There he served an important role in the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the Jefferson estates, including Poplar Forest, as butler, personal valet, glazier, and painter.
[1] According to Edmund Bacon, chief overseer at Monticello for nearly two decades from 1806 to 1822, "Mr. Jefferson had a large number of favorite servants, that were treated just as well as could be.
He and his cousin John Hemings were exceptional in that they were given a regular annual allowance of $20 per year, and permitted to go down to the Charlottesville stores and pick out the clothing they wanted.
This is notable because enslaved African Americans were typically given a predetermined allotment of rudimentary clothing and foodstuffs by their owner, and had no freedom of choice in the matter.
[3] For only these three, Jefferson made these additional provisions: "...it is my will that a comfortable log-house be built for each of the three servants so emancipated on some part of my lands convenient to them with respect to the residence of their wives, and to Charlottesville and the University, where they will be mostly employed, and reasonably convenient also to the interests of the proprietor of the lands; of which houses I give the use of one, with a curtilage of an acre to each, during his life or personal occupation thereof.
Antebellum Virginia law dictated that each child born to a free man and an enslaved woman creates another slave for her owner.
Until these freedmen could purchase freedom for each family member they hoped to keep close, they were head of no household and lacked any leverage which would normally prove beneficial seeking employment or negotiating future pay.
In 1805 President Jefferson wrote in his farm book regarding Burwell Colbert that he "paints and takes care of the house."