Where did the slaves work and live at Montpelier?
Under President Madison’s father, we know that many enslaved people worked as field laborers, in connection with the family’s ironworking business, as skilled carpenters, and as domestics in the main house. The documentary record had shed very little light on the number and position of outbuildings that surrounded the Montpelier mansion during Madison ownership. As an active plantation, the mansion was at the core of the estate and was flanked by kitchens, slave quarters, smokehouses, barns, and other outbuildings. However, archaeological investigations in the yard between the garden and the mansion have revealed a number of outbuildings that date to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including a kitchen, a slave quarter, and a possible outbuilding associated with the slave quarter. This portion of the yard was likely the “service” complex for the mansion.
