George Washington and slavery
Encyclopedia
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
was a slave owner for practically all of his life. His will ultimately emancipated his slaves upon the death of his widow Martha Washington
Martha Washington
Martha Dandridge Custis Washington was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington is considered to be the first First Lady of the United States...
. Although Washington personally opposed the institution of slavery after the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, while President, he gave emergency financial and military relief to French slave owners in Haiti to suppress a slave rebellion. President Washington also signed bills into law that allowed slave owners to recapture their slaves in any state and protected white U.S. citizenship. President Washington signed the Northwest Territory Act that banned slavery in the Northwest Territory
Northwest Territory
The Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Northwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 13, 1787, until March 1, 1803, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Ohio...
in 1789.
Early life
At the age of eleven, he inherited ten slaves; by the time of his death there were 316 slaves at Mount VernonMount Vernon
The name Mount Vernon is a dedication to the English Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon. It was first applied to Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, the first President of the United States...
, including 123 owned by Washington, 40 leased from a neighbor, and an additional 153 "dower
Dower
Dower or morning gift was a provision accorded by law to a wife for her support in the event that she should survive her husband...
slaves" which were controlled by Washington but were the property of his wife Martha's first husband's estate. As on other plantations during that era, his slaves worked from dawn until dusk unless injured or ill and they were whipped for running away or for other infractions. They were fed, clothed, and housed as inexpensively as possible, in conditions that were probably quite meager. Visitors recorded contradictory impressions of slave life at Mount Vernon: one visitor in 1798 wrote that Washington treated his slaves "with more severity" than his neighbors, while another around the same time stated that "Washington treat[ed] his slaves far more humanely than did his fellow citizens of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
." Washington's writings show that he had a low opinion of the honesty and willingness to work of his slaves, as well as of the ability of his overseers to control them. The overseers were given written authorization to whip those slaves he considered to be in need of such "correction," including female slaves.
Revolutionary period
Before the American Revolution, Washington expressed no moral reservations about slavery, but by 1778 he had stopped selling because he did not want to break up slave families. Historian Henry WiencekHenry Wiencek
Henry Wiencek is a prominent American historian and editor whose work has encompassed historically significant architecture, the Founding Fathers, various topics relating to slavery, and the Lego company...
speculates that Washington's slave buying, particularly his participation in a raffle
Raffle
A raffle is a competition in which people obtain numbered tickets, each ticket having the chance of winning a prize. At a set time, the winners are drawn from a container holding a copy of every number...
of 55 slaves in 1769, may have initiated a gradual reassessment of slavery. His thoughts on slavery may have also been influenced by the rhetoric of the American Revolution, by the thousands of blacks who sought to enlist in the army, by the anti-slavery sentiments of his idealistic aide John Laurens
John Laurens
John Laurens was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina during the Revolutionary War. He gained approval by the Continental Congress in 1779 to recruit a regiment of 3000 slaves by promising them freedom in return for fighting...
, and by the enslaved black poet Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley was the first African American poet and first African-American woman whose writings were published. Born in Gambia, Senegal, she was sold into slavery at age seven...
, who in 1775 wrote a poem in his honor. In 1778, while Washington was at war, he wrote to his manager at Mount Vernon that he wished to sell his slaves and "to get quit of negroes", since maintaining a large (and increasingly elderly) slave population was no longer economically efficient. Washington could not legally sell the "dower slaves", however, and because these slaves had long intermarried with his own slaves, he could not sell his slaves without breaking up families, something which he had resolved not to do. Confronted with this dilemma, his plan to divest himself of slaves was dropped.
Following the war
In 1782 the Virginia legislature repealed its law prohibiting the private manumissionManumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
of slaves. Slaveholders were then allowed, either by executing a deed or adding provisions to a will, to free any adult slave under the age of forty-five. The laws in Virginia were designed to discourage and prevent the emancipation of slaves.
After the war, Washington often privately expressed a dislike of the institution of slavery. In 1786, he wrote to a friend that "I never mean ... to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this Country may be abolished by slow, sure and imperceptible degrees." To another friend he wrote that "there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see some plan adopted for the abolition
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
" of slavery. He expressed moral support for plans by his friend the Marquis de Lafayette
Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette , often known as simply Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer born in Chavaniac, in the province of Auvergne in south central France...
to emancipate slaves and resettle them elsewhere, but he did not assist him in the effort.
