traveled. And Paul Jennings was the last one out the door, clutching some of Dolley Madison's treasures, as the British advanced during the War of 1812 and set fire to the White House.
Harriet Martineau observed with some surprise how Madison could discourse on the evils of slavery, even as slaves served him at table. It is that Madison we see in Ms. Dowling's narrative. Here is a sample sentence: "The Virginia Resolutions [1799] was yet another appeal against tyranny that Madison drafted at the place where he lived with scores of slaves." When Lafayette comes to Montpelier, Jennings is there beside Madison, listening, although we do not know what the slave thought. And this silence forces Ms. Dowling, all too often, to resort to what "must have been" going through Jennings's mind. It is no wonder, then, that most historians and biographers are much more comfortable dealing with Madison's well-documented mind. Thus Kevin R. C. Gutzman writes a stirring narrative, showing his subject's dexterity as politician and statesman, while Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg portray how well the tag-team of Madison and Jefferson served their country.
The concluding pages of Richard Brookhiser's concise biography seem to come closest to revealing why the mild-mannered Madison both deplored slavery and supported it; started the War of 1812, even as he was trying to negotiate peace with the British; and fought stoutly for maintaining the Union, even as he remained very much a son of the South. Mr. Brookhiser sees Madison as the epitome of the legislative mind. Madison was the man of principles who made deals, making sure the words "slave" and "slavery" did not appear in the Constitution, but also paying off his Southern vote-counting brethren with the three-fifths compromise. Slaves were partial "persons" for purposes of exerting political power. This political accommodation jibed with Madison's statement that slaves were part of his family, but only a "degraded" part.
The legislative mind, Mr. Brookhiser suggests, has trouble with the idea of exerting executive power. Since Madison believed that he could secure no agreement among slaveholders to abolish slavery -- let alone arrange some kind of compact with the North -- then nothing could be done short of shipping African Americans off to Liberia. But that strategy would work only if African Americans themselves consented, Madison argued, and most did not. And the cost of reimbursing slaveholders proved a problem too large for Madison's limited capacity as an economist.
But there is an even more important factor to consider in exploring why Madison, a mover and shaker of public opinion when it came to engineering such triumphs as the "Federalist Papers" to support the Constitution, never mounted a credible campaign to abolish or even attenuate the institution of slavery. From 1780 to 1784, William Gardner, Madison's slave, resided in Philadelphia with his master, who attended meetings there of the Continental Congress. Upon Madison's return to Virginia, Madison left Gardner behind, writing that his factotum's mind had been "tainted" with ideas -- the "contagion of liberty," as Elizabeth Dowling Taylor puts it. This episode is reminiscent of that scene in Frederick Douglass's autobiography when his white mistress is advised not to teach him to read, because doing so will only give him "notions" that do not befit a slave.
Madison's idea of the American polity had no place for educated black men and women, let alone the masses of freed slaves that he believed had trouble governing themselves. No matter which biography you read, all of them eventually disclose this fundamental fact: Madison did not believe that white and black Americans could live side by side on terms of equality and amity. His failure to imagine a world more capacious and tolerant than his own helps explain a good deal of subsequent history, and America's resistance to the very practice of equality that Madison otherwise did so much to foster.
And yet there never was a time when James Madison (1751 - 1836), a third-generation slave owner, did not believe slavery was evil -- or a time when he did not recognize the capabilities of African Americans. In 1791, Madison wrote admiringly about the "industry & good management" of a free African American landowner who could read, keep accounts, and supervise six white hired men on a 2,500-acre farm. In April 1800, Madison dined with Christopher McPherson, a confident and free African American, who came as a guest to Madison's plantation home, Montpelier, to deliver books and letters that Madison and Jefferson sent to each other. During Madison's terms as president, he often heard out his private secretary, Edward Coles, who objected to slavery as a violation of the natural rights doctrine that Jefferson and Madison espoused. In 1816, Jesse Torrey, a zealous abolitionist visited Montpelier and treated Madison to a tirade against slavery, afterwards sending a letter of apology -- only to receive, in reply, a letter from Madison saying no apology was necessary. In 1824, Madison endured with good grace the disapproval of Lafayette, then on a triumphal tour of the United States, who visited Montpelier and told off the retired president, expressing disgust that both Jefferson and Madison, such champions of liberty, should still own slaves and support such a vile institution. In 1835, Harriet Martineau, an outspoken abolitionist and an old friend of Madison's, visited him for the last time, afterwards reporting that her host "talked more on the subject of slavery than on any other, acknowledging, without limitations or hesitation, all the evils with which it has ever been charged."
Like Madison himself, his biographers treat slavery as a kind of dirge, faintly heard off-stage and nearly drowned out by the stirring music of the freedom fighters making an American Revolution and the framers of the Constitution going about the glorious work of creating a democratic republic. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, however, wants us to listen to that more troubled theme, and the result is a revelation. In A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons, we're asked to consider Madison as a "garden-variety slaveholder": "He followed the basic patterns and norms for slaves' living conditions and treatment that had long been established on Virginia plantations and like most owners respected the customary "rights" -- such as Sundays off -- that enslaved people had come to consider their due." If it is not oxymoronic to say so, Madison was a humane slaveholder. He was also not very enterprising, in that his human holdings constituted -- as they did for Jefferson -- a losing economic proposition. As soon as her husband died, Dolley Madison, whose Quaker father had freed his slaves, sold off batches of her slaves in order to pay off debts.
Ms. Dowling crafts a narrative in which African Americans are virtually never out of sight. And that makes a great deal of sense: it is unlikely that Madison ever spent a day without relying on the services of a slave. He took at least one of them with him when he traveled. And Paul Jennings was the last one out the door, clutching some of Dolley Madison's treasures, as the British advanced during the War of 1812 and set fire to the White House.
Harriet Martineau observed with some surprise how Madison could discourse on the evils of slavery, even as slaves served him at table. It is that Madison we see in Ms. Dowling's narrative. Here is a sample sentence: "The Virginia Resolutions [1799] was yet another appeal against tyranny that Madison drafted at the place where he lived with scores of slaves." When Lafayette comes to Montpelier, Jennings is there beside Madison, listening, although we do not know what the slave thought. And this silence forces Ms. Dowling, all too often, to resort to what "must have been" going through Jennings's mind. It is no wonder, then, that most historians and biographers are much more comfortable dealing with Madison's well-documented mind. Thus Kevin R. C. Gutzman writes a stirring narrative, showing his subject's dexterity as politician and statesman, while Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg portray how well the tag-team of Madison and Jefferson served their country.
The concluding pages of Richard Brookhiser's concise biography seem to come closest to revealing why the mild-mannered Madison both deplored slavery and supported it; started the War of 1812, even as he was trying to negotiate peace with the British; and fought stoutly for maintaining the Union, even as he remained very much a son of the South. Mr. Brookhiser sees Madison as the epitome of the legislative mind. Madison was the man of principles who made deals, making sure the words "slave" and "slavery" did not appear in the Constitution, but also paying off his Southern vote-counting brethren with the three-fifths compromise. Slaves were partial "persons" for purposes of exerting political power. This political accommodation jibed with Madison's statement that slaves were part of his family, but only a "degraded" part.
The legislative mind, Mr. Brookhiser suggests, has trouble with the idea of exerting executive power. Since Madison believed that he could secure no agreement among slaveholders to abolish slavery -- let alone arrange some kind of compact with the North -- then nothing could be done short of shipping African Americans off to Liberia. But that strategy would work only if African Americans themselves consented, Madison argued, and most did not. And the cost of reimbursing slaveholders proved a problem too large for Madison's limited capacity as an economist.
But there is an even more important factor to consider in exploring why Madison, a mover and shaker of public opinion when it came to engineering such triumphs as the "Federalist Papers" to support the Constitution, never mounted a credible campaign to abolish or even attenuate the institution of slavery. From 1780 to 1784, William Gardner, Madison's slave, resided in Philadelphia with his master, who attended meetings there of the Continental Congress. Upon Madison's return to Virginia, Madison left Gardner behind, writing that his factotum's mind had been "tainted" with ideas -- the "contagion of liberty," as Elizabeth Dowling Taylor puts it. This episode is reminiscent of that scene in Frederick Douglass's autobiography when his white mistress is advised not to teach him to read, because doing so will only give him "notions" that do not befit a slave.
Madison's idea of the American polity had no place for educated black men and women, let alone the masses of freed slaves that he believed had trouble governing themselves. No matter which biography you read, all of them eventually disclose this fundamental fact: Madison did not believe that white and black Americans could live side by side on terms of equality and amity. His failure to imagine a world more capacious and tolerant than his own helps explain a good deal of subsequent history, and America's resistance to the very practice of equality that Madison otherwise did so much to foster.
