Editing Norfolk Naval Shipyard (section)

=== Enslaved labor===
Enslaved labor was extensively utilized in the Norfolk Navy Yard from its foundation until the Civil War. An example of such use is found in Norfolk Navy Yard Commandant, Commodore John Cassin's [[John Cassin (naval officer)]] 29 April 1818  letter to the Secretary of the Navy, [[Benjamin W. Crowninshield]]. Cassin began his letter, by stating as justification "Finding it absolutely impossible  to do the labor required in this Yard, without taking in some black men in consequence of the white men sporting with their time in the manner they do, leaving the yard, since the month of April come in, there has Sixty four men, laborers left the yard, some gone to Old Point to work where greater wages is given and others gone to sea... I have therefore  taken in twenty four blacks for the purpose of discharging & loading such vessels as may be ordered and cleaning the frigate Constitution's hold."<ref>John Cassin to the Secretary of the Navy, 29 April 1818, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy (Captains Letters) 1805–1861, Volume 58, Letter 36, Roll 0058, Record Group 260, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.</ref>   Some idea of the human scale can be found in this excerpt from a letter of Commodore [[Lewis Warrington (United States Navy officer)|Lewis Warrington]] dated 12 October 1831 to the [[Board of Navy Commissioners]] (BNC).<ref>Sharp, John G., Commodore Lewis Warrington to the Board of Navy Commissioners re: employment of enslaved workers in the construction of the Dry Docks 12 October 1831, http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/nnysharp13.html</ref> Warrington's letter to the BNC was in response to various petitions by white workers to curtail or end enslaved labor on the Dry Dock. His letter attempts both to reassure the BNC in light of [[Nat Turner's Rebellion]] which occurred on 22 August 1831 and to serve as a reply to the Dry Dock's stonemasons who had quit their positions and accused the project chief engineer, [[Loammi Baldwin Jr.]], of the unfair hiring of enslaved labor in their stead.<ref>Tomlins, Christopher L. ''In Nat Turner’s Shadow Reflections on the Norfolk Dry Dock Affair 1830-1831'', Labor History, Vol 33, Fall 1992, Number 4, p.498., accessed 19 September 2020, http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/nnytomlins.pdf</ref><ref>Tomlins, Christopher, ''In the Matter of Nat Turner A Speculative History'',(Princeton University Press:Princeton,2020), p.161.</ref>

<blockquote>There are about two hundred and forty six blacks employed in the Yard and Dock altogether; of whom one hundred and thirty six are in the former and one hundred ten in the latter – We shall in the Course of this day or tomorrow discharge twenty which will leave but one hundred and twenty six on our roll – The evil of employing blacks, if it be one, is in a fair and rapid course of diminution, as our whole number, after the timber now in the water is stowed, will not exceed sixty; and those employed at the Dock will be discharged from time to time, as their services can be dispensed with – when it is finished, there will be no occasion for the employment of any.</blockquote>

<ref>Sharp, John G., ''Commodore Lewis Warrington to the Board of Navy Commissioners re: employment of enslaved workers in the construction of the Dry Docks 12 October 1831'', http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/nnysharp.html accessed 7 October 2021</ref> Despite such promises, enslaved labor continued, and, as of October 1832, Baldwin reported of the 261 men employed on the Dry Dock, 78 of whom, were enslaved black laborers or 30% of the Dry Dock workforce.<ref>Tomlins, 2020, p.164.</ref> Opposition to enslaved labor was never able to effectively challenge the status quo and suggestions or recommendations to end the practice met fierce resistance. One such effort in 1839, was countered by a petition signed by 34 shipyard slaveholders, pleading with the Secretary of the Navy to continue it less they suffer economic harm. Their successful petition was endorsed by Commodore Lewis Warrington. Warrington noted: "I beg leave to state, that no slave employed in this yard, is owned by a commissioned officer, but that many are owned by the Master Mechanicks & workmen of the yard". He added; “I beg leave to state, that no slave is allowed to perform any mechanical work in the yard, all such being necessarily reserved for the whites; this keeping up the proper distinction between the white men & slave”.<ref>Sharp, John G.M., ''A Norfolk Navy Yard Slaveholders Petition to the Secretary of the Navy, June 21, 1839'' Norfolk Navy Yard 2019, http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/nnysharp6.html</ref> In 1846 Commodore [[Jesse Wilkerson]] felt the need to confirm the continuation of slave hiring to the Secretary of the Navy [[George Bancroft]], “that a majority of them [blacks] are negro slaves, and that a large portion of those employed in the Ordinary for many years, have been of that description, but by what authority I am unable to say as nothing can be found in the records of my office on the subject – These men have been examined by the Surgeon of the Yard and regularly Shipped [enlisted] for twelve months" <ref>Sharp, John G.,''List of Gosport Navy Yard Employees Military and Civilian, 1846'' http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/nnysharp13.html, retrieved 7 October 2021</ref>

[[File:George Teamoh 1818 to after 1887 LOC photo.jpg|thumb|[[George Teamoh]] 1818 to after 1887. George Teamoh worked at Norfolk Navy Yard as an enslaved laborer and ship caulker in the 1830s and 1840s (LOC photo)]] [[George Teamoh]] (1818–1883) as a young enslaved laborer and ship caulker worked at Norfolk Navy Yard in the 1830s and 1840s and later wrote of this unrequited toil: "The government had patronized, and given encouragement to slavery to a greater extent than the great majority of the country has been aware. It had in its service hundreds if not thousands of slaves employed on government works."<ref>''God Made Man, Man Made the Slave: The Autobiography of George Teamoh'' editors F.N. Boney, Richard L. Hume and Rafia Zafar Mercer University Press: Macon 1990, p.83.</ref> As late "as 1848 almost one third of the 300 workers at the Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard were hired slaves."<ref>Starobin, Robert S. ''Industrial Slavery in the Old South'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975 p.32.</ref><ref>Sharp, John G.M., ''Station Log Entries for U.S. Naval Station  Gosport 1850'', http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/sharptoc/gosportlog.html</ref>