Meet People

The enslaved men, women, and children who lived and worked on Mulberry Row were part of the larger landscape of slavery on Jefferson’s plantations -- hundreds of men, women, and children labored on Jefferson’s landholdings between the 1770s and 1831. Members of several enslaved families, including the Grangers, Gillettes, Hemingses, Herns, and Fossetts, lived on Mulberry Row and worked in its workshops or in the main house. Some slaves worked in Jefferson’s household as domestic servants—seamstresses, chambermaids, house parlor maids, valets, cooks, wet nurses, and laundresses. Others worked directly on Mulberry Row as skilled artisans—tinsmiths, blacksmiths, nailers, carpenters, sawyers, house joiners, charcoal-burners, hostlers, weavers, and spinners.