January 3, 2012
Everyone knows that slavery was evil, but Elizabeth Dowling Taylor's book A Slave in the White House explores the role of this evil in the heart of the American political system. This book tells of Paul Jennings, who worked for President Madison and who eventually purchased his freedom. It is an unfortunate contradiction that founding fathers who believed in political freedom could personally own other people, and it is equally disturbing to think of the White House itself, instead of a symbol of freedom, as a place where such a vile practice existed. This text is very well-researched and well-written. Ms. Taylor unflinchingly tackles a disturbing subject with objectivity and honesty. Nothing is sugar-coated, but neither does anyone come across as one-dimensional. There is no melodrama, just recorded facts of real people in tense political and social situations. The sources used by Ms. Taylor help bring the historical figures James Madison, Dolly, and Paul Jennings to life, and the photographs included were a happy bonus. This book also included the full text of Paul Jennings' own 1865 memoir. I received this book free from Goodreads Firstreads Giveaways.
November 5, 2011
I liked the opening of the story where we are introduced to Paul Jennings who was born as a slave on the future President James Madison's plantation. There was a striking contrast drawn between the slave, Paul whose family had been at Montpelier for the third and fourth generation and the son of James and Dolley Madison, Payne. Paul was ten years old when Payne was a toddler when Madison was the Secretary of the State. Of course their lives were vastly different in what they experienced, what they wore, where they slept and particurly how they were treated. Payne was seemed spoiled and given everything he wanted and that did not come out alright in the future. Paul thrived intellectually and morally despite many deprivations.
What I didn't like about this book was the tremendous amount of details about Dolley. I wished that I could push aside all the details on her entertaining and concentrate on the relationship between James Madison and Paul Jennings. Dolley deserves to be in this book of course because she was famous then and still is now but I felt there was a little too much of her. I started to get tired of reading about her but I stuck it out, and I was felt that I learned quite a bite later on in this book. Paul Jennings' character stood out and his desire to get ahead, learn, learn, learn and later to help his children as much as he could.
President James Madison's views on human freedom pushed against what he had learned from his father and grandfather. There seemed to be some torment in his conflicting ideas. With Dolley, it seemed simpler, slaves are possessions and that is it. I kept wondering what would have happened if he had not married Dolley, if he had married someone who saw the evils of slavery clearly and spoke against it.
The author, Elizabeth Doling Taylor fills the book with details about slavery especially in the Washington D.C area and Montpelier. After the coverage of Dolley's tremendous amount of entertaining, the book regained its life and provides a mirrot to the past.
The book could not have been written if Paul Jennings had not written his "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison. I came away from the book with a load of admiration and respect for Paul Jennings. He took chances, he showed forgiveness and he had a great deal of foresight.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in United States History and the tragedy of slavery with the recommendation to keep reading when passing through the Dolley passages.
I received this book as a part of the Amazon Vine Program but that in no way influenced my review.
What I didn't like about this book was the tremendous amount of details about Dolley. I wished that I could push aside all the details on her entertaining and concentrate on the relationship between James Madison and Paul Jennings. Dolley deserves to be in this book of course because she was famous then and still is now but I felt there was a little too much of her. I started to get tired of reading about her but I stuck it out, and I was felt that I learned quite a bite later on in this book. Paul Jennings' character stood out and his desire to get ahead, learn, learn, learn and later to help his children as much as he could.
President James Madison's views on human freedom pushed against what he had learned from his father and grandfather. There seemed to be some torment in his conflicting ideas. With Dolley, it seemed simpler, slaves are possessions and that is it. I kept wondering what would have happened if he had not married Dolley, if he had married someone who saw the evils of slavery clearly and spoke against it.
The author, Elizabeth Doling Taylor fills the book with details about slavery especially in the Washington D.C area and Montpelier. After the coverage of Dolley's tremendous amount of entertaining, the book regained its life and provides a mirrot to the past.
The book could not have been written if Paul Jennings had not written his "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison. I came away from the book with a load of admiration and respect for Paul Jennings. He took chances, he showed forgiveness and he had a great deal of foresight.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in United States History and the tragedy of slavery with the recommendation to keep reading when passing through the Dolley passages.
I received this book as a part of the Amazon Vine Program but that in no way influenced my review.
March 19, 2012
I waited for this book for months from the library and was so excited when my hold finally came in. It was a book I loved before I even opened the cover.... and then I did. Ugh, what an utter disappointment. This book is perhaps the best example of why a great historian does not make a great writer.
The book is simply just a mish-mash of tons of great research. The author will often mention a handful of names, jumping years in advance and then back again, then will throw in random locations across the country; then the paragraph will be over and the next paragraph will start while having very little (or absolutely nothing) to do with the preceding paragraph. The amount of names in the first few chapters is absolutely ridiculous, it felt like over 100, whatever the exact number, it is far too many for anyone to keep track of. As you progress you realize that most of the names and random information don't matter, but how is the reader supposed to know that?
To the author's credit, there are a few charts later in the book that I didn't initially see (since one is in the middle and the other at the end), but they aren't nearly detailed enough to track everything. Still, they should help you out in figuring out who is related to whom.
Moreover, and sadly, the writing style is extremely flat. There is no rhythm or shape to it at all, and is mostly presented in the following manner: random fact, random fact, somewhat important fact, random fact-next paragraph-repeat prior structure.
Overall this book was a huge disappointment, and I hate that I disliked it. You can tell the author really worked hard and did an amazing job at researching this immense project. Unfortunately, that does not make up for the absolutely atrocious presentation of it.
The book is simply just a mish-mash of tons of great research. The author will often mention a handful of names, jumping years in advance and then back again, then will throw in random locations across the country; then the paragraph will be over and the next paragraph will start while having very little (or absolutely nothing) to do with the preceding paragraph. The amount of names in the first few chapters is absolutely ridiculous, it felt like over 100, whatever the exact number, it is far too many for anyone to keep track of. As you progress you realize that most of the names and random information don't matter, but how is the reader supposed to know that?
To the author's credit, there are a few charts later in the book that I didn't initially see (since one is in the middle and the other at the end), but they aren't nearly detailed enough to track everything. Still, they should help you out in figuring out who is related to whom.
Moreover, and sadly, the writing style is extremely flat. There is no rhythm or shape to it at all, and is mostly presented in the following manner: random fact, random fact, somewhat important fact, random fact-next paragraph-repeat prior structure.
Overall this book was a huge disappointment, and I hate that I disliked it. You can tell the author really worked hard and did an amazing job at researching this immense project. Unfortunately, that does not make up for the absolutely atrocious presentation of it.
May 23, 2023
We recently visited Montpellier, Madison’s Plantation, on a quick trip to Virginia. I’ve read a couple of biographies of James and Dolly Monroe, which hardly mention their roles as slave owners. I came across this book in the gift shop at Montpellier. The book presents a compelling and troubling story that has been ignored or given a brief mention in most histories.
Madison was a sickly child and was sent to Princeton both for a more acceptable climate and an exceptional education. He was exposed to the greatest thinkers of the enlightenment and perhaps the most diverse student body of the time. His education prepared him to become one of the Founders and the intellectual “Father” of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The great contradiction in Madison owning 100’s of slaves throughout his life is unavoidable. The idea of the kindly slave owner that I heard on my first visit to Mount Vernon in 1966 is now repulsive. Madison and all the Founders, no matter how enlightened they may have been, delegated plantation management and discipline to overseers who were anything but kind. Despite Madison’s great intellect, he remained according to the author “a garden-variety slaveholder.”
Paul Jennings was the property of Madison from birth. He was Madison’s valet who served him in the White House. His positions exposed him to an education, mostly self-taught but also by Madison both directly and by observation. Jennings eventually bought his own freedom, with the help of anti-slavery statesman Daniel Webster.
Jennings’ life was unusually well-documented – in addition to his own writing, mentions of him appear in the letters of James and Dolly Madison and others. The irony of Madison and others’ debating questions of liberty and justice, including arguments about slavery itself took place as Madison’s slaves stood in waiting, treated like “part of the wallpaper.”
Madison sold William Gardner, the slave who accompanied him to the Continental Congress because after hearing the talk of liberty four years, Gardner’s mind became, according to Madison, “too thoroughly tainted to be a fit companion for fellow slaves in Virginia.” Madison acknowledged the evils of slavery but like many of his peers, he argued that the abolition of slavery was an impossible and impractical idea.
With obvious affection for his owners, Jennings sobbed when Madison died. Arguably Jennings was closer to Madison than even Madison’s own children. Yet the official history of the time doesn’t even mention Jenning's presence at the bedside in Madison’s final moments. Jennings later helped Dolley financially when he was a free man and she a needy widow.
Madison reportedly intended to free his slaves but, in the end, he was more concerned about Dolly’s finances. He instructed in his will that none of their slaves were to be sold without the slaves’ permission. When money was tight Dolly quickly ignored her husband’s wishes. Sometimes to pay the gambling debts of their reprobate son.
This book was powerful, thought-provoking, and extremely uncomfortable.
Madison was a sickly child and was sent to Princeton both for a more acceptable climate and an exceptional education. He was exposed to the greatest thinkers of the enlightenment and perhaps the most diverse student body of the time. His education prepared him to become one of the Founders and the intellectual “Father” of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The great contradiction in Madison owning 100’s of slaves throughout his life is unavoidable. The idea of the kindly slave owner that I heard on my first visit to Mount Vernon in 1966 is now repulsive. Madison and all the Founders, no matter how enlightened they may have been, delegated plantation management and discipline to overseers who were anything but kind. Despite Madison’s great intellect, he remained according to the author “a garden-variety slaveholder.”
