AFRICAN AMERICAN RESIDENTS
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Decatur House has largely been associated with the elite men and women
who owned or rented the house, such as Stephen Decatur, Henry Clay, and Martin Van Buren. However, these influential members of Washington society required a sizable domestic staff to maintain their households as well as their expected level of grand entertaining. Throughout its history numerous enslaved and free African Americans lived and worked at Decatur House, fulfilling this role for the home’s more privileged residents. Despite the general anonymity
in the historical record of most of these Decatur House residents, they nevertheless played an invaluable role in both its history and its architecture.

In the early capital, it was often enslaved men and women who fulfilled the
need for domestic service. In 1800, one out of every five residents was enslaved. However, by the 1830s and 1840s, the ratio of slaves in the District had declined to approximately one of every ten residents, while the African American population grew to 12,000 people. Half of these African Americans were free individuals.

When Stephen and Susan Decatur selected architect Benjamin Latrobe, they requested a house fit for entertaining. With this in mind, Latrobe designed a house where the architecture determined the access of different people to various parts of the building. Servants, whether enslaved or free, moved between all floors of the house through the back stairway. They could also exit the house through a door in the kitchen directly onto H Street. Latrobe’s design controlled the visibility of the staff, allowing them to work efficiently but not be seen. Whereas the neoclassical style used by Latrobe in his design for
Decatur House represented the republican ideals of the early republic, his service spaces represented the most glaring contradiction of American democracy – the institution of slavery.

Little is known exactly who the Decaturs employed once they moved into their new home. The government required all owners to register their slaves with
the city, and Decatur’s name does not appear on those registration lists, indicating he did not own slaves. In order for the Decaturs’ new house on President’s Park to run smoothly, however, they needed a cook, groom, butler, and other help. They may have hired these skilled individuals from three different groups: white servants, free blacks, and enslaved persons “hired out” by their owners. “Hiring out” was a common practice in southern urban areas and often resulted in new opportunities for the enslaved, including the opportunity to buy their own freedom.

One enslaved woman at Decatur House left a particularly indelible mark on its history. In 1829 Charlotte Dupuy, an enslaved woman owned by Secretary of State and Decatur House resident Henry Clay, filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Circuit Court petitioning for the freedom of herself and her two children. Dupuy had been in Clay’s possession since 1806, when she met and married Aaron Dupuy, a man enslaved on Clay’s Kentucky estate. The couple had two children, Charles and Mary Ann, and most likely moved to Washington with Clay when he became a Congressional representative in 1810.

Dupuy claimed in her lawsuit, filed on behalf of herself and her two children on February 18, 1829, that she was entitled to freedom based on a promise
made by her previous owner, James Condon. Because he was prepared to leave Washington for Kentucky, Clay was instructed to leave Dupuy behind in Washington pending the outcome of the case. During this period she
continued to reside at Decatur House and was employed by the home’s next resident, U.S. Secretary of State Martin Van Buren. The Court ultimately ruled that an agreement between Dupuy and Condon was not applicable to any new ownership, and thus rejected her claim against Clay. Dupuy was soon after forcibly removed from Washington to the home of Clay’s daughter in New Orleans. It was not until October 12, 1840, eleven years after her petition, that Charlotte Dupuy finally gained her freedom.

In Washington, free and enslaved African Americans, such as Charlotte
Dupuy, were subjected to growing white fear of possible revolts and riots by blacks. Black Codes were passed in the District and enforced throughout the early 1800s and restricted people of color by imposing curfews, limiting employment opportunities and requiring free blacks to carry freedom papers
at all times. This culture of fear also altered the way in which whites used architecture to control their chattel. Whereas between 1819 and 1836 slaves
at Decatur House worked and slept under the same roof as their owners, the home’s second owner, John Gadsby, chose to construct a separate building to house his numerous slaves and keep them further separated from his family and guests. This two-story structure stands today as one of only a few remaining urban slave quarters in the country. Learn more about this building and its occupants here.

On April 16, 1862, Congress officially abolished slavery in the District of Columbia giving local slaveholders compensation for their loss of property. Five months later, on September 22, slavery was abolished in the South when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. At
Decatur House, African Americans continued to serve as domestic servants through its last owner, Marie Beale. Their history here is part of a permanent exhibition in the former slave quarters .