BLACK SLAVES
It is one of the strange inconsistencies of history that one of the
foremost champions of liberty of all time should himself have been the
absolute owner and master of men, women and children.
Visitors at Mount Vernon saw many faces there, but only a few were white
faces, the rest were those of black slaves. On each farm stood a village
of wooden huts, where turbaned mammies crooned and piccaninnies gamboled
in the sunshine. The cooks, the house servants, the coachmen, the stable
boys, almost all the manual workers were slaves. Even the Mansion House
grounds, if the master was away, were apt to be overrun with black
children, for though only the progeny of a few house servants were
supposed to enter the precincts, the others often disregarded the
prohibition, to the destruction of the Farmer's flowers and rare shrubs.
From his father Washington inherited ten or a dozen slaves and, as
occasion required or opportunity offered, he added to the number. By
1760 he paid taxes on forty-nine slaves, in 1770 on eighty-seven and in
1774 on one hundred thirty-five. Presently he found himself overstocked
and in 1778 expressed a wish to barter for land some "Negroes, of whom I
every day long more to get clear of[7]." Still later he declared that he
had more negroes than could be employed to advantage on his estate, but
was principled against selling any, while hiring them out was almost as
bad. "What then is to be done? Something or I shall be ruined."
[7] In 1754 he bought a "fellow" for £40.5, another named Jack for £52.5
and a woman called Clio for £50. Two years later he acquired two negro
men and a woman for £86, and from Governor Dinwiddie a woman and child
for £60. In 1758 he got Gregory for £60.9. Mount Vernon brought him
eighteen more. Mrs. Washington was the owner of a great many slaves,
which he called the "dower Negroes," and with part of the money she
brought him he acquired yet others. The year of his marriage he bought
Will for £50, another fellow for £60, Hannah and child for £80 and nine
others for £406. In 1762 he acquired two of Fielding Lewis for £115,
seven of Lee Massey for £300, also one-handed Charles for £30. Two years
later he bought two men and a woman of the estate of Francis Hobbs for
£128.10, the woman being evidently of inferior quality, for she cost
only £20. Another slave purchased that year from Sarah Alexander was
more valuable, costing £76. Judy and child, obtained of Garvin Corbin,
cost £63. Two mulattoes, Will and Frank, bought of Mary Lee in 1768,
cost £61.15 and £50, and Will became famous as a body servant; Adam and
Frank, bought of the same owner, cost £38. He bought five more slaves in
1772. Some writers say that this was his last purchase, but it is
certain that thereafter he at least took a few in payment of debts.
In 1786 he took a census of his slaves on the Mount Vernon estate. On
the Mansion House Farm he had sixty-seven, including Will or Billy Lee,
who was his "val de Chambre," two waiters, two cooks, three drivers and
stablers, three seamstresses, two house maids, two washers, four
spinners, besides smiths, a waggoner, carter, stock keeper, knitters and
carpenters. Two women were "almost past service," one of them being "old
and almost blind." A man, Schomberg, was "past labour." Lame Peter had
been taught to knit. Twenty-six were children, the youngest being Delia
and Sally. At the mill were Miller Ben and three coopers. On the whole
estate there were two hundred sixteen slaves, including many
dower negroes.
If our Farmer took any special pains to develop the mental and moral
nature of "My People," as he usually called his slaves, I have found no
record of it. Nor is there any evidence that their sexual relations were
other than promiscuous--if they so desired. Marriage had no legal basis
among slaves and children took the status of their mother. Instances
occurred in which couples remained together and had an affection for
their families, but the reverse was not uncommon. This state of affairs
goes far toward explaining moral lapses among the negroes of to-day.
I have found only one or two lists of the increase of the slaves, one
being that transmitted by James Anderson, manager, in February, 1797, to
the effect that "there are 3 Negro Children Born, & one dead--at River
Farm 1; born at Mansion house, Lina 1; at Union Farm 1 born & one
dead--It was killed by Worms. Medical assistance was called--But the
mothers are very inattentive to their Young."