Paul Jennings was the property of Madison from birth. He was Madison’s valet who served him in the White House. His positions exposed him to an education, mostly self-taught but also by Madison both directly and by observation. Jennings eventually bought his own freedom, with the help of anti-slavery statesman Daniel Webster.
Jennings’ life was unusually well-documented – in addition to his own writing, mentions of him appear in the letters of James and Dolly Madison and others. The irony of Madison and others’ debating questions of liberty and justice, including arguments about slavery itself took place as Madison’s slaves stood in waiting, treated like “part of the wallpaper.”
Madison sold William Gardner, the slave who accompanied him to the Continental Congress because after hearing the talk of liberty four years, Gardner’s mind became, according to Madison, “too thoroughly tainted to be a fit companion for fellow slaves in Virginia.” Madison acknowledged the evils of slavery but like many of his peers, he argued that the abolition of slavery was an impossible and impractical idea.
With obvious affection for his owners, Jennings sobbed when Madison died. Arguably Jennings was closer to Madison than even Madison’s own children. Yet the official history of the time doesn’t even mention Jenning's presence at the bedside in Madison’s final moments. Jennings later helped Dolley financially when he was a free man and she a needy widow.
Madison reportedly intended to free his slaves but, in the end, he was more concerned about Dolly’s finances. He instructed in his will that none of their slaves were to be sold without the slaves’ permission. When money was tight Dolly quickly ignored her husband’s wishes. Sometimes to pay the gambling debts of their reprobate son.
This book was powerful, thought-provoking, and extremely uncomfortable.
January 12, 2016
Did I enjoy it? I did! The museum I work in is War of 1812 focused in a lot of ways, and we're trying to do more interpretation focusing on the lives of the slaves in the house, so this has been on my to-read list for awhile. It was an interesting look at the Madisons and at life in Virginia and DC during the early 1800s.
Would I read it again? I will probably use parts of it as a reference when doing historical research for work, but I'm probably not going to read the entire thing again.
Who Would I Recommend It To? People interested in early US history, the lives of the presidents, and the lives and roles of slaves during the early 1800s.
Any other thoughts? Jennings wrote one of the few memoirs written by a person of color during this time period. He wasn't formally educated, but growing up a house slave he learned how to read and write by standing in the rooms where Payne Todd, Dolley Madison's son, was having his school lessons. Taylor obviously did her research for this, she read letters and other documents, talked with descendants, and does a good job of painting a picture of what life would have been like then. She also handles the complicated relationship between the Madisons and their slaves well. My biggest complaint is that there was a lot of "if Paul were in the room at this time he may have been doing this" type statements, which are fine in small doses but distracting overall. I understand that Taylor didn't have a ton of information to work off of, but there was a lot of hypothetical situations put forth. She also focused heavily on the Madison's and their lives. Which is fine, and parts of that were definitely important for understanding Jennings, but at some points I wondered if I was reading a biography of Dolley Madison instead. Overall I finished the book with a huge amount of respect for Paul Jennings and his family. The amount of things he accomplished in his life was astounding, and he seemed like a very down-to-earth and kind person. I was also interested to learn just how contentious slavery was when it came to its legality in the capital and in the United States in general. You learn about slavery existing and the Civil War and everything, but the amount of debate surrounding it, even before the Revolutionary War, was really interesting to read about.
Would I read it again? I will probably use parts of it as a reference when doing historical research for work, but I'm probably not going to read the entire thing again.
Who Would I Recommend It To? People interested in early US history, the lives of the presidents, and the lives and roles of slaves during the early 1800s.
Any other thoughts? Jennings wrote one of the few memoirs written by a person of color during this time period. He wasn't formally educated, but growing up a house slave he learned how to read and write by standing in the rooms where Payne Todd, Dolley Madison's son, was having his school lessons. Taylor obviously did her research for this, she read letters and other documents, talked with descendants, and does a good job of painting a picture of what life would have been like then. She also handles the complicated relationship between the Madisons and their slaves well. My biggest complaint is that there was a lot of "if Paul were in the room at this time he may have been doing this" type statements, which are fine in small doses but distracting overall. I understand that Taylor didn't have a ton of information to work off of, but there was a lot of hypothetical situations put forth. She also focused heavily on the Madison's and their lives. Which is fine, and parts of that were definitely important for understanding Jennings, but at some points I wondered if I was reading a biography of Dolley Madison instead. Overall I finished the book with a huge amount of respect for Paul Jennings and his family. The amount of things he accomplished in his life was astounding, and he seemed like a very down-to-earth and kind person. I was also interested to learn just how contentious slavery was when it came to its legality in the capital and in the United States in general. You learn about slavery existing and the Civil War and everything, but the amount of debate surrounding it, even before the Revolutionary War, was really interesting to read about.
January 1, 2012
This book will unfortunately have limited appeal because of its scholarly approach and necessary supposition of much of Paul Jennings' life. I received it from Amazon Vine.
He was born at Montpelier, James and Dolley Madison's home in Virginia. His mother was Dolley's maid and Paul was mullato so he was raised in the house as Dolley's son's "boy." As Payne Todd's constant companion, Paul was present during his sessions with his tutor. Later, as Madison's valet and doorman, he was present during political discussions and long talks about running the agricultural affairs of Montpelier. No surprise, then that he learned to read and write, and that he was more sophisticated and gentlemanly than many slaves.
During the War of 1812, Paul was instrumental in saving the large portrait of George Washington as the British approached, intent on burning the White House. Master and Mistress both trusted Paul implicitly.
However, he remained a slave until Dolley Madison was in deep financial trouble living as a widow in Washington. He had met Daniel Webster, who was known to purchase the freedom of slaves and let them work off the purchase price in his household, perhaps one of the reasons Webster was always broke. By the time Webster bought his freedom, Paul was a middle-aged married man with children.
Because of Paul's position in life, author Elizabeth Dowling Taylor was forced to make too many assumptions about who he met, where he was at any specific time, what he may have overheard, and who his slave associates were. She does use any documentation she has found in her career as a curator and researcher, and there is more than usual for a slave, but still one tires of "he might have" and "probably."
I was quite interested in learning more about Dolley Madison and about President Madison's views on slavery, as well as the life of a slave in a president's house. As I don't mind scholarly works, I did enjoy this book and I believe the author knows as much as one can know about her subject. One just needs to realize what type of book this represents.
He was born at Montpelier, James and Dolley Madison's home in Virginia. His mother was Dolley's maid and Paul was mullato so he was raised in the house as Dolley's son's "boy." As Payne Todd's constant companion, Paul was present during his sessions with his tutor. Later, as Madison's valet and doorman, he was present during political discussions and long talks about running the agricultural affairs of Montpelier. No surprise, then that he learned to read and write, and that he was more sophisticated and gentlemanly than many slaves.
During the War of 1812, Paul was instrumental in saving the large portrait of George Washington as the British approached, intent on burning the White House. Master and Mistress both trusted Paul implicitly.
However, he remained a slave until Dolley Madison was in deep financial trouble living as a widow in Washington. He had met Daniel Webster, who was known to purchase the freedom of slaves and let them work off the purchase price in his household, perhaps one of the reasons Webster was always broke. By the time Webster bought his freedom, Paul was a middle-aged married man with children.
Because of Paul's position in life, author Elizabeth Dowling Taylor was forced to make too many assumptions about who he met, where he was at any specific time, what he may have overheard, and who his slave associates were. She does use any documentation she has found in her career as a curator and researcher, and there is more than usual for a slave, but still one tires of "he might have" and "probably."
I was quite interested in learning more about Dolley Madison and about President Madison's views on slavery, as well as the life of a slave in a president's house. As I don't mind scholarly works, I did enjoy this book and I believe the author knows as much as one can know about her subject. One just needs to realize what type of book this represents.
August 17, 2017
I'm grateful to have received a free copy of this book, and am a little embarrassed that it took me nearly four years to finish it.
The book does two things, both well. First, it tells the story of Paul Jennings, born an enslaved person on James Madison's Virginia plantation. He served Madison as a personal attendant, then Madison's widow Dolley, and then bought his freedom with the help of Daniel Webster. I found the first few chapters solid but slow (and got stuck there), but from Madison's time in the White House on, the story picks up. Along the way, the story provides a particularly poignant (or, perhaps, searing) view of the gap between Madison's high ideals of liberty, and the reality of slavery, demeaning at best and often casually brutal. Many of the sources that survive from the period focus on what James and Dolley and their white friends and visitors said and did - not so different from what a biography of them might include. But, this book uses the documented presence of Jennings to ask what those conversations - about justice, about social order, about the capacities of black people - sounded like from the perspective of a highly competent enslaved person who had to stand in the room silently and attentively. Evidence suggests Jennings long dreamed of freedom, and after he won it for himself, put himself on the line to help other enslaved people buy their freedom or attempt to escape.
