GW's Slaves and Slavery - Full Dose
George Washington did buy slaves while building of Fort Loudoun continued. And now after marriage to Martha 6 Jan 1759, he inherited even more. Chernow states, "During the frosty first winter of his marriage, he grew alarmed by the death of four slaves by late January [1759], three of them dower slaves from the Custis estate."
We try to tell the whole story. We want none of the story to hide or disappear. We leave judgements to the reader. We only press for a desire to know all of the story and that desire is often defeated by all sorts of obstructions, societal pressures, biases, fears that one part of a story will obliterate other parts of the story. We know there are many segments of society who are passionate on these matters and should be.
We tell of his purchases of slaves while building Fort Loudoun in these two links.
We also look at Jefferson's spin of pushing the issue of slavery on their British masters rather than on themselves in this link.
We look at a black poet who associates Columbia as a symbol opposing Britannia.
Slavery
It can come in many forms and intensity. No age is sacrosanct from it.
Cherokee
We see how slavery became an intractable problem for the Cherokee.
Aldous Huxley
indicated in his book, Brave New World, that the danger of new enslavement will come from us - We the People.
Sinclair Lewis
documented cultural repression of anyone different in the 1910s in his books like Main Street, Babbitt, Dodsworth or Aerosmith.
George Orwell
thought this danger will come from government.
Now for a signifcant dose.
We found one particular chapter of a book by Ron Chernow that went hard at the subject.
GW's Slavery
The following is an excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "A Certain Species of Property,' from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010, pages 110-112.
He [George Washington] seldom uttered the word slavery, as if it grated on his conscience, preferring polite euphemisms such as "servants," "Negroes," "my people," or "my family."
Like other slave owners, the young Washington talked about slaves as simply another form of property.
He was cold-blooded in specifying instructions for buying slaves, telling one buyer, as if he were purchasing a racehorse, that he wanted his slaves "to be straight-limbed and in every respect strong and likely, with good teeth and good countenances."
He favored adolescent females who could maximize the number of slave children, urging one planter who owed him money to sell some slaves in the fall "when they are fat and lusty and must soon fall off unless well fed."
In this savage world, planters posted slaves as collateral for loans, and Washington upbraided one debtor for asking him to rely upon '"such hazardous and perishable articles as Negroes, stock, and chattels."
With another debtor, he threatened that, without speedy payment,"your Negroes must be immediately exposed to sale for ready money after short notice."
In his diary, he often wrote of being "at home all day alone" when he was surrounded by slaves in the mansion and fields.
How the leaders saw it
However horrifying it seems to later generations, abominable behavior toward dark-skinned people was considered an acceptable way of life.
In 1767, when four slaves were executed in Fairfax County for supposedly colluding to poison their overseers, their decapitated heads were posted on chimneys at the local courthouse to act as a grim warning to others. Nobody protested this patent atrocity.
At the same time, slave masters in the 18th Century seldom rationalized or romanticized slavery as a divinely sanctioned system, as happened before the Civil War.
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and other Virginia planters acknowledged the immorality of slavery, while confessing perplexity as to how to abolish it without producing mayhem and financial ruin.
When denouncing British behavior on the eve of the American Revolution, Washington made clear the degrading nature of the system when he said that, if the colonists tolerated abuses, the British "will make us as tame and abject slaves as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway."
Number of Slaves
The black population at Mount Vernon grew apace after Washington's marriage as he purchased slaves aggressively to keep pace with his widening economic activities. During the first year of his marriage [1759], he acquired 13 slaves, then another 42 between 1761 and 1773. Since he paid taxes on slaves older than twelve years of age, we know that he personally owned 56 slaves of working age in 1761, 62 in 1762, 78 in 1765, and 87 in 1770.
page 111
Although he stopped buying slaves in 1772, his slave population swelled from natural increase so that he owned 135 able-bodied slaves . . . . . .
