 Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Patrick Mountain, the Executive Director of the National Archives Foundation. Happy July 4th. On behalf of the Archives and the National Archives Foundation, we're delighted you're sharing part of your holiday with us. The grills are getting warmed up, the popsicles are melting, but we've still got a great program or two in front of us, so we're so glad you're with us and look forward to this exciting program. Before we begin, we have a special message from the Governor, from Governor Jim Blanchard, who is my boss, and the Chair and President of the National Archives Foundation Board. Happy Independence Day, one and all. My name is Jim Blanchard. I happen to be President and Chair of the National Archives Foundation Board of Directors, and on behalf of our board, we welcome you to today's programming celebrating our 4th of July. For 30 years, our foundation has been a partner, a nonprofit partner, with the National Archives supporting programming, exhibitions, special events, all sorts of exciting things that celebrate the American experience, and of course, it's only natural. The National Archives is the home of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We celebrate those every day, and we welcome all of you from outside Washington, D.C. to visit the archives. It is your home of liberty and freedom. Today's programming is going to be very exciting, and we're going to culminate that with the reading of the Declaration of Independence by our fellow board member, Soledad O'Brien. You know, we have exhibitions all year round and programming as well, and so we would invite you to join those programs throughout the year. You can become a member of our archives, all of this is free. You can become a member of our archives by going on the website of archivesfoundation.org. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy today's programming and celebrate a very happy Fourth of July. Thank you. Thank you, Governor Blanchard. Are you ready to jump in? We have had a ton of fun with our programs earlier today, and this will be no different. We will be taking questions from you, so we need you to make this an interactive session. To start off, of course, let's get a little practice in that YouTube chat and give us your hometown and state, and I will give you a shout out later on in the program. This is a special program because we are doing this program in partnership with Colonial Williamsburg as our special guest, James Armstead Lafayette, was an enslaved African American who served under the Marquis de Lafayette during the Revolutionary War, and he was a spy. This is a good story. One, I think that we need to learn more about, and that's why we're all here. Mr. Lafayette, are you with us? I am. Wonderful. We can see you and hear you. How are you doing on this July 4th? I am pensive on this July 4th. On any July 4th, you are thinking about, well, freedom, whether that's freedom of this country or whether you're thinking about your personal freedom. I am, James Lafayette, free man, but that wasn't always the case. I was born in 1748, and I was by law owned by a man by the name of William Armstead. My prospects for finding my freedom were not, there were not many, but then the war came, and in 1781, Master William was the head of the public stores in Virginia. The public warehouses, goods are shipped from one place to the other through the public store houses, because we were at war, mostly for the Continental Army. It was the way in which I met the man that would change my life forever, the Marquis de Lafayette. He was a major general in the Continental Army and had found himself in Virginia through very interesting errors in shipping. It came upon me to deliver some goods to the Marquis de Lafayette, and we met and connected instantly. It wasn't long before the offer was made to me to join the Continental Army under the Marquis de Lafayette. Now, when this offer was made to me, I first declined. I said, I'm not a soldier. I can't be in this army. And he looked at me with this rye smile on his face and said, but I'm not looking for you to be a soldier with a musket in your hand. I want something different from you. You are a very clever and intelligent man. What I want for you to do is I want you to sneak across the British lines, ingratiate yourself with the British officers and serve them as a serving man, for that is what you do for your master William. Listen to their conversations as they are speaking. Listen to everything and report it back to me. I looked at him and I said, so you want me to be your spy? And he said, yes, James. That is exactly what I want. I gave him a funny look and I said, how do you expect me to be able to spy for you very well? He began to exclaim to me, invisible people, James, you said it to yourself, invisible people. And what he had meant by that was I had told him about the population of Williamsburg in the 1770s. It was more than half black and most of us slaves. What that means is there's not a manner which could go through your daily life in Williamsburg and not see slavery right in front of your face. But despite that fact, most people didn't even notice that we were around unless they needed something. But we were serving the food, pouring the drinks, delivering the correspondence. What it meant was that we were everywhere. We saw everything. We heard everything. We knew everything. Many called us the enslaved of Williamsburg, the invisible people. I'd shared that with the market a lot, yet he had reminded me and he said, that is how you shall spy on the British from me. Well, I asked him the same question that you probably would have asked him, which is, am I going to gain my freedom for serving this American cause of freedom? The marquee looked down. He sighed. He said, by law, I am not allowed to promise you freedom. If you serve, I will do everything I can to help you. But if I'm being honest with you, I cannot make you that offer of freedom. He allowed me to decide. And as I saw it, I had two