The second goal of the book is to make Jennings' history come alive by sketching his line down to the present day, to a gathering of a couple dozen of his descendants at the White House in 2009 to honor his memory. While this aspect of the book moved me less, it's not a lot of pages, and I can see how it could be really powerful for readers who often find themselves and their families excluded or simply left out of histories of the early 1800s; it's celebration of a continuity between Jennings' experiences and our increasingly diverse American identity today.
The book does two things, both well. First, it tells the story of Paul Jennings, born an enslaved person on James Madison's Virginia plantation. He served Madison as a personal attendant, then Madison's widow Dolley, and then bought his freedom with the help of Daniel Webster. I found the first few chapters solid but slow (and got stuck there), but from Madison's time in the White House on, the story picks up. Along the way, the story provides a particularly poignant (or, perhaps, searing) view of the gap between Madison's high ideals of liberty, and the reality of slavery, demeaning at best and often casually brutal. Many of the sources that survive from the period focus on what James and Dolley and their white friends and visitors said and did - not so different from what a biography of them might include. But, this book uses the documented presence of Jennings to ask what those conversations - about justice, about social order, about the capacities of black people - sounded like from the perspective of a highly competent enslaved person who had to stand in the room silently and attentively. Evidence suggests Jennings long dreamed of freedom, and after he won it for himself, put himself on the line to help other enslaved people buy their freedom or attempt to escape.
The second goal of the book is to make Jennings' history come alive by sketching his line down to the present day, to a gathering of a couple dozen of his descendants at the White House in 2009 to honor his memory. While this aspect of the book moved me less, it's not a lot of pages, and I can see how it could be really powerful for readers who often find themselves and their families excluded or simply left out of histories of the early 1800s; it's celebration of a continuity between Jennings' experiences and our increasingly diverse American identity today.
February 8, 2021
I knew that many things would upset me, but I did want to know what this man had to say. This was very well researched, and I would recommend that it not be rushed reading. I listened to the audio and felt reading the book would have been better. It was tough to listen to much of the words. It wasn’t pleasant to be reminded of how people could treat other human beings at that time.
Jennings’s recorded his observations without any prejudices. I get the feeling he was and remained very much a gentleman throughout his life, and did his best to help others. The author put together a very respectful and objective account of the time without adding drama or taking sides.
Jennings’s recorded his observations without any prejudices. I get the feeling he was and remained very much a gentleman throughout his life, and did his best to help others. The author put together a very respectful and objective account of the time without adding drama or taking sides.
February 19, 2018
Well written, interesting, well paced and easy reading. This focuses as much on the times as the subject.
March 3, 2019
The first two-thirds of the book is more the story of the Madisons than it is of the slave, Paul Jennings. Much about Jennings had to be inferred, but the inferences made by Taylor are reasonable.
Some of the early history of the U.S. ... I am embarrassed to admit that I should have known but didn't. E.g.,
- The discussion of emancipation was heavily weighted with the need to start colonies specifically for free blacks. It seemed highly unlikely to gentlemen from the early 1800s that blacks and whites would every be able to live peaceably side-by-side. (And we're still struggling with that issue.)
- Zachary Taylor (#12) was a cousin of James Madison (#4).
- Dolly Madison was truly known for her skill as a hostess. (And for being fairly heartless in the way she treated 'her' slaves.)
The Foreword and Author's Notes will be useful tools for recalling the contents of the book.
Some of the early history of the U.S. ... I am embarrassed to admit that I should have known but didn't. E.g.,
- The discussion of emancipation was heavily weighted with the need to start colonies specifically for free blacks. It seemed highly unlikely to gentlemen from the early 1800s that blacks and whites would every be able to live peaceably side-by-side. (And we're still struggling with that issue.)
- Zachary Taylor (#12) was a cousin of James Madison (#4).
- Dolly Madison was truly known for her skill as a hostess. (And for being fairly heartless in the way she treated 'her' slaves.)
The Foreword and Author's Notes will be useful tools for recalling the contents of the book.
September 9, 2012
This book begins with an introduction by Annette Gordon-Reed, who documented the Hemings Family of Monticello in The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. As author Elizabeth Dowling Taylor unfolds the Jennings-Madison story you see Presidents Jefferson and Madison had a lot more in common than statecraft. Both thought, wrote and spoke extensively and loftily on the rights of man... and both... despite their high rhetoric maintained enslaved populations.
The first half of the book (Chapters 1 - 4, divided from the second half by pictures) covers the nature of slavery in the households of James Madison in his Montpelier plantation, the White House and the temporary presidential quarters following the burning of the Capitol by the British in 1814. The second half covers the widowhood of Dolley Madison, the Pearl incident which included a 15 year old slave from her household, the death of Dolley Madison's son (the President's step-son), Daniel Webster and finally, two chapters exclusively on Paul Jennings and his progeny. The Appendix is an excerpt from a book Jennings wrote on his time with President Madison.
While there are very few pages on the White House (contrary to what you expect from the title), the book gives the perspective of Paul Jennings as representative of those who served in formal environments, there and elsewhere, where rarified talk of rights and liberty filled the air. Author Taylor poses ideas on how such conversations were most likely understood by the servers who had no liberty.
James Madison's will had rhetoric about his slaves consenting to their next master and some talk of freedom. Dolley Madison ignored this and postured that she would only sell slaves to friends and family (which she similarly did not honor). Dolley's son who eventually inherited what had not been sold of the Madison slaves, promised freedom plus $200 each upon his death... but his slaves had been already pledged as collateral on his debts. With the help of Daniel Webster, Paul Jennings bought his freedom. In short, the Madison family, despite its rhetoric did not free one slave.
While the drudge of life was taken care of, slave holders in remote locations with a large proportion of enslaved people had deep fears of revolt. The Madisons lived with an uneasy defensive posture towards notables such as Harriet Martineau, Edward Coles, Daniel Webster and General Lafayette who held higher moral ground.
I had a review copy and I hope the final will have an index. There is a good genealogy chart of the Jennings family.
The first half of the book (Chapters 1 - 4, divided from the second half by pictures) covers the nature of slavery in the households of James Madison in his Montpelier plantation, the White House and the temporary presidential quarters following the burning of the Capitol by the British in 1814. The second half covers the widowhood of Dolley Madison, the Pearl incident which included a 15 year old slave from her household, the death of Dolley Madison's son (the President's step-son), Daniel Webster and finally, two chapters exclusively on Paul Jennings and his progeny. The Appendix is an excerpt from a book Jennings wrote on his time with President Madison.
While there are very few pages on the White House (contrary to what you expect from the title), the book gives the perspective of Paul Jennings as representative of those who served in formal environments, there and elsewhere, where rarified talk of rights and liberty filled the air. Author Taylor poses ideas on how such conversations were most likely understood by the servers who had no liberty.
James Madison's will had rhetoric about his slaves consenting to their next master and some talk of freedom. Dolley Madison ignored this and postured that she would only sell slaves to friends and family (which she similarly did not honor). Dolley's son who eventually inherited what had not been sold of the Madison slaves, promised freedom plus $200 each upon his death... but his slaves had been already pledged as collateral on his debts. With the help of Daniel Webster, Paul Jennings bought his freedom. In short, the Madison family, despite its rhetoric did not free one slave.
While the drudge of life was taken care of, slave holders in remote locations with a large proportion of enslaved people had deep fears of revolt. The Madisons lived with an uneasy defensive posture towards notables such as Harriet Martineau, Edward Coles, Daniel Webster and General Lafayette who held higher moral ground.
I had a review copy and I hope the final will have an index. There is a good genealogy chart of the Jennings family.
August 30, 2016
This is exactly what a minor work of popular history should be. Paul Jennings is the first White House memoirist. He published A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison later in life, a slim volume of memories mostly connected with the British invasion of Washington D.C. during the War of 1812. This volume is so slim, in fact, that it is reprinted as an appendix. The main book is a biography of Paul Jennings, born a slave on James Madison's Montpelier estate in a bloodcurdling testament to what the Southern founders were willing to sacrifice for their own economic maintenance. Jennings was brought to Washington at age 10 as a houseboy when Madison was elected Secretary of State and may have toyed with plots of running away while working his way up to being Madison's personal manservant; Taylor does a good job of inferring while not overguessing. She finds another plot to free slaves that Jennings was almost definitely involved in although absolutely no record survives later on when a boat attempting to transport 77 slaves north runs aground. Jennings himself was almost promised freedom by Madison on his death, which never happened, possibly because Dolley was not interested in honoring a document separate from Madison's will, on the distribution of his slaves. Jennings continued to serve Dolley, and even after he bought his freedom, graciously to the point of alarmingness, slipped her some cash every now and then as she became an increasingly destitute widow of a bygone era. Jennings became a community-minded gentleman of his neighborhood and owned some modest property. He also freed all his children, the descendants of whom, the author amazingly traced, including to a great-granddaughter who had memories that corroborated some written evidence, to Taylor's joy. Overall, this is a good slim volume about a man of modest historical interest but amazing character.
