Paul Jennings was born into
slavery on the plantation of James and
Dolley Madison in Virginia. As a young boy, he was part of the Madison household staff at the White House. Toward the end of the Madisons' time there, he helped rescue the portrait of George Washington before the British burned down the White House. Later, he became Mr. Madison's personal attendant during his retirement and got married to a slave in a plantation further off. Longing for freedom, he was finally emancipated by Senator
Daniel Webster and became an
abolitionist. He would later give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War. He died a free man in northwest Washington at 75. Based on correspondence, legal documents, and journal entries rarely seen before, this amazing portrait of the times reveals the mores and attitudes toward slavery of the nineteenth century, and sheds new light on famous characters such as
James Madison, who believed the white and black populations could not coexist as equals; French General
Lafayette who was appalled by this idea; Dolley Madison, who ruthlessly sold Paul after her husband's death; and many more. It also introduces readers to slaves, abolitionists, and civil right activists hitherto forgotten.
Background Information
American slaves were almost entirely African and formed the basis of the cotton economy of the South until the Civil War. Dolley Madison was a young widow when she married James Madison. She is best remembered for saving important items from the White House before the British burned it. Daniel Webster of New Hampshire was a force in the United States Senate for the preservation of the Union above all else. Abolitionism was the movement, centered in the North, that abolition of slavery even in those states that had practiced it since the founding of the country. James Madison helped draft the Constitution, collaborated on the Federalist Papers and became Americ'as Fourth President. The Marquis de Lafayette was a French aristocrat who joined the Continental Army and served with distinction under George Washington.
