America Keeps Trying to Clean Up George Washington’s History, But We Won’t Forget the Nine He Enslaved

The National Park Service’s removal of an exhibit from Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia honoring nine Black Americans who were enslaved by George and Martha Washington was the most recent attempt by the Trump administration to somehow sanitize American history by erasing Black history. But it won’t work.

That history of slavery and segregation, of overcoming and achieving, it lives in Black Americans, in black and white TV footage, in Depression-era recordings of those formerly enslaved and, fortunately, in scholarship.

Removing that exhibit won’t make George Washington more or less venerable. He will forever be the man who led the Continental Army to an unlikely victory over Great Britain, which secured American independence. He will forever be the man who established many of the norms and expectations for the nation’s first chief executive. He will forever be the man who happily returned to private life once his time on the public stage was over.

But, he will also forever be the man who enslaved or rented more than 300 slaves for his profit and ease. He will forever be the man who made it known the sun must not rise with his slaves still in bed. And he will forever be the man who subverted Pennsylvania’s anti-slavery laws, which granted freedom to those in bondage who resided in the state for longer than six months.

Yes, when Washington served as president of the United States and lived in Philadelphia, he schemed to send his slaves back to his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia before Pennsylvania’s six-month eventual emancipation law could free his slaves.

George Washington— vaunted warrior, venerable Father of his Country— yes, that George Washington, did this multiple times. He did this knowingly. He wrote about doing this and urged secrecy about his actions.

Washington even managed outrage when, in 1797, his enslaved cook Hercules Posey escaped the old general’s clutches and claimed his freedom in New York City. The year before, Martha Washington had suffered the indignity of having her personal maid, Ona Judge, deign to escape to freedom.

Seems Martha Washington was planning to give Judge to her granddaughter as a wedding gift. Said granddaughter had an unpleasant disposition, and Judge decided she’d rather strike out on her own rather than be given over like a plate of china.

“Whilst they were packing up to go to Virginia, I was packing to go,” Judge was quoted as saying in an 1845 newspaper article. “I didn’t know where; for I knew that if I went back to Virginia, I should never get my liberty. I had friends among the colored people of Philadelphia, had my things carried there beforehand, and left Washington’s house while they were eating dinner.”

Posey and Judge are among those who were recognized at Independence National Historic Park. Removing mention of them might make some feel they are cleansing or elevating the Washingtons and the history of this country. It might even feed the comforting lie that the education and the income gap that persists to this day between white and Black Americans has nothing whatsoever to do with centuries of Black enslavement and degradation in this country.

That lie shares some of the bat-bleep crazy thinking that led George Washington to believe Posey was just fine being enslaved and led Martha Washington to be convinced that Judge wouldn’t flinch from being gifted.

Hiding the history of Posey and Judge and other Black Americans won’t make their descendants forget them. It won’t purify the history of famous white Americans or of this country. Instead, it simply refreshes slavery’s stain, doubling down on the degradation.

History is a heat-seeking missile. You can dip one way and weave another way, but it will eventually, inevitably, hit home.