Come up this mountaintop, the first thing you would have seen is enslaved people. There would have been no place on this mountaintop that slavery was not visible. We are now in the middle of recreating, restoring dwellings , the main plantation street, as well as rooms attached to the house just behind us. All of this is part of an effort to shift the focus away from just jefferson and talk about the dozens of other people who made this possible. Now were near jeffersons main house, the palladian mansion that he built throughout his life. We are sitting next to mulberry row, the main plantation street. Feet, 1,300 through archaeology and documentary research, we know over 20 workshops, storehouses, and dwellings blindness wind this street. There were indentured servants, slaves, and a lot of these workshops were overseen by jeffersons white family. This is the heart of monticello. This was a 5000 acre plantation. That is a square miles. This plantation is enormous. The center of activity is right here. If you have been here in jeffersons day, you would have seen carriages, heard the noise of chickens and dogs, smelled smoke in the air, heard hammers and saws. There were dozens of people here, free and enslaved, all working for the plantation. From copious record taking, we know jefferson owned 607 human beings in his lifetime. At any given time, 130 two 140 slaves would have been working at monticello. That would have been not just the mountaintop but the surrounding farms as well. This was a dynamic and fluid place where enslaved people were coming and going, living in different areas. Jefferson interacted with all of them in different ways. It was not like he was isolated on his mountaintop. He used to take daily rides throughout his plantation. Not only to remind slaves that he was their owner, but also so he had a knowledge of what was going on across these eight square miles. Mulberry row was an experiment for jefferson. This was very unique in the larger context of virginia plantations. He wanted it to be an experiment as a way to reform slavery. He wanted to do that by imparting trades to enslaved people. Rather than them being unskilled field laborers, they could come up here and learn a skill, blacksmith in, carpentry, house joining. Jefferson considered this an improvement over being out in the field with the crops. If you come here and know that jefferson is the author of the declaration, all men are created equal, you find out he owned 600 slaves, he looks pretty bad. In jeffersons mind, he was not a hypocrite because he believed he was making changes to the institution of slavery that would pave the way for its abolition. He is trying to reform it and alleviate material conditions, changing housing, and he believes this is a gradual process that will inevitably result in emancipation down the line. We know more about monticello than any other plantation in north america. It is the best document it estate. We know more about the enslaved people here than anywhere else. We have been able to put together the most conference of portrait of life for enslaved people during jeffersons time, but beyond that as well. That lens a unique and human portrait to what slavery was, both as a horrific and coercive institution, but also as a way of emphasizing the humanity of enslaved people and the fact they were able to preserve themselves and their families even within the bounds of enslavement. Sally hemmings was part of a very large family of enslaved people at my cello who numbered at at monticello who numbered about 80. We believe that years after his wifes death, jefferson fathered six children with Sally Hemmings, four of whom survived to adulthood. Eston, madison, beverly, and harriet. It is important to remember that slaves were property. They could be inherited through marriage as well as being bought and sold. When jefferson married his wife martha in 1772, she was the daughter of a wealthy slave trader. It was through him that jefferson inherited 135 slaves, and Sally Hemmings was one of those. She was not born at monticello. She was born on the eastern shore. She arrived here in about 1773. Sally hemmings is a person stranded in shrouded in mystery. There are only four references to her that exist. Jefferson himself never wrote about her explicitly. She remains this mysterious figure. I think it is important to emphasize that she was related to jeffersons wife. She was Martha Jeffersons halfsister. She may have even resembled jeffersons wife. In 1784, jefferson took up a post as a trade ambassador. He was trying to forge treaties with the french and other countries so the new u. S. Could survive. He wanted to have his daughters with him. He wanted to have martha and mariah, his youngest daughter. He wanted and enslaved woman or girl to accompany mariah on the long passage across the atlantic. It was the young Sally Hemmings who accompanied mariah to paris. Sally hemmings lived with jefferson and his two daughters in paris. That may have been the beginning of their relationship or however you want to describe it. According to Sally Hemmingss son, she became pregnant by jefferson in paris. It was there that she extracted in important promise, and that was if she returned to virginia with him and for the child, in the future all of her children would be free. This is a huge decision for her. When she was on french soil, she was considered free. If she remained in paris, she could have been a free person. Because of what we think transpired, she came back here, and when jefferson died, all of those children were free. Sally hemmings and Thomas Jefferson controversy, that has been going on for over 200 years. One thing we want to do in the Current Initiative that we are embarking on is to focus on Sally Hemmings herself. We want to divide her from Thomas Jefferson and that controversy and focus on her as a person. I think in this 200 year debate, she has always been a foil for jefferson. She has never been seen in her own life. We want to restore her humanity. We believe this space or the one next to it to the west. You can imagine Sally Hemmings here with her children, perhaps mending clothes or cooking the last meal of the day or sharing stories of the day. Typical