Just why the managers, when they carefully mentioned the arrival of
calves, colts, lambs and mules, did not also transmit news of the advent
of the more valuable two-legged live stock, is not apparent. In many
reports, however, in accounting for the time of slaves, occur such
entries as: "By Cornelia in child bed 6 days." Occasionally the fact and
sex of the increase is mentioned, but not often.
Washington was much more likely to take notice of deaths than of
increases. "Dorcas, daughter of Phillis, died, which makes 4 Negroes
lost this winter," he wrote in 1760. He strove to safeguard the health
of his slaves and employed a physician by the year to attend to them,
the payment, during part of the time at least, being fifteen pounds per
annum. In 1760 this physician was a certain James Laurie, evidently not
a man of exemplary character, for Washington wrote, April 9, 1760,
"Doctr. Laurie came here. I may add Drunk." Another physician was a
Doctor Brown, another Doctor William Rumney, and in later years it was
Washington's old friend Doctor Craik. I have noticed two instances of
Washington's sending slaves considerable distances for medical
treatment. One boy, Christopher, bitten by a dog, went to a "specialist"
at Lebanon, Pennsylvania, for treatment to avert madness, and another,
Tom, had an operation performed on his eyes, probably for cataract.
When at home the Farmer personally helped to care for sick slaves. He
had a special building erected near the Mansion House for use as a
hospital. Once he went to Winchester in the Shenandoah region especially
to look after slaves ill with smallpox "and found everything in the
utmost confusion, disorder, and backwardness. Got Blankets and every
other requisite from Winchester, and settied things on the best footing
I could." As he had had smallpox when at Barbadoes, he had no fear of
contagion.
Among the entries in his diary are: "Visited my Plantations and found
two negroes sick ... ordered them to be blooded." "Found that lightening
had struck my quarters and near 10 Negroes in it, some very bad but by
letting blood recovered." "Found the new negro Cupid ill of a pleurisy
at Dogue Run Quarter and had him brot home in a cart for better care of
him.... Cupid extremely ill all this day and night. When I went to bed I
thought him within a few hours of breathing his last." However, Cupid
recovered.
In his contracts with overseers Washington stipulated proper care of the
slaves. Once he complained to his manager that the generality of the
overseers seem to "view the poor creatures in scarcely any other light
than they do a draught horse or ox; neglecting them as much when they
are unable to work; instead of comforting and nursing them when they lye
on a sick bed." Again he wrote:
"When I recommended care of and attention to my negros in sickness, it
was that the first stage of, and the whole progress through the
disorders with which they might be seized (if more than a slight
indisposition) should be closely watched, and timely applications and
remedies be administered; especially in the pleurisies, and all
inflammatory disorders accompanied with pain, when a few day's neglect,
or want of bleeding might render the ailment incurable. In such cases
sweeten'd teas, broths and (according to the nature of the complaint,
and the doctor's prescription) sometimes a little wine, may be necessary
to nourish and restore the patient; and these I am perfectly willing to
allow, when it is requisite."
Yet again he complains that the overseers "seem to consider a Negro much
in the same light as they do the brute beasts, on the farms, and often
times treat them as inhumanly."
His slaves by no means led lives of luxury and inglorious ease. A
friendly Polish poet who visited Mount Vernon in 1798 was shocked by the
poor quarters and rough food provided for them. He wrote:
"We entered some negroes' huts--for their habitations cannot be called
houses. They are far more miserable than the poorest of the cottages of
our peasants. The husband and his wife sleep on a miserable bed, the
children on the floor. A very poor chimney, a little kitchen furniture
amid this misery--a tea-kettle and cups.... A small orchard with
vegetables was situated close to the hut. Five or six hens, each with
ten or fifteen chickens, walked there. That is the only pleasure allowed
to the negroes: they are not permitted to keep either ducks or geese
or pigs."
Yet all the slaves he saw seemed gay and light-hearted and on Sundays
played at pitching the bar with an activity and zest that indicated that
they managed to keep from being overworked and found some enjoyment
in life.
