The 1827 Dispersal Sale

On a cold day in mid-January 1827, members of the Charlottesville community made their way to Monticello to attend the estate sale of Thomas Jefferson. Announced in newspaper advertisements in late 1826, the sale consisted of furniture, kitchen wares, farm equipment, livestock, “curious and useful” articles, and, most tragically, “130 valuable negroes.” This sale, along with others held over the next two years, tore apart families, separated husbands and wives and parents and children, and created a diaspora of Monticello’s enslaved community. In this episode of our Mountaintop History podcast, Kyle Chattleton takes a deeper look at these sales and talks with Andrew Davenport, Public Historian at Monticello and Manager of the Getting Word African American Oral History Project, about what happened to many of the enslaved individuals after the dispersal sale, the important connection to the Getting Word Project, and about how they and their families’ lives are testaments to the triumph of the human spirit.