The Declaration of Independence was perfectly clear -- all men are created equal. Yet, in early America, all men were not equal. Thousands of men and women were slaves, and slavery haunted the hearts and minds of virtually all of the Founding Fathers.
No one was more concerned about this contradiction than George Washington.
Plantation records indicate that in 1760, Washington had 43 slaves. By 1774, the total had climbed to 119 and by the year of his death, Washington owned or rented 317 slaves.
Yet slavery was repugnant to the nation's president. He disliked the inhumanity of the system. Many families had to be split up; often married men lived far from their wives and children. Supervision frequently resulted in corporal punishment and sickness and death were prevalent.
To make the best of a bad situation, Washington treated, fed and clothed his slaves well. In writing to his plantation manager, he was clear: "In the most explicit language I desire they may have plenty; for I will not ... lye under the imputation of starving my negros and thereby driving them to the necessity of thieving to supply the deficiency."
Slaves were not to survive on bread alone, but were to benefit from a diversified diet and plots for farming and produce. In his journals, Washington also discussed attention to medical care. Overseers were "to be particularly attentive to the Negros in their sickness." Such treatment, Washington commented, was not always widespread. Wealthy slaveowners ... "were not always as kind," he lamented, "and as attentive to their wants and usage as they ought to be."
Even as he took pains to improve daily life, Washington became increasingly critical of slavery as an economic system. An eminently practical man, Washington was often disturbed by its inefficiency. Of the 317 slaves, for instance, 132 were either too young or too old to work. Many were sick and unskilled. Many would not work unless closely supervised, a supervision which simply was not possible given the demands of multiple plantations over thousands of acres. As a consequence, over time he began to dream, dream -- as Robert Dalzell explains in George Washington's Mount Vernon -- "of a rational, orderly system that motivated workers to work efficiently and rewarded managers for seeing that they did."
As early as 1786, Washington had determined that the only acceptable solution would be emancipation. "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]," he wrote to Robert Morris. While he took no steps politically, he began to take steps personally -- at home at Mount Vernon -- to bring the sorry system to an end. At first he devised a scheme to rent out his estates. With cash from land sales and income from the rents, he wrote privately to his manager, he hoped to "liberate a certain species of property which I possess, very repugnantly to my own feelings." Unfortunately, there were no acceptable offers to lease the farms.
Having had no success during his lifetime, Washington began to think of what might be done upon his death. In 1799, he took to preparing a will, over 28 pages, which he wrote, and copied himself. In many ways, the will was unremarkable. It provided for the payment of outstanding debts and stipulated that his wife Martha was to have use of the estate during her lifetime.
What was revolutionary, however, were the next few lines. In them, George Washington provided that all of his slaves be freed and that they be supported financially or trained for a period of years for "some useful occupation" to assure their preparedness for life as free men and women.
Alone of the Founding Fathers, Washington freed his slaves. And he did so in a will and testament that he knew would be published widely upon his death. To us, the act seems unexceptional, indeed obligatory. For Washington, however, it was once again evidence of the virtuous precedent he was bound and determined to set. The new American republic could survive only if it relied upon the virtuous and full participation of all its citizens.
For Washington, that could mean no less than the abolition of slavery. He would take the
first step.