To our Farmer's orderly and energetic soul his shiftless lazy blacks
were a constant trial. In his diary for February, 1760, he records that
four of his carpenters had only hewed about one hundred twenty feet of
timber in a day, so he tried the experiment of sitting down and watching
them. They at once fell to with such energy and worked so rapidly that
he concluded that each one ought to hew about one hundred twenty-five
feet per day and more when the days were longer.
A later set of carpenters seem to have been equally trifling, for of
them he said in 1795: "There is not to be found so idle a set of
Rascals.--In short, it appears to me, that to make even a chicken coop,
would employ all of them a week."
"It is observed by the Weekly Report," he wrote when President, "that
the Sowers make only Six Shirts a Week, and the last week Caroline
(without being sick) made only five;--Mrs. Washington says their usual
task was to make nine with Shoulder straps, & good sewing:--tell them
therefore from me, that what _has_ been done _shall_ be done by fair or
foul means; & they had better make a choice of the first, for their own
reputation, & for the sake of peace and quietness otherwise they will be
sent to the several Plantations, & be placed at common labor under the
Overseers thereat. Their work ought to be well examined, or it will be
most shamefully executed, whether little or much of it is done--and it
is said, the same attention ought to be given to Peter (& I suppose to
Sarah likewise) or the Stockings will be knit too small for those for
whom they are intended; such being the idleness, & deceit of
those people."
"What kind of sickness is Betty Davis's?" he demands on another
occasion. "If pretended ailments, without apparent causes, or visible
effects, will screen her from work, I shall get no work at all from
her;--for a more lazy, deceitful and impudent huzzy is not to be found
in the United States than she is."
"I observe what you say of Betty Davis &ct," he wrote a little later,
"but I never found so much difficulty as you seem to apprehend in
distinguishing between _real_ and _feigned_ sickness;--or when a person
is much _afflicted_ with pain.--Nobody can be very sick without having a
fever, nor will a fever or any other disorder continue long upon any one
without reducing them.--Pain also, if it be such as to yield entirely to
its force, week after week, will appear by its effects; but my people
(many of them) will lay up a month, at the end of which no visible
change in their countenance, nor the loss of an oz of flesh, is
discoverable; and their allowance of provision is going on as if nothing
ailed them."
He not only deemed his negroes lazy, but he had also a low opinion of
their honesty. Alexandria was full of low shopkeepers who would buy
stolen goods from either blacks or whites, and Washington declared that
not more than two or three of his slaves would refrain from filching
anything upon which they could lay their hands.
[Illustration: Spinning House--Last Building to the Right]
[Illustration: The Butler's House and Magnolia Set out by Washington the
Year of his Death]
He found that he dared not leave his wine unlocked, because the servants
would steal two glasses to every one consumed by visitors and then
allege that the visitors had drunk it all.
He even suspected the slaves of taking a toll from the clover and
timothy seed given them to sow and adopted the practice of having the
seed mixed with sand, as that rendered it unsalable and also had the
advantage of getting the seed sown more evenly.
Corn houses and meat houses had to be kept locked, apples picked early,
and sheep and pigs watched carefully or the slaves took full advantage
of the opportunity. Nor can we at this distant day blame them very much
or wax so indignant as did their master over their thieveries. They were
held to involuntary servitude and if now and then they got the better of
their owner and managed to enjoy a few stolen luxuries they merely did a
little toward evening the score. But it was poor training for
future freedom.
The black picture which Washington draws of slavery--from the master's
standpoint--is exceedingly interesting and significant. The character
he gives the slaves is commended to the attention of those persons who
continually bemoan the fact that freedom and education have ruined
the negroes.
