Replies

“George Washington owned slaves too. So did Martha Washington.”

“While her father had owned 15 to 20 slaves, her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, owned nearly 300, making him one of the largest slaveowners and wealthiest men in the Virginia colony. The full Custis estate contained plantations and farms totaling about 27 square miles (70 km2), and 285 enslaved men, women, and children attached to those holdings.”

“Daniel Parke Custis’ death in 1757 without a will meant that, according to law, Martha and his eldest male child, John (Jacky) Parke Custis, who was at that time a minor, when he became an adult, would inherit two-thirds of the Custis estate, its slaves, and the children of those slaves. Martha received a ‘dower share, the lifetime use of (and income from) the remaining one-third of the estate and its slaves. After her death, the dower slaves and their progeny were to be distributed among the surviving Custis heirs.”

“Upon his 1759 marriage to Martha, George Washington became the legal manager of the Custis estate, under court oversight. At the time of her marriage, Martha’s dower share included more than 80 slaves. She also would control any children they had, as they would become part of the dower.”

“For more than 40 years, her “dower” slaves farmed the plantation alongside her husband’s. By law, neither of the Washingtons could sell Custis lands or slaves, which Martha’s dower and the trust owned. After Jacky died during the Revolutionary War, his slaves passed to his son, George Washington Parke Custis, who at the time was a minor. If Jacky’s trust or Martha’s dower owned a slave’s mother, her children were included in that holding. Some slaves owned by the Washingtons and the trust married each other, forming linked families. This created complex inheritance issues.”

“Seven of the nine slaves whom President Washington brought to Philadelphia (the national capital, 1790–1800) to work in the President’s House were ‘dowers’. Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition law in 1780, under which nonresidents were allowed to hold slaves in the state for up to six months; after that date, they could claim freedom. Because Washington would have been liable for compensating the Custis estate for any dower slaves freed under this law, he surreptitiously rotated his President’s House slaves in and out of the state before the six-month deadline to prevent their establishing residency (and legally qualifying for manumission).”

“Martha Washington promised her lady’s maid Oney Judge, a ‘dower’ slave, to her granddaughter Elizabeth Parke Custis as a wedding gift. To prevent being sent back to Virginia, Judge escaped in 1796 from the Philadelphia household during Washington’s second term. According to interviews with Judge in the 1840s, the young woman had enjoyed being in Philadelphia and feared she would never gain freedom if taken to Virginia. She hid with free black friends in the city, who helped arrange her travel by ship to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There, she married and had three children.”

“After Oney’s escape, Martha gave her younger enslaved sister Delphy (also known as Philadelphia) to Elizabeth and her husband as a wedding gift.”

“Washington’s slave Hercules, who had worked as his chief cook at the President’s House before being returned to Mount Vernon in 1796, escaped from there on February 22, 1797. He was known to have traveled to Philadelphia, and by December 1801, was living in New York City. His six-year-old daughter, still enslaved at Mount Vernon, told a visitor that she was glad her father was free.”

“In his July 1790 will, written a year after he became President of the United States in April 1789 and nine years before his death in December 1799, George Washington left directions for the emancipation, after Martha Washington’s death, of all the slaves that he owned. Of the 318 slaves at Mount Vernon in 1799, fewer than half, 123 individuals, belonged to George Washington. His will stipulated that his slaves were not to be freed until Martha’s death because of his desire to preserve the families of those who had intermarried with Martha’s dower slaves.”

“In accordance with state law, Washington stipulated in his will that elderly slaves or those who were too sick to work were to be supported throughout their lives by his estate. Children without parents, or those whose families were too poor or indifferent to see to their education, were to be bound out to masters and mistresses who would teach them reading, writing, and a useful trade, until they were ultimately freed at the age of 25.”

“In December 1800, Martha Washington signed a deed of manumission for her deceased husband’s slaves, a transaction that was entered into the records of Fairfax County, Virginia. The document was lost during the American Civil War. The slaves received their freedom on January 1, 1801, a little over a year after George’s death.”

“Martha did not emancipate any of her own slaves during her lifetime. Her will bequeathed Elisha, a slave whom she owned outright at the time of her death, to her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. Upon her death, her dower slaves reverted to the Custis estate and were divided among her four grandchildren. The division split up families, divided husbands from wives, and sent children away from their parents.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Washington