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Carlos Cato, a Fredericksburg resident who has done extensive research on slavery in Virginia, stands across the Rappahannock River from George Washington's boyhood home, Ferry Farm.
Ed Way (left), Cindy Gunther and Willie Balderson tour George Washington's birthplace in Westmoreland County last week. Interpreters from Colonial Williamsburg, they were part of a group visiting historic sites as part of their training.
Andrew Packett, a ranger at George Washington Birthplace National Monument, shows visitors the grounds. The park is incorporating black history into its interpretation. |
In a letter sent to Gen. George Washington in July 1796, prominent Englishman Edward Rushton scolded the father of our nation for a glaring contradiction in character.
"Ages to come will read with astonishment that the man who was foremost to wrench the rights of America from the tyrannical grasp of Britain holds hundreds of his fellow being[s] in a state of abject bondage. Yes: you who have conquered under the banners of freedom, you who are now the first magistrate of a free people are a slaveholder. Shame! Shame!"
This week, as Americans celebrate the birth of the first president, the long-debated issue of Washington and slavery still hangs over the statesman's legacy.
In fact, a new slavery exhibit is now on display at George Washington Birthplace National Monument in Westmoreland County.
Throughout his lifetime, Washington never spoke publicly of slavery.
Upon his death in 1799, he did something no other Revolutionary leader had: He freed the 123 slaves he owned at Mount Vernon, his home on the Potomac River near Alexandria.
Yet slavery was a hotly debated institution that Washington was unwilling to tackle early in his life.
At the time of his birth in 1732, Washington's father owned hundreds of slaves at the family plantation on Popes Creek in Westmoreland County.
"Washington was born into a system of slavery that he had no qualms accepting," said Dennis Pogue, associate director of Mount Vernon.
Although he expressed private concerns about slavery, even in his public role as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in the 1750s Washington did not take any public steps to abolish slavery.
"That whole time, he didn't introduce one bill to abolish slavery," said Carlos Cato, an official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Civil Rights. Cato, who lives in Fredericksburg, has researched the issue of slavery during Washington's time.
"You have to remember, all slavery was about was making money."
It wasn't until the American Revolution that Washington seemed to become disillusioned with slavery.
"He was a gradual abolitionist," Pogue said. "Over time, he began to question whether it was a good thing."
Though he took no public stance, Washington expressed unease with slavery in subtle ways.
During the war, Washington implored his manager at Mount Vernon to take good care of his slaves. This was partly for economic reasons but also involved something more, Washington's writings show.
"It is foremost in my thoughts you will be particularly attentive to my Negroes in their sickness; and to order every Overseer positively to be so likewise; for I am sorry to observe that the generality of them view these poor creatures in scarcely any other light than they do a draughthorse or Ox; neglecting them as much when they are unable to work; instead of comforting and nursing them when they lye on sickbed."
While at Mount Vernon, Washington ruled that slaves couldn't be whipped until he had seen a written complaint and signed it.
Washington provided competent medical care, food, clothing and housing for his slaves. And he was reluctant to break up slave families, as many people did.
"Marriages between slaves was not legally recognized in Virginia at that time," Pogue said. "But he did, and tried his best to keep slave families united. He had more slaves then he needed. He could have freed them, which he didn't, but he also didn't sell them because he didn't want to break up the families."
Still, Washington didn't act to abolish slavery.
"There is evidence where Washington clearly was sympathetic about it, but he always stops short of doing anything publicly," Pogue said.
For example, in a letter to John Francis Mercer, Washington wrote: "I never mean to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by the legislature, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure and imperceptible degrees."
Washington's friend the Marquis de Lafayette, who was staunchly opposed to slavery, concocted a plan to rid the nation of it.
In 1785, Washington wrote a letter to Lafayette saying: "The scheme you propose to encourage the emancipation of the black people from that state of bondage is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work."
But historians conclude that Washington was more concerned with unifying the 13 colonies than doing anything to cause further divisions among them.
"I think he felt the slavery issue was so volatile he wasn't willing to risk the country," Pogue said.
Instead, he waited until his death to take a stand--albeit a private one--against slavery: "Upon the decease [of] my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves which I hold in [my] own right, shall receive their freedom."
At that time, Washington owned 123 slaves at Mount Vernon and oversaw another 153.
His widow, Martha, ended up freeing the slaves a year before her death.
"She was uncomfortable with the fact that their freedom depended on her death," Pogue said.
But in the end, this was Washington's way of having the last word on slavery.
"This was a huge dilemma he faced toward the end of his life," Pogue said. "He was searching for a way out of an awful institution."