One of the famous "Rules of Civility," which the boy Washington so
carefully copied, set forth that persons of high degree ought to treat
their inferiors "with affibility & Courtesie, without Arrogancy." There
is abundant evidence that when he came to manhood he was reasonably
considerate of his slaves, and yet he was a Master and ruled them in
martinet fashion. His advice to a manager was to keep the blacks at a
proper distance, "for they will grow upon familiarity in proportion as
you will sink in authority." The English farmer Parkinson records that
the first time he walked with General Washington among his negroes he
was amazed at the rough manner in which he spoke to them. This does not
mean that Washington cursed his negroes as the mate of a Mississippi
River boat does his roustabouts, but I suspect that those who have heard
such a mate can form an idea of the _tone_ employed by our Farmer that
so shocked Parkinson. Military officers still employ it toward
their men.
Corporal punishment was resorted to on occasion, but not to extremes.
The Master writes regarding a runaway: "Let Abram get his deserts when
taken, by way of example; but do not trust to Crow to give it to
him;--for I have reason to believe he is swayed more by passion than by
judgment in all his corrections." Tradition says that on one occasion he
found an overseer brutally beating one of the blacks and, indignant at
the sight, sprang from his horse and, whip in hand, strode up to the
overseer, who was so affrighted that he backed away crying loudly:
"Remember your character, General, remember your character!" The General
paused, reprimanded the overseer for cruelty and rode off.
Among his slaves were some that were too unruly to be managed by
ordinary means. In the early seventies he had such a one on a plantation
in York County, Will Shag by name, who was a persistent runaway, and who
whipped the overseer and was obstreperous generally. Another slave
committed so serious an offense that he was tried under state law and
>vas executed. When a bondman became particularly fractious he was
threatened with being sent to the West Indies, a place held in as much
dread as was "down the river" in later years. In 1766 Washington sent
such a fellow off and to the captain of the ship that carried the slave
away he wrote:
"With this letter comes a negro (Tom) which I beg the favor of you to
sell in any of the islands you may go to, for whatever he will fetch,
and bring me in return for him
"One hhd of best molasses
"One ditto of best rum
"One barrel of lymes, if good and cheap
"One pot of tamarinds, containing about 10 lbs.
"Two small ditto of mixed sweetmeats, about 5 lbs. each. And the
residue, much or little, in good old spirits. That this fellow is both a
rogue and a runaway (tho he was by no means remarkable for the former,
and never practiced the latter till of late) I shall not pretend to
deny. But that he is exceedingly healthy, strong, and good at the hoe,
the whole neighborhood can testify, and particularly Mr. Johnson and his
son, who have both had him under them as foreman of the gang; which
gives me reason to hope that he may with your good management sell well,
if kept clean and trim'd up a little when offered for sale."
Another "misbehaving fellow" named Waggoner Jack was sent off in 1791
and was sold for "one pipe and Quarter Cask" of wine. Somewhat later
(1793) Matilda's Ben became addicted to evil courses and among other
things committed an assault and battery on Sambo, for which he received
corporal punishment duly approved by our Farmer, whose earnest desire it
was "that quarrels be stopped." Evidently the remedy was insufficient,
for not long after the absent owner wrote:
"I am very sorry that so likely a fellow as Matilda's Ben should addict
himself to such courses as he is pursuing. If he should be guilty of any
atrocious crime that would affect his life, he might be given up to the
civil authority for trial; but for such offenses as most of his color
are guilty of, you had better try further correction, accompanied by
admonition and advice. The two latter sometimes succeed where the first
has failed. He, his father and mother (who I dare say are his receivers)
may be told in explicit language, that if a stop is not put to his
rogueries and other villainies, by fair means and shortly, that I will
ship him off (as I did Waggoner Jack) for the West Indies, where he will
have no opportunity of playing such pranks as he is at present
engaged in."
A few of the negroes occupied positions of some trust and
responsibility. One named Davy was for many years manager of Muddy Hole
Farm, and Washington thought that he carried on his work as well as did
the white overseers and more quietly than some, though rather negligent
of live stock. Each year at killing time he was allowed two or three
hundredweight of pork as well as other privileges not accorded to the
ordinary slave. Still his master did not entirely trust him, for in 1795
we find that Washington suspected Davy of having stolen some lambs that
had been reported as "lost."
