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There is tension between Washington's stance on slavery, and his broader historical role as a proponent of liberty. He was a slaveholder who led a war for liberty, and then led the establishment of a national government that secured liberty for many of its citizens, and historians have considered this a paradox. [134]
Zachary Taylor was the last one who owned slaves during his presidency, and Ulysses S. Grant was the last president to have owned a slave at some point in his life. Of these presidents who owned slaves, Thomas Jefferson owned the most over his lifetime, with 600+ slaves, followed closely by Washington.
One theory posits that the slaves included two half-sisters of his wife, Martha Custis. Those mixed-race slaves were born to slave women owned by Martha's father and were regarded within the family as having been sired by him. Washington became the owner of Martha Custis's slaves under Virginia law when he married her and faced the ethical ...
Washington privately struggled with the idea of slavery and, in the last two decades of his life, expressed private support for the idea of abolishing slavery by legislation.
He began opposing slavery near the end of his life, and provided in his will for the manumission of his slaves. Washington's image is an icon of American culture and he has been extensively memorialized; his namesakes include the national capital and the State of Washington. In both popular and scholarly polls, he is consistently considered one ...
[18] [21] Dunbar writes that at 21, Betty was the perfect age for childbearing, and she did not know how Washington would treat her. [18] It was never recorded that George Washington sexually abused any of his slaves, but Betty was still vulnerable to exploitation by other men at Mount Vernon, as well as at the White House plantation. [22]
The Slave Trade Act of 1794 was a law passed by the United States Congress that prohibited the building or outfitting of ships in U.S. ports for the international slave trade. It was signed into law by President George Washington on March 22, 1794. This was the first of several anti-slave-trade acts of Congress.
Deborah Squash (born ca. 1763–1765) was a slave on George Washington's Mount Vernon plantation before she escaped in 1781. She went to New Amsterdam, which was the headquarters for the British during the American Revolution.