January 20, 2017 Hello , Here's your sneak peak at book to be released February 7. The title pretty much tells the
story: Never Caught: The Washington's Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge.
I received an Advance Review Copy for free in return for my honest review of the book by Erica Armstrong Dunbar.
The First President's Slave Chase |
I knew George Washington had slaves, and I was keenly interested in learning about them when I visited Mount Vernon on a tour.
The detail in this book struck me
harder
than looking at the preserved empty bunks on George Washington's plantation.
Maybe because it is mainly about one woman, Ona Judge, who was Martha Washington's personal slave.
Ona was lucky in that she worked at the mansion house from the age of 10 and not in the fields, but she valued her freedom above whatever
comforts the Washingtons offered. She ran away from the president's house in Philadelphia shortly before the end of his second term in office.
While the Washington's were packing their things to move back to Virginia, Ona packed her much smaller bag and walked out, depending upon free blacks to
smuggle her out of the city. Here's where we start to see beyond the facade of our fatherly first president who supposedly never told a lie.
At right is an image of the ad Washington's steward ran in the newspaper offering a $10 reward for Ona's return.
The 22-year-old woman might have gotten away for good as she fled to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but she was recognized later that summer on the street by a friend of the Washingtons.
When word got back to George, he knew the law was on his side, but he wanted to be discreet. Northerners had a tendency to stick to the fine print of the Fugitive Slave of 1793, which George had signed into law.
The law allowed slave
catchers to cross state lines to capture runaways, but it required them to appear before a local magistrate to prove ownership before taking their "property" home. George enlisted the services of the federal government to avoid a court hearing that might be embarrassing.
Below: President and First Lady Washington at Mount Vernon with two of Martha's grandchildren and a
slave. Though a male slave is shown in this painting by Edward Savage, it would have been common for Ona to stand at Martha's shoulder. For twelve years, she had been rarely more than a few steps from her mistress’s side, helping her bathe and dress, brushing her hair, fitting her cap, and tending her if she were vexed or ill.
Now, Martha wanted her "girl" back. She couldn't fathom why Ona had left. George seemed to believe that Ona had been enticed away by a disreputable boyfriend. "The ingratitude of the
girl, who was brought up & treated more like a child than a servant," he wrote to Secretary of Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr.
George used the power of his last few months in office to ask the treasury secretary to enlist the aide of Portsmouth's customs officer, Joseph Whipple. Washington had appointed Whipple to his position and now he wanted him to capture his runaway
slave.
Below: Washington’s handwritten list of slaves on the estate from 1799 likely written in preparation for his will, in which he freed his slaves. In a letter, President Washington offered a number of suggestions about how this woman should be caught and returned to him, all of them clear violations of the Fugitive Act. It
was the first of several plots to capture Ona and bring her back to Virginia.
Ms. Dunbar is a highly qualified historian, and this book documents an important part of the history of American
black women. Too bad the story is a bit oversold in the press materials. I found it very interesting, and definitely important, but it does not live up to the adjectives from the publisher: "riviting" and "gripping." Many thanks this week to Forward Reviews the site gives hearts rather than stars, and it gave Fannie Never Flinched a five heart rating, saying, "[The] book—full of
archival research, period photographs and background information on the labor struggle, including a timeline of key events and a glossary of terms like arbitration and xenophobia—is a worthy tribute to Fannie." Read more here...
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Workshop: 2-5pm Addtional presentation 7-9pm
Seattle Pacific University, Demaray Hall 150
Until next week... Have you read a great book? Tell me about it. Have a burning question? Let me know.
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