The most famous of the Mount Vernon negroes was William Lee, better
known as Billy, whose purchase from Mary Lee has already been noticed.
Billy was Washington's valet and huntsman and served with him throughout
the Revolution as a body servant, rode with him at reviews and was
painted by Savage in the well-known group of the President and his
family. Naturally Billy put on airs and presumed a good deal upon his
position. On one occasion at Monmouth the General and his staff were
reconnoitering the British, and Billy and fellow valets gathered on an
adjoining hill beneath a sycamore tree whence Billy, telescope in hand,
surveyed the enemy with much importance and interest. Washington, with a
smile, called the attention of his aides to the spectacle. About the
same time the British, noticing the group of horsemen and unable to
distinguish the color of the riders, paid their respects to Billy and
his followers in the shape of a solid shot, which went crashing through
the top of the tree, whereupon there was a rapid recession of coat tails
toward the rear.
Billy was a good and faithful servant and his master appreciated the
fact. In 1784 we find Washington writing to his Philadelphia agent: "The
mullatto fellow, William, who has been with me all the war, is attached
(married he says) to one of his own color, a free woman, who during the
war, was also of my family. She has been in an infirm condition for some
time, and I had conceived that the connexion between them had ceased;
but I am mistaken it seems; they are both applying to get her here, and
tho' I never wished to see her more, I can not refuse his request (if it
can be complied with on reasonable terms) as he has served me faithfully
for many years. After premising this much, I have to beg the favor of
you to procure her a passage to Alexandria."
Next year while Billy and his master were engaged in surveying a piece
of ground he fell and broke his knee pan, with the result that he was
crippled ever after. When Washington started to New York in 1789 to be
inaugurated Billy insisted upon accompanying him, but gave out on the
way and was left at Philadelphia. A little later, by the President's
direction, Lear wrote to return Billy to Mount Vernon, "for he cannot be
of any service here, and perhaps will require a person to attend upon
him constantly ... but if he is still anxious to come on here the
President would gratify him, altho' he will be troublesome--He has been
an old and faithful Servant, this is enough for the President to gratify
him in every reasonable wish."
When Billy was at Mount Vernon he worked as a shoemaker. He kept careful
note of visitors to the place and if one arrived who had served in the
Revolution he invariably received a summons to visit the old negro and
as invariably complied. Then would ensue a talk of war experiences which
both would enjoy, for between those who had experienced the cold at
Valley Forge and the warmth of Monmouth there were ties that reached
beyond the narrow confines of caste and color. And upon departure the
visitor would leave a coin in Billy's not unwilling palm.
As later noted in detail, Washington made special provision for Billy
in his will, and for years the old negro lived upon his annuity. He was
much addicted to drink and now and then, alas, had attacks in which he
saw things that were not. On such occasions it was customary to send for
another mulatto named Westford, who would relieve him by letting a
little blood. There came a day when Westford arrived and proceeded to
perform his customary office, but the blood refused to flow. Billy
was dead.
Washington's kindness to Billy was more or less paralleled by his
treatment of other servants. Even when President he would write letters
for his slaves to their wives and "Tel Bosos" and would inclose them
with his own letters to Mount Vernon. He appreciated the fact that
slaves were capable of human feelings like other men and in 1787, when
trying to purchase a mason, he instructed his agent not to buy if by so
doing he would "hurt the man's feelings" by breaking family ties. Even
when dying, noting black Cristopher by his bed, he directed him to sit
down and rest. It was a little thing, but kindness is largely made up of
little things.
The course taken by him in training a personal servant is indicated by
some passages from his correspondence. Writing from the Capital to
Pearce, December, 1795, regarding a young negro, Washington says:
"If Cyrus continues to give evidence of such qualities as would fit him
for a waiting man, encourage him to persevere in them; and if they
should appear to be sincere and permanent, I will receive him in that
character when I retire from public life if not sooner.--To be sober,
attentive to his duty, honest, obliging and cleanly, are the
qualifications necessary to fit him for my purposes.--If he possess
these, or can acquire them--he might become useful to me, at the same
time that he would exalt, and benefit himself."
