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Date published: 2/18/2002
In a letter sent to Gen. George Washington in July 1796, prominent Englishman Edward Rushton scolded the father of our nation for a glaring contradiction in character. "Ages to come will read with astonishment that the man who was foremost to wrench the rights of America from the tyrannical grasp of Britain holds hundreds of his fellow being[s] in a state of abject bondage. Yes: you who have conquered under the banners of freedom, you who are now the first magistrate of a free people are a slaveholder. Shame! Shame!" This week, as Americans celebrate the birth of the first president, the long-debated issue of Washington and slavery still hangs over the statesman's legacy. In fact, a new slavery exhibit is now on display at George Washington Birthplace National Monument in Westmoreland County. Throughout his lifetime, Washington never spoke publicly of slavery. Upon his death in 1799, he did something no other Revolutionary leader had: He freed the 123 slaves he owned at Mount Vernon, his home on the Potomac River near Alexandria. Yet slavery was a hotly debated institution that Washington was unwilling to tackle early in his life. At the time of his birth in 1732, Washington's father owned hundreds of slaves at the family plantation on Popes Creek in Westmoreland County. "Washington was born into a system of slavery that he had no qualms accepting," said Dennis Pogue, associate director of Mount Vernon. Although he expressed private concerns about slavery, even in his public role as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in the 1750s Washington did not take any public steps to abolish slavery. "That whole time, he didn't introduce one bill to abolish slavery," said Carlos Cato, an official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Civil Rights. Cato, who lives in Fredericksburg, has researched the issue of slavery during Washington's time. "You have to remember, all slavery was about was making money." It wasn't until the American Revolution that Washington seemed to become disillusioned with slavery. "He was a gradual abolitionist," Pogue said. "Over time, he began to question whether it was a good thing." Though he took no public stance, Washington expressed unease with slavery in subtle ways.
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