choices. Actually, three, though that third choice wasn't really one that I could make. I could make the choice of saying, no, thank you. But I was owned by William Armistead. He could control what I would do. And I do not think he would allow me to slight. So important a man is the marquee to Lafayette by saying no to him. So here are my two choices. The first was to do as the marquee to Lafayette wanted. Make my way from the American lines to the British lines, spy, and make my way back to the American lines to report what I had learned. Very, very dangerous work. If I were to be discovered, I would be immediately put to death for what I was doing. But then there was a second choice. To make my way across British lines and simply stay there. The British had offered freedom to slaves that made their way and joined the British army. So let me ask you now, if you were in my position and my lot, but those two very difficult choices, what choice would you make? Someone say, I should say, God save the king. Right. However, the question of freedom is always, always more complicated than just do you want to be free or do you not want to be free? And what I mean by that is that there are two other very important questions. The first one is, which side could I trust to keep their word? Could I trust the British? Of course not. The British were the ones that brought us over as slaves in the first place. They were not freeing me out of the kindness of their hearts. They were freeing me because they had a use for me and I understood that fact. But on the other end, could I trust the Americans? They had just issued this declaration of independence, talked about the inherent rights, the natural rights of man being that of freedom. And I'm a slave to some of the very same men that helped make that document possible. I could not trust the American side either. And then a thought came to me, maybe I could trust the Marquis de Lafayette. He's a Frenchman, but also I found him to be honest and honorable in every word or deed that I knew of. But there was an even more important question I had to ask myself and that was, what would happen to my family if I was to run across to the British lines and stay there? I would not be able to take them with me. They would most likely be punished severely, their master assuming that they knew that I was going to run. Maybe sold off. I would never see my wife or my children ever again, most likely. So the final most important question I had to ask myself is a question that now I'm going to have you ask yourself, is freedom, but without your family, without those around you, that you love, would you truly consider that to be freedom? Most of you are probably saying, no. And I agree with you. I agreed with you at that time. I could not imagine my life without my wife, Sylvia. And I don't even want to imagine a life of freedom without my children by my side. So I knew the choice that I was going to make, the choice that I needed to make. I would spy for the Marquis de Lafayette and I would hope that when this war ended, the Americans would see it in their hearts to grant me my freedom for meritorious service. And I made my way across British lines. Funny enough, I ingratiated myself with General Benedict Arnold first as a scout, but eventually came to serve General Cornwallis himself, head of the Southern British Forces. Just so happens that I was able to share the information with the Marquis de Lafayette that Cornwallis was making his way from Portsmouth to Yorktown. That was news that General Washington, upon making his way here in secret, would be able to use in order to blockade Yorktown so that we could eventually win this war. The Battle of Yorktown was not the final battle of the American Revolution, but it was the decisive victory that the Americans needed to know that they would have their freedom from Great Britain. And I had helped the Marquis de Lafayette return to France, and I went before the legislature, hopefully gaining my freedom from meritorious service. However, through a technicality, I was not given my freedom. The legislature did issue legislation giving freedom to slave soldiers, which served in place of their masters. I had volunteered, and I had not worn a uniform. They did not consider me a soldier. I was not given my freedom at the end of the war. I went back to slavery. I went back to Master William in the years past. Even when the Marquis de Lafayette returned in 1784, he saw that I was still enslaved. He even wrote a letter to the legislature in his own hand, speaking on what I had done, saying that I deserved my freedom for what I had done for American independence. And do you know it took three more years before I was finally granted my freedom? 1787, I was finally granted my freedom. And from the papers, it seems that I was granted that freedom because of that letter from the Marquis de Lafayette, more than anything else. I was 39 years old, and for the first time in my nearly 40 years of life, I had the sweet taste of freedom on my lips. And it tasted good. What about my wife? What about my children? I would now need to free them. I would need a home. I would need work, all of those I did accomplish. Now, in the everyday life of Lord of 1824, as I find myself today, I have my wife by my side. I have my children by my side. I am free, and they are free. I thank the Marquis de Lafayette for those opportunities that allowed me to gain my freedom, and then to make a life for myself as someone who hopes to one day be seen as a citizen of this country, even after the service that I've rendered to it. But I could talk about that for hours and hours and hours, and you all might have some questions for me. So if that happens to be the case, we can bring Patrick out to start the Q&A. I'm happy to answer any queries that you might have. Hopefully, I will be able to answer to the best of my ability. Wonderful. Thank you. Just you sort of left me hanging with your life story. So what happens after you gained your freedom? Is there more to the story? Please give us another