"I would have you again stir up the pride of Cyrus," he wrote the next
May, "that he may be the fitter for my purposes against I come home;
sometime before which (that is as soon as I shall be able to fix on
time) I will direct him to be taken into the house, and clothes to be
made for him.--In the meanwhile, get him a strong horn comb and direct
him to keep his head well combed, that the hair, or wool may grow long."
Once when President word reached his ears that he was being criticized
for not furnishing his slaves with sufficient food. He hurriedly
directed that the amount should be increased and added: "I will not
have my feelings hurt with complaints of this sort, nor lye under the
imputation of starving my negros, and thereby driving them to the
necessity of thieving to supply the deficiency. To prevent waste or
embezzlement is the only inducement to allowancing them at all--for if,
instead of a peck they could eat a bushel of meal a week fairly, and
required it, I would not withold or begrudge it them."
There is good reason to believe that Washington was respected and even
beloved by many of his "People." Colonel Humphreys, who was long at
Mount Vernon arranging the General's papers, wrote descriptive of the
return at the close of the Revolution:
"When that foul stain of manhood, slavery, flowed,
Through Afric's sons transmitted in the blood;
Hereditary slaves his kindness shar'd,
For manumission by degrees prepared:
Return'd from war, I saw them round him press
And all their speechless glee by artless signs express."
On the whole we must conclude that the lot of the Mount Vernon slaves
was a reasonably happy one. The regulations to which they had to conform
were rigorous. Their Master strove to keep them at work and to prevent
them from "night walking," that is running about at night visiting.
Their work was rough, and even the women were expected to labor in the
fields plowing, grubbing and hauling manure as if they were men. But
they had rations of corn meal, salt pork and salt fish, whisky and rum
at Christmas, chickens and vegetables raised by themselves and now and
then a toothsome pig sequestered from the Master's herd. When the annual
races were held at Alexandria they were permitted to go out into the
world and gaze and gabble to their heart's content. And, not least of
all, an inscrutable Providence had vouchsafed to Ham one great
compensation that whatever his fortune or station he should usually be
cheerful. The negro has not that "sad lucidity of mind" that curses his
white cousin and leads to general mental wretchedness and suicide.
Some of the Mount Vernon slaves were of course more favored than were
others. The domestic and personal servants lived lives of culture and
inglorious ease compared with those of the field hands. They formed the
aristocracy of colored Mount Vernon society and gave themselves airs
accordingly.
Nominally our Farmer's slaves were probably all Christians, though I
have found no mention in his papers of their spiritual state. But
tradition says that some of them at Dogue Run at least were Voudoo or
"conjuring" negroes.
Washington owned slaves and lived his life under the institution of
slavery, but he loved it not. He was too honest and keen-minded not to
realize that the institution did not square with the principles of human
liberty for which he had fought, and yet the problem of slavery was so
vast and complicated that he was puzzled how to deal with it. But as
early as 1786 he wrote to John F. Mercer, of Virginia: "I never mean,
unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, 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 law."
The running away of his colored cook a decade later subjected him to
such trials that he wrote that he would probably have to break his
resolution. He did, in fact, carry on considerable correspondence to
that end and seems to have taken one man on trial, but I have found no
evidence that he discovered a negro that suited him.
In 1794, in explaining to Tobias Lear his reasons for desiring to sell
some of his western lands, he said: "_Besides these I have another
motive which_ makes me earnestly wish for these things--it is indeed
more powerful than all the rest--namely to liberate a certain species of
property which I possess very repugnantly to my own feelings; but which
imperious necessity compels, and until I can substitute some other
expedient, by which expenses, not in my power to avoid (however well I
may be disposed to do it) can be defrayed."
