Burwell Colbert

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Burwell Colbert (1783 - 1862) was an enslaved man who worked at Monticello and later the University of Virginia as a free man.

Biography

Colbert was born to Betty Brown at Monticello in 1783. At age 10, records show that he was assigned to the nail-making shop on Mulberry Row. He was the only enslaved person in the shop to have been explicitly protected from whipping, and one of two to receive an annual payment (referred to as a "gratuity") of twenty dollars.[1] Elsewhere at Monticello, he was taught to paint and glaze windows, doing the detailed labor required to paint the carriage built by his uncle and cousin, John Hemmings and Joseph Fossett.

Colbert was married to Critta Colbert for several years, and the two had eight children together. She passed away in 1819, at the age of 36.[2]

The receipt of what Colbert purchased at Jefferson's estate sale in 1827. Includes a mule, tea set, carving knife, and a print of Thomas Jefferson to hang in his home.

During Thomas Jefferson's retirement, beginning around 1809, Colbert was the head butler at Monticello. He was responsible for directing everyone who worked inside the estate, as well as being the former president's personal manservant. He was often the person who laid out Jefferson's clothes and attended to him throughout the day.[1] Colbert was considered an essential part of Jefferson's household; when he became ill in 1819, several of Jefferson's grandchildren wrote to one another sharing their concern over his health.[2]

Colbert was present at the former president's death. [3] He was one of only five enslaved people freed in Jefferson's will, as well as allocated $300 to purchase materials to continue his work as a painter. His children, however, were kept in enslavement by Jefferson's daughter and son-in-law, forcing the family apart.

In freedom, Colbert stayed in Charlottesville, where he worked in private homes and at the University of Virginia. In 1834, he married again, this time to Elizabeth Battles, another free woman of color, with whom he had three more daughters.[1]

Colbert died in 1862, in the midst of the Civil War. According to letters written between Jefferson's descendants, were it not for the conflict they would have helped his family to bury him at Monticello.[4]

References