Charlottesville is taking yet another step toward acknowledging one of the most vile parts of its history: Between 1762 and 1865, hundreds of men, women, and children were sold and bought into slavery at various locations throughout Court Square.
A new state historical marker commemorating those horrors could be installed in Court Square sometime this year — but first, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources must approve it.
And it’s close, said Jeff Werner, historic preservation and design planner for the city. The approval could come as early as March 21.
This wouldn’t be the first time that history has been marked in Court Square. For decades, it has been memorialized in various and sometimes controversial ways. One previous city-sanctioned plaque was criticized as too small and hard to read; another was embedded in a brick sidewalk so that people could walk over it — disrespectful to the history, and the people, it claimed to commemorate, community members have said. Residents have also said that the language of those plaques is outdated. Descendants of the people who were bought and sold there have held vigils on the site, and want a say in how memorialization happens.
Getting a marker from the state is a multi-step process, said Werner, who has been involved in about a dozen state marker projects in the past. And not every request for a marker is reviewed, let alone granted, by the state’s Department of Historic Resources.
First, the city’s Historic Resources Committee conducted years of research around the role Court Square played in slavery. They sifted through local newspaper archives, where they found many advertisements for the sale and purchase of enslaved Black people.
“Negro for Sale,” reads one from February 1825. “I have for sale a very likely, healthy young Negro Man. If not disposed of previous to Albemarle March Court, he will on the first day of court be offered to the highest bidder.” The words “Negro for Sale” and “Negro Man” are in bigger, bolder text than the rest. The man’s name is not mentioned.
There are dozens more like it.
Committee members combed through court documents, deeds proving the “ownership” of Black people by white people. They found some first-person accounts of people bought and sold at Court Square, like the one of Fountain Hughes, who was born into slavery. Thomas Jefferson enslaved his grandfather.
“It was what they call…we were slaves. We belonged to people,” Hughes told the Library of Congress for its “Voices from the Days of Slavery: Stories, Songs and Memories” oral history project. “They’d sell us like they sell horses and cows and hogs and all that. Have an auction bench, and they’d put you on…up on the bench and bid on you just same as you bidding on cattle.”
Committee members have also connected with descendants of people who were enslaved in the area, some of whom can trace their ancestry back to people whose names appear in the aforementioned advertisements and the deeds.
Jalane Schmidt wrote the first draft of the proposed marker text. Schmidt, a committee member, is also Director of the Memory Project at the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, and an associate professor of religious studies at the school.
More about enslaved people in the Charlottesville area
That text changed very little after the committee discussed it. Schmidt “nailed it,” said Werner, who serves as city staff liaison to the committee. They then submitted the text to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources Board of Historic Resources, which approves all historical markers in the state. The board selected Charlottesville’s as one of five statewide proposals it will consider to become a state-sanctioned marker this quarter.
The proposed text reads:
“Enslaved men, women, and children were sold between 1762 and 1865 at various Court Square locations: outside taverns, at the Jefferson Hotel, at the ‘Number Nothing’ building, on a tree stump, and from the steps in front of the Albemarle County Courthouse—wherein records of such sales were filed and are still archived. The largest auction in Court Square, at Eagle Tavern in January 1829, was that of 33 enslaved individuals from the Monticello estate of Thomas Jefferson. Enslaved Charlottesville residents Fountain Hughes and Maria Perkins recalled court day sales as dreaded occasions which resulted in the permanent separation of families.”
Next, VDHR staff will review the citations the Charlottesville Historic Resources Committee provided as sources for its text, such as Hughes’ first-person account and the newspaper advertisements. That process could involve additional research and making edits if VDHR staff thinks it’s necessary.
Once that’s complete, VDHR will make a formal recommendation to the State Review Board on March 21.
“That’s the final approval we’re hoping for,” said Jeff Werner.
If all goes well, the committee hopes to install a marker — which will cost $3,000 — sometime this summer, at the south end of Court Square Park, above the wall along Jefferson Street. That’s city property, and keeping it above the wall means it wouldn’t obstruct the sidewalk, said Werner.
“It’s an appropriate location, because enslaved people were sold throughout Court Square, including near the buildings at McKee Block, which is now Court Square Park,” he added.
While this state highway marker in Court Square would be a significant step toward sharing the history with everyone who walks past it, it’s far from the end of the road, said Werner.
“This marker is simply a response to the fact that nothing in Court Square currently communicates this history,” he said. “The committee does not want this marker to be seen as a substitute or placeholder for something more meaningful that might be developed through working with the descendant community. That’s a different and broader initiative for the City to address.”