January 11, 2012
I teach US History and I am always looking for books that would interest my 8th graders. I used parts of this book while we were studying the War of 1812, to get the perspective of how someone else saw James Madison. My students were able to have another point of view coming from a slave in the White House. I enjoyed following the life of Paul Jennings with Madison, Daniel Webster and life after these two famous individuals of our past. I can only sum this up by using the author Elizabeth Dowling Taylor's own words, "One learns that Paul Jennings was touched by history. Jennings's own story shows bow he touched history. He did not grab it by the shirt front as James Madison did, yet - in the face of relentless legal, social, and psychological impediments - it took as much strength, application, and courage just to touch it." I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy reading about our past. This book will take you on a ride from the War of 1812, through the Civil War, and beyond.
January 29, 2012
I enjoyed the the history lessons learned from the book. I agree with others who state that in the beginning there was too much jumping around betweem various dates and names. I got confused, and had to keep checking back on the prior page. But I was still enthralled enough with the story/subject matter and persisted in reading it.
The latter part of the book flowed much more easily. In the end, I was struck by how differently I was taught history in grade school...this was an eye opener to challenge me in thinking about the hypocrisy of our founding 'fathers' who espoused liberty for all, but were themselves slaveowners.
The latter part of the book flowed much more easily. In the end, I was struck by how differently I was taught history in grade school...this was an eye opener to challenge me in thinking about the hypocrisy of our founding 'fathers' who espoused liberty for all, but were themselves slaveowners.
November 10, 2016
This author did a really good job of setting the scene for Paul Jennings' life. Since there isn't any way to know many details about Paul Jennings, the author was required to do extensive research on the lives of his peers at the time, and she did a great job showing us what life then was like, and thus what his life likely could have been like. Paul Jennings was born a slave and died a freeman; he worked for the Madisons during their time in the White House.
Slavery is very depressing to read about, but I also find it hopeful in many ways. I see so many sad and awful things in the world I live in today, and knowing how awful slavery was and how engrained in American life it was and then likewise knowing that it was eventually eradicated, gives me hope that the awful things of now can also be overcome by good people fighting for a better world.
And, once again, I am reminded that I have no idea what it is like to be black. One of my only ways to understand is through reading books like this.
"It would be wrong to simply read his story as one of triumph. Jennings's progress through life showcase the oppression at the heart of the American slave system. Jennings was an intelligent man forced to live in the service of others. He developed his talents and character in spite of the society into which he was born. It is proper to highlight his achievements, but it is also important to consider how much further he could have gone if slavery and white supremacy had not blighted his existence. His is a life to marvel at, but one that invites deep and clear-eyed consideration of America's past." (That excerpt is from the foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed.)
"I shared what I had discovered about Paul Jennings with his descendants. One of them informed me that her twenty-something son claimed that learning about his ancestor through my research was 'a life-changing experience—I did not know black people did things like that then.' Every schoolchild knows about the accomplishments of James Madison, but the story of Paul Jennings's deliberate and courageous pursuit of that most American of promises, the right to rise, offers fresh perspectives and sensibilities to all Americans." (That excerpt is from the author's note.)
"Slaves worked a six-day week, dawn to dusk, with a break at midday. This meant about a nine-hour workday in the winter but as long as fourteen hours in the heat of the summer. . . . [House servants] tended to be on call twenty-four hours a day, and being under the constant eye of the master was taxing. Field slaves were exposed to outdoor conditions during a brutally long day, but the night was their own."
"Occasionally, especially during stretches of arduous work, whiskey or beer was allotted. Madison Sr.'s records reveal that women in childbirth were allowed whiskey."
"The living conditions for Montpelier slaves were not greatly different from those of free poor to middling people, which classification would include most free Virginians at this time, making a bare living out of sustenance farming."
"[Madison] never had but one suit at a time. He had some poor relatives that he had to help, and wished to set an example of economy in the matter of dress."
"Paul Jennings and Fanny Gordon married in 1822. Slave marriages were not recognized by law. As the bride's brother Edmund Spotsey later explained, 'They were married according to the manner of slave law in Virginia. Each master gave consent. Paul Jennings and Fannie Jennings were given a marriage supper at her master's home.' Thus the bond between man and wife solemnized. The couple did not live together. Jennings at Montpelier was a good two hours' walk from his wife at Howard Place. A skilled horseman, he reduced his travel time considerably when he was allowed to take a mount to the Howards' farm. With his attendance of Madison so constant, it it likely that he commuted to see Fanny only weekly, on Saturday evening, to spend all of Sunday together, the one day slaves traditionally had off."
"Northrup arrived there in the company of two white men who had lured him to Washington on the pretense of employment but who in fact plotted all along to sell him to slavers. . . . This is the maze Northrup tried to find his way out of after being drugged by his companions. He lost consciousness; when he regained it, he was fettered in irons, destined to endure a dozen years illegally enslaved on a Louisiana cotton plantation."
"Some baskets were filled with goods for Dolley Madison. In her last years, reported Jennings, 'she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life.' . . . Webster regularly sent Jennings to Dolley's house with a market basket full of provisions and told him that if he noticed anything she was in need of, to take it to her. 'I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket,' Jennings added. In an ironic reversal of fortune, then, the ex-slave showed a generosity of spirit toward his former mistress."
"The court's opinion, which the Chief Justice had written himself and read aloud . . . found that slaves could be held in free territories and that not only slaves but even free persons descended from them were entitled to none of the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution. Taney rendered his interpretation of the country's founding documents plainly enough: members of the 'negro African race,' characterized as 'a subordinate and inferior class of beings,' could never rise to the rank of citizen; indeed, 'they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'"
Slavery is very depressing to read about, but I also find it hopeful in many ways. I see so many sad and awful things in the world I live in today, and knowing how awful slavery was and how engrained in American life it was and then likewise knowing that it was eventually eradicated, gives me hope that the awful things of now can also be overcome by good people fighting for a better world.
And, once again, I am reminded that I have no idea what it is like to be black. One of my only ways to understand is through reading books like this.
"It would be wrong to simply read his story as one of triumph. Jennings's progress through life showcase the oppression at the heart of the American slave system. Jennings was an intelligent man forced to live in the service of others. He developed his talents and character in spite of the society into which he was born. It is proper to highlight his achievements, but it is also important to consider how much further he could have gone if slavery and white supremacy had not blighted his existence. His is a life to marvel at, but one that invites deep and clear-eyed consideration of America's past." (That excerpt is from the foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed.)
"I shared what I had discovered about Paul Jennings with his descendants. One of them informed me that her twenty-something son claimed that learning about his ancestor through my research was 'a life-changing experience—I did not know black people did things like that then.' Every schoolchild knows about the accomplishments of James Madison, but the story of Paul Jennings's deliberate and courageous pursuit of that most American of promises, the right to rise, offers fresh perspectives and sensibilities to all Americans." (That excerpt is from the author's note.)
"Slaves worked a six-day week, dawn to dusk, with a break at midday. This meant about a nine-hour workday in the winter but as long as fourteen hours in the heat of the summer. . . . [House servants] tended to be on call twenty-four hours a day, and being under the constant eye of the master was taxing. Field slaves were exposed to outdoor conditions during a brutally long day, but the night was their own."
"Occasionally, especially during stretches of arduous work, whiskey or beer was allotted. Madison Sr.'s records reveal that women in childbirth were allowed whiskey."
"The living conditions for Montpelier slaves were not greatly different from those of free poor to middling people, which classification would include most free Virginians at this time, making a bare living out of sustenance farming."
"[Madison] never had but one suit at a time. He had some poor relatives that he had to help, and wished to set an example of economy in the matter of dress."
"Paul Jennings and Fanny Gordon married in 1822. Slave marriages were not recognized by law. As the bride's brother Edmund Spotsey later explained, 'They were married according to the manner of slave law in Virginia. Each master gave consent. Paul Jennings and Fannie Jennings were given a marriage supper at her master's home.' Thus the bond between man and wife solemnized. The couple did not live together. Jennings at Montpelier was a good two hours' walk from his wife at Howard Place. A skilled horseman, he reduced his travel time considerably when he was allowed to take a mount to the Howards' farm. With his attendance of Madison so constant, it it likely that he commuted to see Fanny only weekly, on Saturday evening, to spend all of Sunday together, the one day slaves traditionally had off."
"Northrup arrived there in the company of two white men who had lured him to Washington on the pretense of employment but who in fact plotted all along to sell him to slavers. . . . This is the maze Northrup tried to find his way out of after being drugged by his companions. He lost consciousness; when he regained it, he was fettered in irons, destined to endure a dozen years illegally enslaved on a Louisiana cotton plantation."
"Some baskets were filled with goods for Dolley Madison. In her last years, reported Jennings, 'she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life.' . . . Webster regularly sent Jennings to Dolley's house with a market basket full of provisions and told him that if he noticed anything she was in need of, to take it to her. 'I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket,' Jennings added. In an ironic reversal of fortune, then, the ex-slave showed a generosity of spirit toward his former mistress."
