In the 1834 Report of the Commissioners appointed to superintend the re-building of the State Capitol, Andrew Whitaker was listed as a “laborer.” His work generated $.50 per day. Andrew likely did not keep that money; we have documentation that shows his enslaver asking for the money Andrew made. While some enslaved people were allowed by their enslavers to keep the money their work generated, many were not able to retain their earnings.
A letter in the State Capitol Construction Records from 1834 shows Andrew’s enslaver Wesley Whitaker requesting payment from the Capitol project for Andrew’s labor.
Wesley Whitaker owned property on East Hargett Street, where he lived and operated a piano shop. It is possible Andrew lived and worked at this location; Wesley is shown as an enslaver in census records, and he also notes that he had apprentices working for him in multiple newspaper advertisements.
Wesley advertised his pianos as “half the price of imported ones.” Besides producing pianos, Wesley also made chairs. One of his pianos was displayed in the North Carolina Hall of History for twenty years before being moved to the North Carolina Executive Mansion in the 1920s.
Though we don’t know that much about the type of work Andrew was doing for Wesley Whitaker, his story does illustrate that enslaved people were engaged in all types of labor, in all sections of the economy – from construction to piano making.
References:
- Census Of The United States, 1830-70, Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census,The National Archive, Washington, D.C.
- Map of the City of Raleigh. Surveyed and drawn by J.W. Johnson, 1847. Accessed in the Raleigh History Collection, State Archives of North Carolina.
- Report of the commissioners appointed to superintend the re-building of the State Capitol. Philo White, Printer to the State, Legislature of North Carolina, 1834. Accessed in the Raleigh History Collection, State Archives of North Carolina.
- Shevzov, Maria V. “Pianos of his own Manufacture” Wesley Whitaker, Raleigh, N.C., 1788-1858. The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Volume 65, No. 4, December 2012.
- State Capitol Construction Records, Treasurer’s and Comptroller’s Papers. State Archives of North Carolina.
