The Private Lives of George Washington's Slaves

[elleng]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/video/lives.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. And for a completely different viewpoint

from an applied cultural anthropologist who is not paid by a group with a vested interest in making 'The Father of our Country' look benevolent, we have: George Washington is not my 'Great White Father'.

In The "Black" Eye on George Washington's "White" House we get a chance to meet some of the faceless "well-treated" slaves owned by the president from the plantocracy. So well-treated that some of them took the opportunity to escape to freedom, though Washington tried to circumvent the fact that in Pennsylvania they were free.

We learn details about Christopher Sheels, whose escape plan was foiled. Hercules—Washington's renowned enslaved chef who escaped on the night of the president's 65th birthday celebration—did not escape from Philadelphia, as had often been reported.

The accounts include the attempts, both successful and not, of other slaves who sought to escape the wonderful treatment of the 'good' slave-owner Washington.

(Edit: I don't remember where I read it originally, but a quick google search also finds plenty of sites that discuss how Washington followed a practice of sending slaves out of state for a couple of days every six months when he was in Pennsylvania to avoid them being able to claim freedom under a state law from 1780 that allowed any slave who stayed in the state for over 6 months to claim freedom.)

[elleng]

3. Thanks for this, Erich.

Its part of a necessary education.

[IrishAyes]

7. The 'best' of the 'good' slave owners still engaged in various evil practices,

in addition to the overall matter of enslavement of another. Where do people think all the mulattoes came from? As I imagine you already know, slaves sold as pregnant brought higher prices, so some of the slave traders kept them until they could guarantee that. Not to mention horny plantation owners and their sons and friends. That's one reason it's often said the white wives were the worst to cross, because they also knew why some slave babies were born lighter skinned. That's one reason they often sold the kids off at the earliest possible time, to remove that reminder from their presence.

How some people still romanticize the Old South and want to turn the country back to those days strikes me as sociopathic. But then I never liked conservatives much to begin with. Hundreds of thousands of the Irish were also sold into slavery, mostly in the Indies but also in America. There are many documents showing that southern planters also wanted to start a war with Mexico and expand slavery to include anyone of any group they could capture. So many of the Tea Baggers today espouse out-and-out slavery too - except for themselves, of course!

[QC]

8. Here's what one plantation mistress said in her private journal:

.. like the patriarchs of old, our men live all in one house with their wives & their concubines, & the Mulattos one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children-& every lady tells you who is the father of all the Mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own, she seems to think drop from the clouds or pretends so to think-.

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/172/176275/16_confe.HTM

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January novels give a fascinating picture of pre-Civil War

New Orleans, where every wealthy man had both a white wife and a part-African mistress. There was even an annual social event, in which the white wives were in one ballroom and the part-African mistresses were in another ballroom. Many of the mistresses were free and maneuvered to get their own daughters (who were even lighter-skinned, having white fathers) into positions as mistresses of prominent men.

At the same time, it was clear who had status. Perhaps because there were so many light-skinned women in New Orleans, all women who had any trace of African ancestry were required to wear knotted scarves in public.

[IrishAyes]

13. 'Storeyville' was a fantastic novel too.

[Uncle Joe]

2. This gives just a little more insight into a neglected part of history.

Thanks for the thread, elleng.

[elleng]

4. Thanks, Joe.

Also look at post #1, for a different point of view.

[Uncle Joe]

5. I don't disagree with post #1.

Slavery was an evil institution even under the best of conditions.

There is no doubt that enslaved people would want to escape, no matter the relative "benevolence" of their owner (s).

However from what I understand the most brutal slave owners were for the most part in the deep south, they were more disconnected or isolated from the abolitionists' ideals of the North.

I also believe the geography of their plantations played a role as well in which crops their plantations focused on and how they made money to some degree affected their overall point of view in regards to slaves.

[littlemissmartypants]

12. There were distinctions no doubt. Great observation.

Thanks, Uncle Joe.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. And none of that supports the notion that most owners treated their slaves well

nor does it obviate the fact that these people were property.

[littlemissmartypants]

10. Agreed. nt

[IrishAyes]

14. That's one reason my favorite Barack Obama tee (unofficial)

shows him ripping apart a confederate jack and saying "NEXT TIME PICK YOUR OWN DAMNED COTTON!"

Love it.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. Kicking. Thank you. nt