Carlyle's Domestic Servants: 1770-1780

Moses, Nanny, Jerry, Joe, Cate, Sibreia, Cook, Charles, Penny...the Carlyle estate inventory names these nine slaves living on the site when Carlyle dies in 1780. An estate inventory lists personal property, including furniture, livestock and slaves. Carlyle’s papers, the letters, diaries and account books of other Virginians and runaway advertisements and sale notices in newspapers give particulars about slaves in Virginia. Although written from the slaveholders points of views and therefore biased, these sources help “flesh out” the Carlyle inventory.
 
Who were the people listed in the inventory? The international slave trade was still very much in evidence in Alexandria during the eighteenth century and Carlyle imported slaves from the West Indies. The skilled slaves and plantation laborers might have been from Africa or the West Indies or born in Virginia. However, the house servants were more often Virginia born; speaking English was important in a household setting for communication between the family and the slave.