family activities that would have gone on in this day. Behind me what you see is the restoration of monticellos south wing. This was built in 1802. It held a lot of domestic servant spaces. After jefferson died and monticello was sold, it was rebuilt a couple of times in the 19th century. In the 1940s, the Thomas Jefferson foundation restored the south wing to what they thought was its best appearance. Ive only did they restore the kitchen and cooks round, but they put bathrooms into what were slave quarters. It is much of this material we have been removing, and we are now at the point where we are restoring the spaces to a more accurate representation. We know that because there is physical evidence as well as documentary evidence that tells us specifically what jefferson wanted. He even draws up a plan to scale for the southwest. It shows exactly how big the rooms were and what they were used for. Wewas the we know what space was the slave quarters. We were able to find physical traces of where these walls would have been placed. We can put them back accurately. On the chimney stack, we have remains of plaster that we know was there in jeffersons time because he talks about asking his workmen to plaster this space. We believe this is perhaps the jefferson era hearth where a slave family would have warmed themselves. There is wonderful evidence of what the floors would look like. It is a small detail. We are dedicated to getting as much as accurate as possible. Along this wall, you see the 1802 breaks. They are late on edge, urges particular. We have breaks that are of the same size, and we will lay them in the same way. There is evidence of where the partitions were that divided the spaces. You can see where the carpenters have aligned with what we call an architectural goat. Here is where a stud would have sat upon the stone wall, and this was plastered and whitewashed. What is left is this gap in the finish that tells us where the stud would have been. You can see this wall is canted. We have a ghost on the other side of the fireplace that shows where the wall would have sat. Even though a typical carpenter would love a nice straight well, we are putting it back out of square because that is what the evidence is telling us it was. A local Restoration Company is putting up the timber frame. We know the size from jeffersons documents. They should be four by three inches. These craftsmen have prepared everything off site like they would have done in the 18th century. Everything is brought onsite and put up. They are fitting the more this is, securing everything. Brick is the next step for the slave quarters. We are in the south pavilion seller. Cellar. This was finished by 1770. The space was originally the kitchen. We are standing for feet above the original floor level. Why that is is because jefferson raises before level in 1809 after he builds the south wing and turns this into a wash house when the larger kitchen was built to the east. The amazing thing in this space, not just that it has survived, but that earlier kitchen survived intact underneath this great fill. It has a lot of artifacts mixed into it. All of that draft they are bringing in with the dirt is coming from somewhere where archaeologists are able to find amazing pieces of ceramic. A lot of great artifacts that will give us the sense of how people lived on the mountain top. In addition, they also found evidence of this kitchen. There is evidence it changed over time. We come down upon the original fireplace where he and his wife lived in the room above before the main house was ready. That was uncovered as well as a stove, which was a high style kitchen appliance. That is where jefferson cooked his french cuisine. We suspected that he had a stew stove. We were not sure. He draws it in a document in the 1770s. Luckily enough, tremendous evidence survives of this four burner stew stove. Right now the archaeologists have removed as much of the material as they are going to for this part of the project. They are cleaning up the site for final photos and documentation. You can see them cleaning meticulously, measuring everything. It is an intense process, and it allows us to gather and report as much information on the site as possible. We expect to complete the exterior by later this spring. The interiors that we are still working on, those should be open to the public by spring of 2018. We finished the restoration of the south wing. We hope visitors will be able to experience more of the slave life of monticello to understand how it functioned in the plantation context. We are very excited about being able to put back Sally Hemmingss quarter, this important person in american history. It is important to rumor that monticello remember that monticello is a plantation. It is eight square miles. The majority of people who live here in his time, most of the labor that went into building this was done by enslaved africanamericans. Jefferson hired several white workmen, including an irish joiner assisted by several skilled craftsman of the enslaved community. Monticello was Thomas Jeffersons home for his entire life. He was born on this plantation three miles from where he builds this plantation. He inherits it from his father. As a young man, he inherits the land as well as the slaves his father owns. Jefferson decides to build on this mountain top at a young age. This was his home his entire life. Jefferson is trying to use that plantation to make money like most virginia vacation owners. He has primarily cash crops, tobacco and wheat. He has mixed success turning a profit. On the mountaintop, this is also the center of his home life. Throughout his retirement, once the house is complete, this is filled with family members, his daughter martha and her husband. This would have been filled with family. Throughout his retirement years, as a public official, and as somebody who gained fame for not only being president but also writing the declaration of independence, he hosted a perpetual round of entertainment. Guests would have come in through this room. They may have had to wait in this hall for a chance to see jefferson. We have a lot of accounts from those guests of their visits. This would have been something