chapter. Well, I hope there's more to the story. I'm still here to seriously answer your question. The first thing I did, I needed work. So I worked at the local Grist Mill in New Kent County. I've been born in New Kent County. It's a county between Williamsburg and Richmond. In Virginia. And I wanted to live there. That's where I wanted to raise my family once they were able to gain their freedom as well. It took many years, but I was able to buy 40 acres of land of my own. And I was able to eventually buy my wife, my children. But matters were complicated. Slave laws were not written with freed blacks trying to free their families in mind. It was written with white slaveholders in mind they are the majority. What that meant was that the law stated that I could not free my children until they had either reached adulthood or I had enough money to put into trust for them to be taken care of for the rest of their lives so that the state did not have to do so. What that meant was if I bought my children before they had reached their majority, their adulthood, by the letter of the law, I would have had to own them. Now, understand in my house, my children would never be considered my slaves. But what happens if I were to say die before they had gained their freedom? Well, what do they do when you die? The state sells off your property to pay off your debts. And my children would have been the most expensive pieces of property that I owned by the letter of the law. They would have been sold in order to pay off my debts most likely. But that didn't happen. They reached their majorities. I was able to free them. I was able to free my wife, Sylvia, because the law also stated that if you were of the age of 45, that you had to, well, have money put aside for you in trust for you to be able to be taken care of so that the state did not have to do so. And my wife, Sylvia, would never want me to tell you her age. But she was under the age of 45, which meant that I would not fall under that law. But the laws even became more complicated. In 1806, they put a law on the books in Virginia that said that if you freed a slave in Virginia, that they had to leave the Commonwealth within a year or they could be re-enslaved. Therefore, I had to, much like the law did to keep me enslaved, I had to find loopholes within the law in order to free my family and not have to make the choice of either keeping them with me and owning them or freeing them and never being able to see them because they are no longer allowed to stay within the Commonwealth of Virginia. I did that. And as we find ourselves here in 1824, I still have my 40 acres of land by the water in New Kent County. My wife is healthy. My children are grown and have lives of their own. I'm a poor, but you're never truly poor when you're free. That answers your question, I hope. It does. It does. And I want to encourage our audience, both from the archives and from Colonial Williamsburg, to add your questions to the chat. We have folks from all over the country, Houston, Rochester, Harrisburg, Palm Springs, Virginia, of course, Williamsburg, Washington, PA, the DC area, Columbia, South Carolina. So we welcome all of those folks who are joining us, learning more about your life. So this is an interesting question and I'm hoping I'm getting this phrase right. Do you think your decision that you would have been an inspiration to the slaves joining the Continental Army or despised by the slaves by joining the British Army? It's a little bit of a hypothetical, I guess. A hypothetical. Let me think about that. It's very hard to think about being an inspiration when your life is focused on your survival or if your life is focused on being with your family. There are a few things that we feel inside that are stronger urges than those two. I don't know that the thought had ever come to me as to what the others around me would think, whichever choice I made. The only thought that stayed in my mind was, will my family be safe? Will I be able to one day see them again? And even if I don't survive, might they still survive themselves? Might they still be all right? Because I don't know that I've ever thought about that in respects to what others might have thought of the decisions that I was making. I will say many in the legislature, which my old master, William Armistead, was a member of the House of Delegates, I know that it was a thought on their minds. One of the reasons why they wrote the law in 1806 to make freed individuals have to leave within a year of being freed was so that there were not more like me around who could make those who were still enslaved know what was possible when you were freed. So with that in mind, though it was not something that was on my mind, I have no doubt that it was on the mind of those who made the laws because the laws show that. What do you know or what can you share about your parents? Do you know about them and what happened to them? No, I wish I did. But I have very little memory of blood relations, family. I remember being a young child. There was an older woman who took care of all of us, all of us young black children. She took care of us. She looked after us. She taught us what we needed to know until we got to the age where we learned what we would be doing in essence for the rest of our lives. She is the closest I have to a parent. And sometimes family is not made by blood but is made by proximity. I have memories of those who were around me who also had to suffer, who also did not have power over their own beings and their own bodies. Those were my brothers and my sisters, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles. They still are to this day. Those are whom I know, but they are not by blood. Unfortunately, I do not know who my parents were. And a question, you might have said this at the beginning, but the fact that you were identified by the marquee, were you able to read or write? Good question. Yes, I was. In Virginia, there are still no laws on the books prohibiting slaves from learning to read and write. Now, if