Later in the same year he wrote to General Alexander Spotswood: "With
respect to the other species of property, concerning which you ask my
opinion, I shall frankly declare to you that I do not like even to
think, much less to talk of it.--However, as you have put the question,
I shall, in a few words, give _my ideas_ about it.--Were it not then,
that I am principled agt. selling negroes, as you would cattle at a
market, I would not in twelve months from this date, be possessed of one
as a slave.--I shall be happily mistaken, if they are not found to be a
very troublesome species of property ere many years pass over
our heads."
"I wish from my soul that the Legislature of the State could see the
policy of a gradual abolition of slavery," he wrote to Lawrence Lewis
three years later. "It might prevent much future mischief."
His ideas on the subject were in accord with those of many other great
Southerners of his day such as Madison and Jefferson. These men realized
the inconsistency of slavery in a republic dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal, and vaguely they foresaw the
irrepressible conflict that was to divide their country and was to be
fought out on a hundred bloody battle-fields. They did not attempt to
defend slavery as other than a temporary institution to be eliminated
whenever means and methods could be found to do it. Not until the cotton
gin had made slavery more profitable and radical abolitionism arose in
the North did Southerners of prominence begin to champion slavery as
praiseworthy and permanent.
And yet, though Washington in later life deplored slavery, he was human
and illogical enough to dislike losing his negroes and pursued runaways
with energy. In October, 1760, he spent seven shillings in advertising
for an absconder, and the next year paid a minister named Green four
pounds for taking up a runaway. In 1766 he advertised rewards for the
capture of "Negro Tom," evidently the man he later sold in the West
Indies. The return of Henry in 1771 cost him £1.16. Several slaves were
carried away by the British during the Revolution and seem never to have
been recovered, though the treaty of peace provided for the return of
such slaves, and Washington made inquiries concerning them. In 1796,
apropos of a girl who had absconded to New England, he excused his
desire to recapture her on the ground that as long as slavery was in
existence it was hardly fair to allow some to escape and to hold others.
A rather peculiar situation arose in 1791 with regard to some of his
"People," His attorney general, Randolph, had taken some slaves to
Philadelphia, and the blacks took advantage of the fact that under
Pennsylvania law they could not be forced to leave the state against
their will. Fearing that some of his own servants might do likewise,
Washington directed Lear to get the slaves back to Mount Vernon and to
accomplish it "under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public,"
which goes to show that even George Washington had some of the guile of
the serpent.
During this period he was loath to bring the fact that he was a
slaveholder too prominently before the public, for he realized the
prejudice already existing against the institution in the North. When
one of his men absconded in 1795 he gave instructions not to let his
name appear in any advertisement of the runaway, at least not north
of Virginia.
His final judgment on slavery is expressed in his will. "Upon the
decease of my wife it is my will and desire," he wrote, "that all the
slaves which I hold _in my own right_ shall receive their freedom--To
emancipate them during her life, would tho earnestly wished by me, be
attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their
intermixture by marriages with the Dower negroes as to excite the most
painful sensations,--if not disagreeable consequences from the latter,
while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor, it
not being in my power under the tenure by which the dower Negroes are
held to manumit them."
The number of his own slaves at the time of his death was one hundred
twenty-four. Of dower negroes there were one hundred fifty-three, and
besides he had forty leased from a Mrs. French.
He expressly forbade the sale of any slave or his transportation out of
Virginia, and made provision for the care of the aged, the young and
the infirm. He gave immediate freedom to his mulatto man, calling
himself William Lee, or if he should prefer it, being physically
incapacitated, he might remain in slavery. In either case he was to have
an annuity of thirty dollars and the "victuals and cloaths he has been
accustomed to receive." "This I give him as a testimony of my sense of
his attachment to me and for his faithful services during the
revolutionary War."
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Washington preferred to free her own and the
General's negroes as soon as possible and it was accordingly done before
her death, which occurred in 1802.
One of the servants thus freed, by name Cary, lived to the alleged age
of one hundred fourteen years and finally died in Washington City. He
was a personage of considerable importance among the colored population
of the Capital, and on Fourth of July and other parades would always
appear in an old military coat, cocked hat and huge cockade presented by
his Master. His funeral was largely attended even by white persons.