"The court's opinion, which the Chief Justice had written himself and read aloud . . . found that slaves could be held in free territories and that not only slaves but even free persons descended from them were entitled to none of the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution. Taney rendered his interpretation of the country's founding documents plainly enough: members of the 'negro African race,' characterized as 'a subordinate and inferior class of beings,' could never rise to the rank of citizen; indeed, 'they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'"
August 27, 2012
When our illustrious Founding Fathers spoke of 'freedom,' it appears that they were thinking of a rather small percentage of their world. The Freedom they sought so valiantly did not encompass women or people of color. Or the poor. Or the indentured. Or the enslaved. Or the unpropertied. In fact, if you were not a caucasian male, preferably of European origins, with a comfortable income, a good profession, and a nice hunk of property, you were a little bit out of luck in the Freedom Sweepstakes.
James Madison was another freedom fighting early President who (with clenched teeth and hating every minute of it, no doubt) owned a number of his fellow human beings. A believer in 'separate and not too equal, Madison did indeed want to do the right thing but at the same time was not eager to discomfort himself. So he promised his slaves...not all, of course, but a very special few who earned the privilege, that they would be freed upon his death. After a lifetime of slavery, of course, but life can't all be roses and light, can it. Unfortunately, the will was not iron clad and Dolley Madison saw things otherwise.
Born on Madison's Virginia plantation, Jennings grew up in the White House, served the President faithfully and watched over the old man on his deathbed. It was a long road, but the prize at the end, Freedom, must have heartened Jennings over those many years of enslavement. But freeing Jennings would have been financially foolish for poor Dolley, so despite all the promises, she reneged on her husband's promise. Instead she sends him out to work for others and kept "the last red cent" of his pay. She failed to provide him with clothing, deciding that the scant food she offered was recompense enough. She suggested he seek "extras" such as trousers and shoes by soliciting tips from those who hired him, by begging or by working during those few hours when she could not find other employment for him.
When her insurance man made her a decent offer, Mrs. Madison sold Jennings to him as "an investment" -- either to be resold or to be hired out for profit. Senator Daniel Webster, a man who opposed slavery with deeds as well as words, stepped in at this point, purchased Jennings himself, and immediately terminated his slavery. A practical Yankee, however, Webster did make Jennings pay him back the $120.
Jennings was an amazing human being. Born into slavery, he managed to educate himself, learn a trade, buy his children's freedom while a slave himself, and see sons fight against the South and against trafficking in people. And when the stupid and frivolous Dolly was impoverished and abandoned, Jennings came forward and, given his own small means, helped support the old crone until her death. A man she considered subhuman -- who was nothing more to her than chattel or livestock -- gave her back some dignity, showed her some kindness when no one else cared. Go figure. How many of us would have the nobility of soul to do the same? Not me. I'd have swatted the old bat off of her rocking chair. And if she got up, I'd go back and do it again.
The book is based on Jennings own diaries, journals and letters. So very little is available to us that shows slavery from the slave's point of view. The details of daily life are fascinating, but it's the attitude toward freedom (and here I mean freedom not only in the grand sense, but also in it's most heartbreakingly small details...the freedome to read, to walk down the street unaccosted and unmolested, to think and work and earn and eat and sleep and raise one's children without the consent of another) that leaves a mark on the reader.
This is a moving and powerful book, well and concisely written, and almost impossible to put down once you open it.
James Madison was another freedom fighting early President who (with clenched teeth and hating every minute of it, no doubt) owned a number of his fellow human beings. A believer in 'separate and not too equal, Madison did indeed want to do the right thing but at the same time was not eager to discomfort himself. So he promised his slaves...not all, of course, but a very special few who earned the privilege, that they would be freed upon his death. After a lifetime of slavery, of course, but life can't all be roses and light, can it. Unfortunately, the will was not iron clad and Dolley Madison saw things otherwise.
Born on Madison's Virginia plantation, Jennings grew up in the White House, served the President faithfully and watched over the old man on his deathbed. It was a long road, but the prize at the end, Freedom, must have heartened Jennings over those many years of enslavement. But freeing Jennings would have been financially foolish for poor Dolley, so despite all the promises, she reneged on her husband's promise. Instead she sends him out to work for others and kept "the last red cent" of his pay. She failed to provide him with clothing, deciding that the scant food she offered was recompense enough. She suggested he seek "extras" such as trousers and shoes by soliciting tips from those who hired him, by begging or by working during those few hours when she could not find other employment for him.
When her insurance man made her a decent offer, Mrs. Madison sold Jennings to him as "an investment" -- either to be resold or to be hired out for profit. Senator Daniel Webster, a man who opposed slavery with deeds as well as words, stepped in at this point, purchased Jennings himself, and immediately terminated his slavery. A practical Yankee, however, Webster did make Jennings pay him back the $120.
Jennings was an amazing human being. Born into slavery, he managed to educate himself, learn a trade, buy his children's freedom while a slave himself, and see sons fight against the South and against trafficking in people. And when the stupid and frivolous Dolly was impoverished and abandoned, Jennings came forward and, given his own small means, helped support the old crone until her death. A man she considered subhuman -- who was nothing more to her than chattel or livestock -- gave her back some dignity, showed her some kindness when no one else cared. Go figure. How many of us would have the nobility of soul to do the same? Not me. I'd have swatted the old bat off of her rocking chair. And if she got up, I'd go back and do it again.
The book is based on Jennings own diaries, journals and letters. So very little is available to us that shows slavery from the slave's point of view. The details of daily life are fascinating, but it's the attitude toward freedom (and here I mean freedom not only in the grand sense, but also in it's most heartbreakingly small details...the freedome to read, to walk down the street unaccosted and unmolested, to think and work and earn and eat and sleep and raise one's children without the consent of another) that leaves a mark on the reader.
This is a moving and powerful book, well and concisely written, and almost impossible to put down once you open it.
April 22, 2017
I will admit that I wanted to read this book almost exclusively because of a borderline throwaway line in a National Geographic documentary from the early 90s. And this book wasn't as terrible as the review might make it seem, but it wasn't super great either, to be honest. There were parts where Taylor's writing about enslaved people struck me as like... gross and weird? Which made this book a little difficult, given that it's about an enslaved man. She at one point said that being polite and tactful was "second nature" to Paul Jennings and that really strikes me as terrifyingly close to like undermining the situation in which he lived that made it so he had to learn to do that?
And I guess I'm just confused how a book about an enslaved person like this can exist with writing like that in a post-Orlando Patterson/Saidiya Hartman/so many other people world? I get that it's meant for a popular audience, but I don't think that excuses a lack of really digging into what it meant to be an enslaved person. Taylor does it at times, noting the differences in experiences between those working in the house versus those working in the fields, but there's a lot more that could and honestly should have been done in grappling with that.
That being said, there was some decent information in there about enslavement in Washington, DC, and I do think bringing Jennings's life to the fore is an important project; I just wish it had been done with a little more care and reference to the larger historiography and theorization that's out there.
And I guess I'm just confused how a book about an enslaved person like this can exist with writing like that in a post-Orlando Patterson/Saidiya Hartman/so many other people world? I get that it's meant for a popular audience, but I don't think that excuses a lack of really digging into what it meant to be an enslaved person. Taylor does it at times, noting the differences in experiences between those working in the house versus those working in the fields, but there's a lot more that could and honestly should have been done in grappling with that.
That being said, there was some decent information in there about enslavement in Washington, DC, and I do think bringing Jennings's life to the fore is an important project; I just wish it had been done with a little more care and reference to the larger historiography and theorization that's out there.
January 15, 2018
"A Slave in the White House" by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor gave an engaging and extensive researched account of the enslavement and freedom of Paul Jennings ( slave, writer, property-owner, freedom fighter, husband, and father) by Senator Daniel Webster.
As I read this book, the writing caused me to reflected on a 19th century--- a time long passed... where the politics of slavery were profound but crucial and how grounding 'colors' as property only exposing a president's deed and misdeeds in Washington, D.C. at Montpelier while "espousing the merits of liberty."
This was a thought-provoking history lesson on Paul Jennings and his struggle under slave owners, James and Dolley Madison as their valet.... to his life after freedom til death. Taylor will cause you to see the principled failures of our Founding Fathers but also get you to see "their unwillingness to accept the notion that black people should enjoy the benefits of freedom so eloquently expressed in the nation's founding documents."
5+humble stars *****
As I read this book, the writing caused me to reflected on a 19th century--- a time long passed... where the politics of slavery were profound but crucial and how grounding 'colors' as property only exposing a president's deed and misdeeds in Washington, D.C. at Montpelier while "espousing the merits of liberty."
This was a thought-provoking history lesson on Paul Jennings and his struggle under slave owners, James and Dolley Madison as their valet.... to his life after freedom til death. Taylor will cause you to see the principled failures of our Founding Fathers but also get you to see "their unwillingness to accept the notion that black people should enjoy the benefits of freedom so eloquently expressed in the nation's founding documents."
5+humble stars *****
July 20, 2014
This is a fascinating book especially for any one who is interested in American history. We learn not only about the life of Paul Jennings, his life as a slave to President James Madison and his life as a freed slave living and working in Washington, DC., but the author provides us with a unique look at the daily life at Madison'ts Montpelier estate.