I had lived in North or South Carolina, well, that would have been different. They've had laws on the books for decades that made it against the law for someone that looks like me to be able to read and write. In Virginia, they kept it off the books and still have kept it off the books for two reasons, I think. The first being that they want for individuals who are enslaved to be able to read and understand the Word of God. But the other reason is that a slave who knows how to read and write has an additional skill. And every skill that that enslaved individual has, well, that means that their value rises. So if you teach your property to read and write, you have added onto your property, thereby making your property the person that you own more valuable. So I very quickly became one of the most valuable pieces of property that Master William owned because I knew how to read and write. Now, what I have told the British that I knew how to read and write, well, sometimes it's better to be underestimated. It makes it easier sometimes to traverse the world that you're in. But yes, reading and writing is something that I knew how to do and know how to do. Okay. I think we have time for one more question before we move to the other part of the program. Can you describe what kind of man the Marquis was? The Marquis de Lafayette and interestingly enough, he is now known, well, he's as beloved in France as he is in America. And he's very beloved in here in America. But he says that he is a citizen of the United States and of France. But I have to say that the Marquis de Lafayette is not like any other American man that I've ever known. And I've met very few Frenchmen, so I can't speak on whether he is like many other Frenchmen. But what I will say about the Marquis de Lafayette is that the most important part of him, I think, is his notions of fairness. The Marquis de Lafayette, from the moment he had learned of the institution of slavery as it is here in North America, found it repugnant. He did not understand it and he did not want to be a part of it. He tried many times to help institute that destruction of slavery that many of the founders thought would already happen by now. And of course it hasn't and it doesn't seem like it's going to be at all. But I found him to be honest, direct, his English was better than most Americans, very smart, very shrewd, and a friend, which was not what I expected at all. Not once when I served him as a spy. Did he ever look at me as property? I was always James. That is unlike any other treatment other than from my family that I have had in this country. And for that I will always have a deep, deep love for the Marquis de Lafayette, one of the greatest men I've ever met. Very good. Well, now we have a special treat for our viewers. We are going to, I have the opportunity to introduce Steven Seals, who is the historic interpreter for Colonial Williamsburg, who's going to tell us a little bit about what it's like to take on this role. So I know he's going to change gears. Yes, I am. I just have to take a breath and just think for a second. I have to just change my mindset to become Steven and change my voice ever so slightly. You probably won't even notice, but hello everyone. My name is Steven Seals. I portray James Lafayette for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, as well as do some program development management for the foundation as well. I've been working here at the foundation now for a little over 13 years. I haven't always played James Lafayette. I've only been doing that now for about four years or so, but have played numerous characters free and enslaved throughout my 13 years. I started off as an actor and director before I came to Colonial Williamsburg. So coming here to do historical interpretation, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, in a good way and in a bad way, in the respects that telling this story, telling the story of America is not easy. It's not always comfortable. And many times it is very difficult, which is not a problem. That's just the truth of the matter. History is not clean. It never has been. It never will be. But what it means is, as someone who is looking at the history, looking at the primary sources and trying to build a character or build a narrative off of that, you get to see the founding documents. You get to see the pieces of legislation that have led to the country forming in the way that it is. And any of the problems that we have today, you only need to look back at those formations and how those formations have continued from generation to generation as to why we have many of the issues that we still have today. And it gets very depressing. And there's a point where you just go, why am I doing this? And I had a wonderful co-worker here, Hope, and it's perfect that that's her name, because she was the person that said to me that you should never bow your head for sharing the story of our ancestors. They were not allowed to have a voice of their own within the society, and we are giving them a voice for the first time. We are making them human for people who come here. We are humanizing the dehumanized, and that is an honor. That's not a reason to feel shame. Our people, their history is a history of survival. It is a history of hope. She said that to me. And from then on, I knew why I was here, and I knew the work that I had to do. And the work is still difficult, and there's still things that are said to you sometimes, or things that happen in life that you look and you go, I completely understand why that happened. But you see the importance of doing this work, and that's what I needed to see. That's what I needed to feel, and that's what I've had since that moment. So I look at the research. I read the books. I explain the foundations of the 18th century, hopefully in a way that no matter what type of guest you are coming here, you will understand the story enough to be able to have conversations on your own and figure out those connections to your past, our shared past, that help you to