Enslaved Community at UVA
After recently apologizing for slavery, the University of Virginia created a committee charged with researching the enslaved and Free Black community at the university. Although these individuals are not (yet) featured prominently in histories of “Mr Jefferson’s University,” they provided much of the labor that constructed the original buildings, ca. 1819-1828. And, up until Emancipation, many professors and students lived with enslaved individuals on grounds. In addition, throughout the 19th Century, the university was surrounded by several African-American neighborhoods (e.g., Canada, located south of Cabell Hall and the site of the Foster House and Cemetery).
Memorials to the African-American community are scattered throughout grounds. 
One example is the “crackerbox” (allegedly named after 19th Century students from Georgia who were called “crackers”). This small building, located behind Hotel F, has a rich oral history including references to a bordello, a 19th-kitchen, a woodshed, “the smallest dormitory in the United States,” and, quite possibly, slave quarters. 
For a fascinating discussion of other campus buildings that may have been used by slaves or post-bellum servants, visit Jim Cocola’s on-line essay titled The Ideological Spaces of the Academical Village: A Reading of the Central Grounds at the University of Virginia.
The newly formed university committee that is researching this forgotten history is hoping to compile any and all documents, oral histories, photographs, or family geneologies that relate to the enslaved and Free Black community at the university. A website dedicated to this project will be posted this summer. If you have information on this topic, please consider contributing it so that it can be compiled into formal accounts of the history of the university.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Reply from the Senior Historic Preservation Planner at the University of Virginia, Brian Hogg….
The crackerbox certainly is an early building, and as a kitchen would presumably been occupied by the hotel keeper’s slave(s). The hotel keeper’s name is known, and it would be interesting to track him, his family and records down. That said, the important part of Crackerbox’s history is that it survives as an example of something which was far from unique – buildings popped up and disappeared frequently in the gardens from the time the place opened. It’s clear from the Bursar and BOV [Board of Visitors] records that many of them were outbuildings and service buildings for the Pavilions and Hotels, so the African-American presence was probably great in these structures. Rivanna Archaeological Services found the foundations for a two-room building near Pavilion VI this spring. McGuffy Cottage is a later example of one of these buildings, and buried somewhere in the pile that is The Mews is another ante-bellum support structure. One Poe Alley is a 1960s recreation, based only on the footprint of a building known to have been present on that site as late as the late 19th century.
Brian E. Hogg
Senior Historic Preservation Planner
Office of the Architect for the University of Virginia