new that they did not necessarily expect. One guest referred to the strange furniture of the walls. Another guest called this room cluttered. Jefferson set this up almost like a museum, a cabinet of curiosities. He is filling the room with things he thinks are interesting. Also influential people and ideas and the creation of this country. Jefferson had maps of all the known continents. He had Natural History specimens of animal life in north america. Fossilized bones, American Indian artifacts would have been displayed here. Diplomatic gifts they exchanged on their way to the Pacific Ocean and back. He had lots of influential thinkers like will tear voltaire. He even had his arch nemesis hamilton in this hall in which he sat on the opposite side of the room of the lost of them of a bust of himself. I like to ask the visitors why they think he had it here. One guest said that it was a political hunting trophy. The dining room is one of the greater spaces at monticello because of the yellow paint on the walls. It would have been located on the north side of the house, the coldest and darkest side. That is where breakfast would be served each morning, and dinner at 4 00 or 5 00 in the afternoon. Jefferson is famous for his political use of food. When he was president , he would invite politicians to dine in small parties at his home. Both democratic republicans, his party, and his adversaries, federalists. Jefferson used those conversations to talk about politics, but also other things of the day, philosophy, religion. He preferred intimate affairs where conversation could really come to life. The monticello dining room, there are a number of contraptions that would limit the number of enslaved people that would be required to be present. The food would come in from the side door with revolving shelves. The enslaved waders were not have to enter an exit the room nonstop. They could put the food on the outside of the room, and the enslaved butler could turn the door and bring the food into the room. The wine cellar is located directly beneath the room. The wine could be delivered straight up from the side of the fireplace. He is using these contraptions to limit the coming and going of enslaved servants, but at the same time there is a lot of evidence going on behind the scenes to make that dinner and engaging conversation taking place possible. The south side of the house is devoted to private spaces. He had his own private apartment on the south side. It consisted of three separate rooms, his cabinet what we would call on office, his library, and of course his bed chamber. The bed chamber would have been the most private space. Jefferson would wake in the morning with the sun, he would begin his day each andwith a pass and read respond to letters for a few hours before breakfast. Its in this space where he would return in the evening for a few hours of reading before bed as well. The other thing about jeffersons bedchamber, this is where he passed away at the age of 83, which is one of the more remarkable stories. Jefferson died on july 4, 1826. That was the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the declaration of independence. He was the primary author. Is a very sadath time at monticello for many different reasons. Jefferson struggled with debt his whole life. He died 107,000 in debt, many millions of dollars in todays money. Unable to keep monticello, they had to sell monticello, the land, the furnishings, the home. Most heartbreakingly of all, they had to sell 130 enslaved africanamericans. One of the slaves in the recalled that jeffersons death was a time of great uncertainty among the slave community. You can imagine that enslaved would be worried at the death of Thomas Jefferson that his death meant that their families would be split apart, which is what ended up happening in most cases, in many cases. The property in the 1830s would be bought by a man who was one of the first naval officers of jewish faith in the United States. Of family began the process tracking down some of the original objects of the home. ,n 1923, it was his nephew Jefferson Monro levy, who sold this property to the jeffersons foundation. One of the things that we are striving to bring back to the Guest Experience of monticello is a sense that monticello is more than just this house on a hill. House is incredibly well preserved. We want people to walk in jeffersons footsteps, but we also want them to understand that monticello had nearly 200 People Living here during jeffersons time and that most of them were slaves. Years, weast several have been working to restore the landscape of slavery to monticello. When you walk outside the house, look down on mulberry row, you can understand that there was a center of industry of enslaved life there. If you two are the south wing seenorth wing, and you will that this was a home for the people that jefferson enslaved here as well. That was it it was their work that may monticello what it was. In many instances, may jefferson who he was. When people leave monticello, i hope they get a sense of the complexity of jefferson, but also how relevant his story is to the nation that we became. Here is a man who wrote, all men are created equal, and yet was a slaveholder. Believedman who truly that government should be representative of the people, even though he was very much a virginia aristocrat. But jefferson at the end of the day, had a very optimistic view of our nation, and optimistic view that we could govern ourselves. Thate people understand jeffersonsello was life work and he was always trying to perfect it, he also viewed the United States as that would never be perfected, that would need continual work. American history tv is joining our comcastcable partners to showcase the history of charlie still, virginia. To learn more about the cities on our current to her, visit. Span. Org cities tour continue with our look at the history of chart charlottesville. Charlottesville is divided into three parts. City, the county of apple mall, which surrounds the city, and here in virginia we have separate local governments for our cities and counties then the university of virginia. Whichs the window through you can understand local issues, politics,