understand why we live in the world that we do today. So in that shell, that's what I do, and that's what I love doing. And as hard as it is, sometimes I love my job. Especially when it's 90 or 100 degrees outside, right? In summers, so I'm glad I'm inside right now. And though we're in an 18th century building, one of our original buildings, actually, it does have an air conditioning system in it. So right now, I'm very comfortable. Well, it's interesting. You talked about the primary sources. That's obviously what the archives is in the business of. I know there was a question about your parents when we talked earlier this week, you mentioned your children. So obviously, you're always still researching. Is there a team there at Colonial Williamsburg you work with? Can you talk us through a little bit about how you continue to do that exploration? Well, we have, I'm very lucky that we historical interpreters here also have many opportunities to do our own research, to look for those materials to get them together. I have a whole notebook about James, but we're also very lucky these days that to have, at this point, two full-time historians, both with their PhDs, both who are amazing individuals, Kathy Hellyer, Dr. Kathy Hellyer, and Dr. Kelly Bremen. And they are wonderful at helping find sources, but also at helping you gain an understanding of the foundations of the 18th century. Because if you're doing historical interpretation, and especially if you're doing first-person interpretation, no matter who you're playing, you're never going to have all the documents that say exactly every single thing that they did. So every single character is a composite character in some way, shape, or form. So in order to be able to answer the questions that maybe you don't know for sure about the person that you're portraying, you have to use the foundations of the 18th century. You have to use the foundations of the society, the laws, the classes, the understandings, the mindsets of people, the writings, to be able to truly answer the questions of what would someone have done on a certain day at a certain time. And they're really good at that. They're individuals who have been working here for over 50 years. And I consider them our elders, and they also have gained so much information over the decades that you can tend to find what it is that you're looking for, or nowhere to go to find new information. And Williamsburg has been around, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has been around for nearly 100 years. So there is a legacy of research from the 1920s and 30s all the way to today. So there is a wide amount of research, and everything going digital means that it's much easier to find research from across the country and across the world these days, too. So those are the things that really help us, help me to be able to, to portray this character, and to look deeper, to even find new things or different things, or figure out what things can't be found. One of the things, for instance, is we don't know for sure the names of James's children. And we think we may have found the names for three of them, but we're not completely sure yet. The New Kent Historical Society is dealing with that right now. But sometimes there are things that you don't know, simple things, and we'll continue to look for those. I will continue to look for those, believe me. Well, this has been terrific. We obviously got a little bit of a late start, thanks to our technical, we might want to think about getting back into the 18th century and getting rid of some of the technology and talking to each other more directly. But I know just from the comments on the archives YouTube page, very delighted to have you, both as James and as Steven, to get your insights on the work that you do and what's happening at Colonial Williamsburg. So I want to thank you for opening up our eyes to your voice and the young nation at that time. Truly a pleasure. It's truly about legacy. And the legacy of this country looks like you. It looks like me. It looks like James. And I have the greatest honor to be able to share that story every single day. So thank you for allowing me to do it. Absolutely. Well, I know it's a busy day at Colonial Williamsburg, so I'm sure you've got many things to get to. We appreciate you spending the time with us today. We're delighted to have partnered with Colonial Williamsburg as well. So thank you. Truly a pleasure. Thank you. And I will remind our guests who are watching, don't forget to visit Colonial Williamsburg, that terrific historic site where you'll learn quite a bit from James, and I'm sure they'd love to see you in person. So now we're going to wrap up this program. We've got one more for the day. And before we do that, of course, I have to share a few things from our store. And just as a reminder, you can visit archives, nationalsarchistore.org. We are having a sale on our patriotic collection, 25% off. And you can use the code represent25. That's the word represent and the number 25 to get 25% off of our collections. We want to thank our sponsors today again, John Hancock, AARP, and Daikomot, without their support. Our July 4th programming would not be possible. And all of our members who have joined us today who helped the foundation throughout the year with our programs, the civics outreach. If you're not a member, visit archivesfoundation.org. We've got one more program that will be coming up shortly because we will not be late to our four o'clock appointment at 4pm. We'll have the official ceremony and reading of the Declaration of Independence, the annual tradition from the National Archives. But coming up in just a few minutes, here on this YouTube channel is Betsy Ross, a famous Philadelphia seamstress, I believe most of you will know. Don't forget to connect with us on social and on behalf of the National Archives, the National Archives Foundation. Thanks for spending part of your holiday with us. What is past is prologue. So wave your flags, enjoy your patriotic day, and have a happy July 4th.