page 112
excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "A Certain Species of Property,' from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010
William Churchill of Middlesex County ---- from whom GW bought nine slaves on 4 May 1759 (Cash Accounts, May 1759). Source:
Entire slave list in June 1799
Slaves Smallpox
Whether from humane considerations or merely from regard for property, Washington was tireless in his medical treatment of slaves; his diaries are loaded with references to doctors, and even to Washington himself, tending sick slaves. During the frosty first winter of his marriage, he grew alarmed by the death of four slaves by late January [1759], three of them dower slaves from the Custis estate. As in the army, whenever trouble struck, Washington didnt shirk personal involvement. His direct management style became manifest that Spring [1759] when smallpox cropped up at his western plantation on Bullskin Creek. At once he hastened off to Frederick County and was startled to find that two slaves, Harry and Kit, had already died, and that everything lay "in the utmost confusion, disorder and backwardness." He rushed off to nearby Winchester to secured blankets and medical supplies, summoned a nurse, and instructed his overseer to quarantine slaves with smallpox. Byu the Revolutionary War, Washington made a regular practive of inoculating slaves against smallpox. The standard method was to scrape contaminated matter from the pustules of a victim with a mild case of smallpox. This produced a mild case of the disease, which prevented the more virulent form.
end of page 111
excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "A Certain Species of Property,' from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010
Design of Estate not friendly
The very design of the estate made it arduous for slaves to maintain families.
Mount Vernon came to consist of five farms: the Mansion House Farm (what tourists think of today as Mount Vernon) and four satelite farms: Dogue Run, Muddy Hole, Union and River.
Many Mansion House slaves were either household servants, dressed in brightly colored livery of scarlet and white waistcoats, or highly skilled artisans; these last were overwhelmingly male, while the four distant farms held mostly field hands who, contrary to stereotype, were largely female.
This sexual division meant that only a little third of Washington's slaves enjoyed the luxury of living with their spouses and children. Since the slaves worked a grueling six-day week, from sunup to sundown, they had to tramp long distances on Saturday evening or Sunday to visit their far-flung families. It speaks volumes about the strength and tenacity of slave families that two-thirds of the adults remained married despite such overwhelming obstacles.
page 113
excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "A Certain Species of Property,' from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010
Yorktown
Yorktown struck a stirring blow for American Liberty with one exception: those slaves who had flocked to the British side to win their freedom were now restored to the thrall of their owners.
Washington retrieved tow young house slaves -- twenty year old Lucy and eighteen year old Esther --- who have been among the seventeen who had escaped aboard the British sloop Savage six months earler, thinking their freedom assured. He was determined to recover the remaining fifteen slaves he had lost.
page 419
excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "The World Turned Upside Down" from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010
You read how Alexander Hamilton badgered GW for the chance to lead one of the first attacks. But then you find out the first group under Hamilton charging were Blacks. Chernow mentions that Alexander Hamilton's charge on Cornwallis defensive redoubt incurred minimal losses. "Among the heroes of the charge was the largely black First Rhode Island Regiment."
page 415
excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "The World Turned Upside Down ' from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010
"In desperation Cornwallis took former slaves who had defected to British lines and contracted smallpox and pushed them toward the allied lines in a version of germ warfare. On American reported "hers of Negroes" who had been "turned adrift" by Cornwallis for this grisly purpose.
Jacky Custis, scanning the defecting blacks for runaway slaves from Mount Vernon, found none. "I have seen numbers [of blacks] lying dead in the woods," he informed his mother, "and many so exhausted they cannot walk."
page 416
excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "The World Turned Upside Down ' from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010
"A solemn stillness prevailed," St George Tucker wrote. "The night was remarkably clear and th of the ne sky decorated with ten thousand stars. Numberless meteors gleaming through the atmosphere." The next day soldiers waded across a hellish battlefied paved with cadavers, one recalling that "all over the place and wherever you look [there were] corpses lying about that had not been buried. The majority of the bodies, he noted, were black, reflecting their importance on both sides of the conflict. Some of these black corpses likely belonged to runaway slaves who had sought asylum with Cornwallis, only to be stricked during the siege with small pox or "camp fever" --- likely typhus, a disease spread by lice and fleas in overcrowded camps.
page 417
excerpt from Ron Chernow's Chapter "The World Turned Upside Down ' from his book "Washington: A Life." published 2010
Compiled by Jim Moyer 2/5/2023, update 2/12/2023, 2/13/2023, 2/26/2023, 8/26/2023
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No age is without its blindspots.
No age has handled well the treatment of anyone different.
We have improved somewhat on the issues of color and gender and sexual preference, but not so well on creed or different thinking.
Differences inspires distrust. If dismissal and cancelling of such difference doesn't eradicate it, then hatred ensues.
The hatred between many conservatives and liberals in this country is a modern blindspot.
The 11 year shutdown of a friendship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson is a notable but similar example.
Our age like the Tale of Two Cities is running on different truths.
And yet slavery is not just another blindspot.
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