Richmond slave jail’s foundation found
Published: December 18, 2008
Updated: December 18, 2008
With young black men used as bait, dogs were trained to track and pursue runaway slaves in the cobblestone courtyard of a Richmond slave jail.
Hidden for more than a century, the courtyard of round, gray stones and other remnants of Lumpkin's Slave Jail lay exposed yesterday in the corner of a Shockoe Bottom parking lot.
Archaeologists have spent the past four months digging 8 to 15 feet down to uncover "an amazingly intact urban complex," which included brick foundation walls, said Matthew R. Laird, principal investigator with the James River Institute for Archaeology in Williamsburg.
The dig recovered thousands of period artifacts, including ceramics, glassware, bottles, a shoe and animal bones.
The discovery completes more than five years of planning. The exact location was identified through the use of an 1835 city survey map.
"Finally, Richmond has discovered its beginnings," said David Herring, executive director of the Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods. "Richmond would not be here without the slaves that built this city."
The latest phase of the excavation costs $500,000, most of which was provided by the city of Richmond. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources provided $50,000 of that, said Kathleen Kilpatrick, executive director of the department.
The jail, owned by Robert Lumpkin, held slaves from 1840 until the end of the Civil War. Richmond was the country's largest domestic slave market, second only in overall trade to New Orleans, Kilpatrick said.
"The African-American story cannot be told without exploring the slave trade and the slave experience. That experience is also integral to the development of the city of Richmond, socially and economically," Kilpatrick said.
"Understanding that market, that industry and the human suffering and indignity that was associated with it is no more evocative than in a slave jail site."
The cobblestone courtyard was referenced in the writings of 19th-century author and abolitionist Richard Henry Dana, said Philip J. Schwarz, a member of the Richmond Slave Trail Commission.
"The dogs would accompany the coffle [a group chained together] taking people south. If somebody tried to run away, they let the dogs loose," Schwarz said. "It was part of the brutality."
The site will be covered with fabric and backfilled with dirt to protect it, said City Councilwoman Delores L. McQuinn, who heads the Richmond Slave Trail Commission. A tall, chain-link fence separates the 12,000-square-foot site from a city-owned parking lot off 15th and East Franklin streets.
In the meantime, McQuinn said, the groups involved in the dig will seek funding resources for ideas such as a genealogy center, a museum or a reproduction of the slave jail.
She said it was too early to discuss a developer's plans for a baseball stadium and condominiums in the area, but that they would continue to pursue their goals "not be deterred by a developer's plans."
"Richmond will speak loud and clear what they want for this particular area," McQuinn said.
Contact Melodie N. Martin at (804) 649-6290 or
.
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Reader Reactions
I am sorry if someone or anyone thought I was serious in asking the Richmond Times Dispatch not to print anymore “slave details”—-I was just trying to figure out how the BLACK PEOPLE get the Confederate flags taken down in every state, the mascot “Rebels” replaced at public schools, and any mention of the Civil War banished from print but they can cram slave this and that down the THROATS OF WHITE PEOPLE WHO WERE NOT EVEN IN THIS COUNTRY DURING THE CIVIL WAR! We all know that the only way black people get all the government handouts is to cry SLAVERY, SLAVERY, SLAVERY!!1,000 years from now we will still here how oppressed the poor Negro child is and it will be blamed on the white man because illegitmate births, poverty households, teenage mothers, absent fathers, and drug dealing relatives are NOT ALLOWABLE EXCUSES IN THE BLACK COMMUNITIES! Amen, Lord Jesus!
Askign that a newspaper, let alone an entire city, OMIT parts of history is completely ridiculous and ignorant. Sweeping something under the rug changes nothing, get over it and move on. Look towards the future, but remember: those who choose to forget th epast are doomed to repeat it.
I wish the Richmond Times Dispatch would respect the desires of its African-American readers and OMIT all things reminding them of the terrible Civil War from the newspaper! I, for one, am tired of hearing slave this and slave that! It really makes me mad thinking all that money was wasted on finding the stones of an old jail when we have so many African-Americans today living below poverty they could have used that money on their daily needs today and not dregging up the past which not one of them lived or remember! How about it Richmond Times Dispatch????
It was want of State Rights in the South that lead to the Civil War but it was the States Right to keep slaves. When it came to the governments of the Southern states, slavery was the reason South Carolina secede as soon a Abe Lincoln was voted in, (even before he took office), and why the other Southern states followed. Abraham Lincoln was known to oppose the expansion of slavery and they feared he would outlaw it all together.
I’m not one against confederate monuments, it’s part of Richmond’s history, and I don’t believe in censoring history, (that’s what leads to people thinking the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery) but I don’t think many especially with descendants who were slaves would ever want to sweep that history under the rug like it didn’t exist. Slaves were treated as animals if not worst. Their story will never be told enough. Too many people think it’s something that we need to not talk about which is so far from the truth. There are some people who do not like slavery talked about. I believe thats more on the side of guilt than anything else.
@Snoopy:
Whoever the “some folks” are to whom you refer, they’ve done a pretty bad job in their opposition. Richmond is covered, as you know, in “monuments or statues acknowledging Richmond’s role in the Civil War” - if by that you mean memorials for Confederate heroes or preserved battlefields.
Meanwhile, Virginia and every other confderate state did, in fact, secede “primarily because of slavery.“ I suspect you’d say no, it was “states’ rights.“ Well, states’ rights to do what? To perpetuate slavery and the slave economy, nothing else. Their failure to elect Breckinridge in 1860 made it clear that the slave power would not continue to control the national government, which meant that free states would do so, which meant that if they wanted to remain slaveholders, they had to secede.
I am fascinated by archeology and support the preservation of historic artifacts and buildings of all types. But I’m puzzled why some folks promote and support monuments to slave trails, slave cemeteries and slave jails, while the same folks oppose any monuments or statues acknowledging Richmond’s role in the Civil War because they have the mistaken belief that Virginia seceded primarily because of slavery. These folks oppose such monuments by saying they don’t want to continue bringing the horrible act of slavery to the attention of the public, but they continually support memorials to slavery, which brings the subject to the public’s attention much more.
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