It is well written and well documented and the author includes photographs of the Jennings family.
It is well written and well documented and the author includes photographs of the Jennings family.
January 23, 2012
I did not finish the book because it started to bore me. After 91 pages, I was tired of the mass jumble of names and the plodding style of the writing.
November 13, 2024
A good history lesson.
July 13, 2017
There has been a growing number of books in recent years that have demonstrated the role of slavery in the early American Republic, much of which has decreased the esteem in which our nation's founding fathers--especially the southern ones--have been held [1]. Likewise there is a contemporary trend, which this Berkley-trained author would be well aware of, to look at history from the point of view of ordinary people who were not the elites that usually make it into the historical record. Yet for all of the attempts this book makes at populist history, it is quite remarkable that this book is about an elite--a literate mulatto gentleman whose rise from slavery ended with him a substantial property owner in Washington DC and the patriarch of a large family that, although daughtered out, remains a part of the contemporary professional black elite to this day. This is a book that spends a lot of time talking about famous people from the perspective of their largely invisible black servants, and despite my lack of sympathy with the author's political worldview, this book is a worthwhile one in showing a life whose story deserve to be told and heard.
Overall, this book is a conventional biography in terms of its chronological focus and its great interest in matters of political history. Its most unconventional qualities include an appendix that contains the entirety of Paul Jenning's own memoir, which was the first White House memoir in existence, discussing his youth as a liveried slave of President Madison during his time in the White House. Aside from the memoir, this book is of value in demonstrating through the heroic research of the author and those who helped her that Paul Jennings, its subject, lived a life worth remembering and honoring. Born in slavery to a mixed-race mother and a putative white merchant father, Paul was trained as a valet and coachman and worked alongside James and then Dolly Madison for many years. During that time he married, helped save the famous Stuart painting of George Washington from destruction during the War of 1812, had several children, and eventually purchased his own freedom through a savvy use of networking. The author writes here with a great deal of admiration for Jennings, and that admiration appears to be deserved if one appreciates literate slaves who preserve the honor of their masters while simultaneously seeking to undermine slavery from inside and finding their own freedom and their own dignity. Jenning's life led him to become a published author as well as the father of some brave Union soldiers who was also active in helping fugitive slaves, all of which is worthy of being honored.
Whether or not someone appreciates this book depends on a few factors. Those who hold to a view of our founding fathers as saints who could do no wrong will likely find much to criticize in the author's strong assertions that while Madison was an extraordinary genius in political science that he was fairly ordinary as a slave owner. Dolly Madison comes off even worse with her betrayal of her father's antislavery principles, her own trafficking of slaves to support her extravagant hospitality in Washington DC, and the fact that she got unearned credit for saving the Washington painting that should have belonged to some of her quick-thinking hired and enslaved help. Dolly Madison's neer-do-well son comes off even worse with his alcoholism and troublemaking leading him to a melancholy end. Within this book there is a tension between the rise of Jennings and his family from slavery to freedom and the decline of the slaveowning elites of the South like Madison and others. As a historical work, this deserves a great deal of attention even where the author does not always come off as particularly likable in her judgments.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
Overall, this book is a conventional biography in terms of its chronological focus and its great interest in matters of political history. Its most unconventional qualities include an appendix that contains the entirety of Paul Jenning's own memoir, which was the first White House memoir in existence, discussing his youth as a liveried slave of President Madison during his time in the White House. Aside from the memoir, this book is of value in demonstrating through the heroic research of the author and those who helped her that Paul Jennings, its subject, lived a life worth remembering and honoring. Born in slavery to a mixed-race mother and a putative white merchant father, Paul was trained as a valet and coachman and worked alongside James and then Dolly Madison for many years. During that time he married, helped save the famous Stuart painting of George Washington from destruction during the War of 1812, had several children, and eventually purchased his own freedom through a savvy use of networking. The author writes here with a great deal of admiration for Jennings, and that admiration appears to be deserved if one appreciates literate slaves who preserve the honor of their masters while simultaneously seeking to undermine slavery from inside and finding their own freedom and their own dignity. Jenning's life led him to become a published author as well as the father of some brave Union soldiers who was also active in helping fugitive slaves, all of which is worthy of being honored.
Whether or not someone appreciates this book depends on a few factors. Those who hold to a view of our founding fathers as saints who could do no wrong will likely find much to criticize in the author's strong assertions that while Madison was an extraordinary genius in political science that he was fairly ordinary as a slave owner. Dolly Madison comes off even worse with her betrayal of her father's antislavery principles, her own trafficking of slaves to support her extravagant hospitality in Washington DC, and the fact that she got unearned credit for saving the Washington painting that should have belonged to some of her quick-thinking hired and enslaved help. Dolly Madison's neer-do-well son comes off even worse with his alcoholism and troublemaking leading him to a melancholy end. Within this book there is a tension between the rise of Jennings and his family from slavery to freedom and the decline of the slaveowning elites of the South like Madison and others. As a historical work, this deserves a great deal of attention even where the author does not always come off as particularly likable in her judgments.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
April 11, 2024
I stumbled across this audiobook at the library and I am glad that I did. It reconstructs as much as possible the life story of Paul Jennings, born enslaved at James Madison's Montpelier estate in 1799, and uses his story to explore the place and experience of enslaved persons in antebellum American political life, particularly during the Madison presidency.
It is hard to reconstruct the lives and experience of any group people who were invisible in or marginalized by their society. Historians rely on documents and material evidence, and what societies tend to preserve of either is heavily skewed toward those of consequence to those societies. So much must be inferred from silences and gaps. So much must be decoded from the skewed ways the dominant group represents the subservient group in its writing and other records. In the case of slavery in America, this problem is magnified.
Unlike most enslaved persons, Paul Jennings not only could read and write, his circumstances enabled him to leave some written records of his own--including the first White House memoir--and also to bequeath to his descendants a variety of real and personal property as well as significant and intact oral history of his life. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor was able to interview Jennings' great-granddaughter in 2008, and to view some of the artifacts of Jennings' life. These are still far from sufficient to tell the whole story, and Taylor has done a fairly good job of reconstructing the story using extant records, and reasonable inferences and suppositions.
I do have one significant difficulty with Taylor's work. What she presents in one chapter as reasonable supposition, appropriately couched in "may have's" or "probably's" or "it is reasonable to suppose's" tends becomes in later chapters certainty. For instance, Jennings may have played an important role in the famous salvaging of the portrait of George Washington in the rush to evacuate just before the British arrived in Washington in 1814. It is unclear exactly which members of the Madison's enslaved staff actually climbed up on a ladder, broke the frame of the portrait, put the stretched canvas into a wagon, and drove it out of the city. It is certain that, contrary to what we learned in elementary school, Dolly Madison did not do this work herself. (It is also certain that no one cut the painting out of the frame and rolled it up.) But by the end of the book Taylor has moved to stating that it was Jennings who saved the painting.
I cannot tell from the audiobook if Taylor provides any footnotes, bibliography, or other scholarly apparatus in support of her narrative. It is normal for an audiobook to omit these when they are present, for obvious reasons.
I learned a number of things that were new to me about the experiences common to enslaved persons. For instance, Taylor states that it was normal for enslaved families to have surnames. Whites chose not to record most of those names, and when they did, they often reported them in language that undermined their validity. I also learned a great deal about James Madison. In fact, I learned a lot more about Madison the man than I did about Jennings. I also learned some things about Dolly Madison that correct the myths that came to me in childhood.
I definitely recommend this book.
It is hard to reconstruct the lives and experience of any group people who were invisible in or marginalized by their society. Historians rely on documents and material evidence, and what societies tend to preserve of either is heavily skewed toward those of consequence to those societies. So much must be inferred from silences and gaps. So much must be decoded from the skewed ways the dominant group represents the subservient group in its writing and other records. In the case of slavery in America, this problem is magnified.
Unlike most enslaved persons, Paul Jennings not only could read and write, his circumstances enabled him to leave some written records of his own--including the first White House memoir--and also to bequeath to his descendants a variety of real and personal property as well as significant and intact oral history of his life. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor was able to interview Jennings' great-granddaughter in 2008, and to view some of the artifacts of Jennings' life. These are still far from sufficient to tell the whole story, and Taylor has done a fairly good job of reconstructing the story using extant records, and reasonable inferences and suppositions.
I do have one significant difficulty with Taylor's work. What she presents in one chapter as reasonable supposition, appropriately couched in "may have's" or "probably's" or "it is reasonable to suppose's" tends becomes in later chapters certainty. For instance, Jennings may have played an important role in the famous salvaging of the portrait of George Washington in the rush to evacuate just before the British arrived in Washington in 1814. It is unclear exactly which members of the Madison's enslaved staff actually climbed up on a ladder, broke the frame of the portrait, put the stretched canvas into a wagon, and drove it out of the city. It is certain that, contrary to what we learned in elementary school, Dolly Madison did not do this work herself. (It is also certain that no one cut the painting out of the frame and rolled it up.) But by the end of the book Taylor has moved to stating that it was Jennings who saved the painting.
