In addition to about 130 enslaved African Americans, many
laborers from different ethnic groups with varying degrees of
autonomy lived and worked at Monticello between the 1770s and
the sale of Monticello in 1831. While Jefferson owned 600 slaves
in his lifetime, he also recorded hiring dozens of slaves owned
by others and at least one free black man. Hired slaves, called
“jobbers,” were contracted at an agreed-upon rate from their
owners, with Jefferson providing rations, clothing, and housing.
These slaves built the canal for the Shadwell mills, dug the
icehouse and the foundations of the dependencies near the main
house, constructed the Shadwell toll mill, and began initial
work on the Shadwell manufacturing mill. Jefferson hired George
Bradby, a free African American with an enslaved wife, to travel
on errands to other Virginia towns and to fell timber. Several
“bonded” laborers worked for Jefferson. Indentured
servitude—contract work with no pay—was a common form of labor
in colonial Virginia; many Europ