The excess number of slaves which he held was economically unprofitable for Mount Vernon. Washington wrote "It is demonstratively clear that on this Estate (Mount Vernon) I have more working Negroes by a full [half] than can be employed to any advantage in the farming system." Washington could have sold his "surplus" slaves and immediately have realized a substantial income. Historian James Truslow Adams
James Truslow Adams
James Truslow Adams was an American writer and historian. He was not related to the famous Adams family...
observed, "One good field hand was worth as much as a small city lot. By selling a single slave, Washington could have paid for two years all the taxes he so complained about." Washington himself acknowledged the profit he could make by reducing the number of his slaves, declaring "[H]alf the workers I keep on this estate would render me greater net profit than I now derive from the whole."
Presidency
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, known as the Freedom Ordinance, was passed by Congress and President Washington in 1789. One provision was the exclusion of slavery in the Northwest TerritoryNorthwest Territory
The Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Northwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 13, 1787, until March 1, 1803, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Ohio...
, which received support from southern slave owners. Though they did not oppose slavery, they excluded it in the area because of competition with their crops like tobacco, and knew that they would maintain their balance in the Congress with the Southwest Ordinance of 1790. However, the law also required the government to return runaway slaves, a key provision slave owners had not had under the Articles of Confederation, and one that now partially protected their right to reclaim human property or slaves.Although the Ordinance banned slavery, the law was evaded by slave owners in Indiana and Illinois.
In 1790, President George Washington signed the Naturalization Act
Naturalization Act of 1790
The original United States Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were "free white persons" of "good moral character". It thus left out indentured...
. This act limited U.S. Citizenship to only free white persons. Those persons considered white were defined as Caucasian
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
.
In 1793, President George Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
The Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed the right of a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave...
. This act gave slave owers the right to capture fugitive slaves in any U.S. State. This act was done to allow the recapture of fugitive slaves who escaped into any "safe harbors" or slave sanctuaries.
According to historian Alfred Hunt, President Washington issued $400,000 and 1,000 weapons to French colony Saint Domingue (Haiti) slave owners as emergency relief in order to put down a slave rebellion. The monetary relief and weapons counted as a repayment for loans granted by France to the Americans during the Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
.
Posthumous emancipation
Washington was the only prominent, slaveholding Founding Father to emancipate his slaves. He did not free his slaves in his lifetime, however, but instead included a provision in his will to free his slaves upon the death of his wife. William LeeWilliam Lee (valet)
William Lee , also known as Billy Lee or Will Lee, was George Washington's personal servant and the only one of Washington's slaves freed outright by Washington in his will...
, Washington's longtime personal servant, was the only slave freed outright in the will. The will called for the ex-slaves to be provided for by Washington's heirs, the elderly ones to be clothed and fed, the younger ones to be educated and trained at an occupation. Washington did not own and could not emancipate the "dower slaves" at Mount Vernon.
Prior to 1782, Virginia law prohibited slave owners from emancipating slaves, the only exception being for "meritorious service" and only at the approval of the Governor and his council. This law was repealed by the 1782 law allowing slave emancipation by will or deed. Washington never manumitted any slaves by deed after the liberal 1782 law was passed, with the exception of his will.
Washington's failure to act publicly upon his growing private misgivings about slavery during his lifetime is seen by some historians as a tragically missed opportunity. The major reason Washington did not emancipate his slaves after the 1782 law and prior to his death was because of the financial costs involved. To circumvent this problem, in 1794 he quietly sought to sell off his western lands and lease his outlying farms in order to finance the emancipation of his slaves, but this plan fell through because enough buyers and renters could not be found. Also, Washington did not want to risk splitting the new nation apart over the slavery issue. "He did not speak out publicly against slavery", argues historian Dorothy Twohig, "because he did not wish to risk splitting apart the young republic over what was already a sensitive and divisive issue."
George Washington's slaves
- Henry WashingtonHenry WashingtonHenry Washington was a one time African American slave of the first president of the United States, George Washington. His history and linked documents can be found on-line He was a saltwater slave from Africa purchased from a deceased estate in 1763 to be part of Washington's workforce in the...
– African AmericanAfrican AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
slave who became Black LoyalistBlack LoyalistA Black Loyalist was an inhabitant of British America of African descent who joined British colonial forces during the American Revolutionary War... - Davy Jones
- Oney JudgeOney JudgeOney "Ona" Judge, later Oney Judge Staines , was a slave at George Washington's plantation, Mount Vernon in Virginia. A servant in Washington's presidential households beginning in 1789, she escaped to freedom in 1796 and made her way to New Hampshire, where she lived the rest of her life...
– escaped slave who avoided recapture multiple times - Emily Hartley - African AmericanAfrican AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
escaped once