I cannot tell from the audiobook if Taylor provides any footnotes, bibliography, or other scholarly apparatus in support of her narrative. It is normal for an audiobook to omit these when they are present, for obvious reasons.
I learned a number of things that were new to me about the experiences common to enslaved persons. For instance, Taylor states that it was normal for enslaved families to have surnames. Whites chose not to record most of those names, and when they did, they often reported them in language that undermined their validity. I also learned a great deal about James Madison. In fact, I learned a lot more about Madison the man than I did about Jennings. I also learned some things about Dolly Madison that correct the myths that came to me in childhood.
I definitely recommend this book.
June 3, 2023
Briefly - this book largely focuses on the life of Paul Jennings, an educated enslaved person who was owned by James Madison and eventually bought his freedom and reached prosperity.
This book does a great job in many things. First, it highlights the remarkable story of Paul Jennings who experiences the ultimate rags to riches tale. Too often, books don't tell the stories of the enslaved people and the amount of research Taylor did to build a full record of Jennings' life is impressive. From enslaved person to a property owner who worked for the federal government with a large, free family (and descendants living to this day) his story is quite inspiring. After gaining his freedom, he worked tirelessly to free his fellow people and advocate on their behalf. Truly inspiring, and I'm very glad I know his name and his story. The book also includes the brief article Jennings published about his time with the Madisons.
The book also does a great job of showing the contradictions of many of our founders without tilting into either condemnation or apology - instead recognizing how all people are fallible and complex. James Madison is recognized throughout the book for his intellect and general kindness and humor (even towards enslaved people). But despite being one of the greatest proponents of liberty, he never freed a single slave and didn't believe integration was possible, rejecting the overtures of many friends and peers to emancipate his enslaved people. Dolley Madison's father (a quaker) freed all his enslaved people and moved to the North, but she married a slave-owner and disregarded Madison's dying wish that she not sell the enslaved people he left to her. Dolley's son (James' stepson) is described in great detail as a degenerate, but attempts to free enslaved people in his will. And while the book shows Daniel Webster was very committed to the cause of abolition (including negotiating Jennings' freedom from Dolley), his career ends with his being a key supporter to restoring the heinous fugitive slave act. The insight into these individuals' lives and decisions is also welcome. And even Jennings had positive things to say about the Madisons, even directly and willingly providing financial support to Dolley towards the end of her life though he had long been a free man.
The book is a little dry and like others here, I'd rather have had more time devoted to Jennings' life after being freed. I also wish there had been a bit more citation. But the subject and story are captivating, and I will definitely read more of the author's works.
This book does a great job in many things. First, it highlights the remarkable story of Paul Jennings who experiences the ultimate rags to riches tale. Too often, books don't tell the stories of the enslaved people and the amount of research Taylor did to build a full record of Jennings' life is impressive. From enslaved person to a property owner who worked for the federal government with a large, free family (and descendants living to this day) his story is quite inspiring. After gaining his freedom, he worked tirelessly to free his fellow people and advocate on their behalf. Truly inspiring, and I'm very glad I know his name and his story. The book also includes the brief article Jennings published about his time with the Madisons.
The book also does a great job of showing the contradictions of many of our founders without tilting into either condemnation or apology - instead recognizing how all people are fallible and complex. James Madison is recognized throughout the book for his intellect and general kindness and humor (even towards enslaved people). But despite being one of the greatest proponents of liberty, he never freed a single slave and didn't believe integration was possible, rejecting the overtures of many friends and peers to emancipate his enslaved people. Dolley Madison's father (a quaker) freed all his enslaved people and moved to the North, but she married a slave-owner and disregarded Madison's dying wish that she not sell the enslaved people he left to her. Dolley's son (James' stepson) is described in great detail as a degenerate, but attempts to free enslaved people in his will. And while the book shows Daniel Webster was very committed to the cause of abolition (including negotiating Jennings' freedom from Dolley), his career ends with his being a key supporter to restoring the heinous fugitive slave act. The insight into these individuals' lives and decisions is also welcome. And even Jennings had positive things to say about the Madisons, even directly and willingly providing financial support to Dolley towards the end of her life though he had long been a free man.
The book is a little dry and like others here, I'd rather have had more time devoted to Jennings' life after being freed. I also wish there had been a bit more citation. But the subject and story are captivating, and I will definitely read more of the author's works.
February 15, 2021
"The year that James Madison swore to protect and defend the Constitution as the fourth President of the United States was 1809. Two hundred years later, the forty-fourth President took the same oath. He was a 'colored man' -- one black parent, one white parent--the same as Paul Jennings. America progressed from a liveried footman like Jennings being the only allowable role for a black man in the White House to the first African-American chief executive and his family making their home in that historic structure." —Taylor, A Slave in the White House
A critically important - if not necessarily engaging - narrative. Taylor's research is extensive, and includes an impressive assemblage of journals, letters, period-articles, and records of sale, but the awkward structure of her work prevented me from giving it a higher rating. The vast majority of A Slave in the White House is about neither Paul Jennings the slave or his time in the White House. Rather, Taylor weaves a narrative of events - both grandly national and meticulously domestic - for which Jennings was present, but the narrative largely excludes his autobiographical perspective. There's a clear reason for this - Jenning's wrote his own story in 1865, entitled "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" - and Taylor generally avoids restating it, preferring instead to season her work with brief quotes from Jenning's own pen, as well as a fair amount of conjecture about what Jennings might have felt during certain key historical moments (e.g., "we can imagine that Jennings thought...").
This removed, impersonal structure ensures that A Slave in the White House is often a rather monotonous read, with vast quantities of time spent on simple, domestic events that will probably only interest the most focused of historians (e.g., the spread at a dinner party, or the planting patterns on Madison's Montpelier acreage, etc.).
There are highlights - Jennings presence in Washington during the War of 1812, for example - but the majority of the book is a steady slog through Virginia plantation life, Washington DC’s development, and Jenning’s familial relationships. Still, I'm glad I read Taylor's work, for the strong reminder of just how voiceless - and wordless - a generation of American slaves truly were - and how unique Jenning's written story is against that oppressive backdrop.
A critically important - if not necessarily engaging - narrative. Taylor's research is extensive, and includes an impressive assemblage of journals, letters, period-articles, and records of sale, but the awkward structure of her work prevented me from giving it a higher rating. The vast majority of A Slave in the White House is about neither Paul Jennings the slave or his time in the White House. Rather, Taylor weaves a narrative of events - both grandly national and meticulously domestic - for which Jennings was present, but the narrative largely excludes his autobiographical perspective. There's a clear reason for this - Jenning's wrote his own story in 1865, entitled "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" - and Taylor generally avoids restating it, preferring instead to season her work with brief quotes from Jenning's own pen, as well as a fair amount of conjecture about what Jennings might have felt during certain key historical moments (e.g., "we can imagine that Jennings thought...").
This removed, impersonal structure ensures that A Slave in the White House is often a rather monotonous read, with vast quantities of time spent on simple, domestic events that will probably only interest the most focused of historians (e.g., the spread at a dinner party, or the planting patterns on Madison's Montpelier acreage, etc.).
There are highlights - Jennings presence in Washington during the War of 1812, for example - but the majority of the book is a steady slog through Virginia plantation life, Washington DC’s development, and Jenning’s familial relationships. Still, I'm glad I read Taylor's work, for the strong reminder of just how voiceless - and wordless - a generation of American slaves truly were - and how unique Jenning's written story is against that oppressive backdrop.
March 13, 2019
This book probably deserves 5 stars for content, and 3 stars for readability. I found the true story of Paul Jennings to be very compelling, as it provides insight into the life of a slave in the first half of the 19th century. And Jennings, as a house slave and private manservant to James Madison, would be one of the best-treated slaves. But, he was clearly a slave, and a huge chasm separated those that were enslaved from those who were free. I have always hated the hypocrisy of some of out best known Founding Fathers, particularly Jefferson and Madison, who wrote beautiful words about freedom and the equality of man, yet practiced slavery. It was heartwarming that Jennings was eventually able to purchase his freedom from Dolley Madison, with the help of Daniel Webster, but why didn't James Madison free him? Jennings was also eventually able to arrange freedom for other members of his family, and lived a productive life with a government job afterwards, but he missed out on so much that a free person would just expect, such as being able to live with his wife and children as they grew up. So the story itself is very revealing. But the book was slow reading, and, of course, much of Jennings life is not known directly because record-keeping for slaves was almost non-existent. It could only be inferred by generalities known about how slaves were treated. I am glad I read this book, and I think many people would find it interesting.
September 13, 2017
This book was interesting. It tells the sorry of Paul Jennings, a slave who served as the personal servant of James Madison. Most notable about Jennings is he wrote what is known as the first White House memoir. Sadly not many of the book were published and the story of Jennings slipped through the cracks.
I enjoyed learning about a little known person in history and fans of nonfiction will probably enjoy this one too.
I enjoyed learning about a little known person in history and fans of nonfiction will probably enjoy this one too.
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