First of Men

by Ferling, John;

  Still, both before and during his presidency Washington clearly was troubled by the institution and by his station as a slaveowner. In 1786 he spoke of his “regret” that the institution existed, and he claimed that “no man living wishes more sincerely than I do to see the abolition of it.” His quandary was similar to that faced by many other enlightened contemporaries on plantations throughout Virginia. Men like Jefferson and Madison, for instance, were no less distressed by their role as slaveowners, yet neither was willing to manumit his slaves or to publicly attack the institution. Both, in fact, continued to sell their chattel, occasionally sundering families, a practice that Washington had abandoned years before. The dilemma that faced these men was made no easier by their realization that slavery was not on the brink of extinction, for race fears and secure prices for bondsmen combined to thwart whatever abolitionist tendencies may have existed. Indeed, the 1790s inaugurated an epoch that was to witness slavery’s greatest expansion, until half a century later the descendants of the chattel owned by the Revolutionary generation likewise toiled as slave laborers, even into the trans-Mississippi Southwest.53

  Yet while Washington exhibited distress at his continued involvement with the practice, his slave population continued to grow. He sold nine slaves in the 1780s, and he attempted to sell at least two others in the following decade. Meanwhile, he acquired at least three slaves, one as part payment of a debt, one from his mother’s estate upon her death, and a third when he purchased a bricklayer. In 1786 he endeavored to procure six slaves as compensation from another debtor, and later he sought to purchase a slave with a special skill. While these two efforts failed, he frequently rented slaves to labor on his properties. By 1799 Washington owned 317 slaves, nearly a 50 percent increase in this property since the end of the war. His careful inventory showed 11 house servants, 38 skilled artisans, 18 who were too old to work, and 143 children. The remainder, presumably, were field hands.54

  Troubled by his continued complicity with the institution, Washington sought to convince himself that he left no stone unturned when it came to caring for his chattel. His slaves, he said, lived and worked in means “as easy and comfortable” as their “ignorance . . . would admit.” In fact, the evidence pertaining to the condition of his bondsmen is mixed at best. Most of the scores of guests who visited and looked about Mount Vernon left no accounts that might either verify or discredit his claim. An English traveler who paused at the estate late in 1798 concluded that Washington was not “of a humane disposition,” adding that he treated his chattel “with more severity” than did any other Virginia planter with whom he lodged. On the other hand, a Polish visitor who dropped in on Mount Vernon six months earlier found that “Gl. Washington treats his slaves far more humanely than do his fellow citizens of Virginia. Most of these gentlemen give to their Blacks only bread, water and blows.” By that meager standard Washington must have been an enlightened slaveowner. There can be little doubt that Washington was a more caring master after the war, although the record he left behind in his letters and diary cast doubt on his claim of exceptional altruism.55

  During his presidential years Washington’s racial views were in no way extraordinary for a southern planter—or, for that matter, for any white American of the time. He believed that blacks were ignorant and shiftless, careless, deceitful, and liable to act without “any qualms of conscience.” Various individuals that he owned were characterized as “very sly, cunning and roguish,” as a “bungler,” a “lazy scoundrel,” as “never celebrated for her honesty.” Of his domestic chattel he wrote, “I know of no black person about the house that is to be trusted.” His views were reinforced by Martha’s similar outlook. Of a slave that she lent to a niece, she wrote: “I hope you will not find in him much sass. [T]he Blacks are so bad in their nature that they have not the least gratitude for the kindness that may be showed to them.”56

  Washington complained that new, complicated machinery would be “entirely useless” at Mount Vernon because his dim-witted chattel lacked the intelligence to utilize such tools. It would be difficult to find “so idle a set of rascals” as his slave carpenters, he went on, adding that “it would be [best] for me to set them free” and hire free laborers. He did not liberate his slave craftsmen, however. Asserting that any relaxation of discipline inevitably results in habitual malingering, he simply urged his manager to keep these and, indeed, all his slaves, “in their places, and to their duty.” In a not uncharacteristic remark he alleged of one of his slaves that “a more lazy, deceitful and imputent huzzy is not to be found.” Discovering one of his chattel to be a “misbehaving fellow,” Washington sold the man to the West Indies, obtaining in return “one pipe and a quarter cask of wine.” Notified of the demise of two of his slaves, he cracked that the “death of Paris is a loss, that of Jupiter the reverse.” Upon learning of another slave’s death two months later, he hardly was bereaved; the deceased had been “troublesome to all those around her,” he merely observed.57

  Washington would not tolerate idleness among his slaves. “I expect my people will work from daybreaking until it is dusk,” he said. He ordered his manager to see that the chattel be at “work as soon as it is light, work till it is dark, and be diligent while they are at it.” Do not let anyone be “ruined by idleness,” he directed; “let them be employed in any manner . . . that will keep them out of idleness and mischief.” When the cook was not cooking, put her to knitting, he commanded. When the spinners and knitters completed their tasks, send them to the fields. He advised that a domestic slave with a light load be made to assist the milkmaid, and he decreed that a habitually malingering outdoor slave be placed behind a spinning wheel. Each bondsman “must be . . . made to do a sufficient day’s work.”58

  The first trick toward making the chattel work, he observed, was to get them out of their cabins and to their assigned work stations. But not infrequently the slaves complained of illness and begged to be excused from their labor. “I never wish my people to work when they are really sick, or unfit for it,” Washington said, and he advised his manager to give them the benefit of the doubt the first time they pleaded illness. The next episode of alleged sickness was to be viewed with skepticism, however. Washington boasted that he could distinguish between real illness and malingering, and he left the clear impression that he thought most slave maladies were contrived disorders. One slave claimed to be lame, but Washington thought he only “pretds to be so.” Another pleaded an “Asthmatical complaint,” yet Washington was convinced that “Laziness Is . . . his principal ailment.” Most other ills, said Washington, arose from the chattels’ proclivity for “night walking,” that is, for carousing in the slave quarters, activity “which unfit them for the duties of the day.” When a slave said he was ill, Washington advised, check first for signs of a fever. “Nobody can be very sick without having a fever,” he thought. He also cautioned his managers to be particularly vigilant for signs of “Pleurisies and inflammatory fevers,” disorders that should be treated immediately by bleeding and by a diet of sweetened tea, broth, and wine, as well as by patient and kindly nurturing. And, of course, a physician should be called in to examine a truly ill slave.59

  Considering the size of Washington’s holdings, as well as his protracted absences, ultimate responsibility for making the slaves work fell to his overseers. Washington utilized white superintendents until after the war, experimented with black overseers for a time thereafter, then returned to white overlords in his last years. Few of those whom he hired were satisfactory, he concluded. He demanded much. An overseer, he said, must be “sober, attentive to his duty, honest, obliging, and cleanly.” He also must be “accustomed to Negros,” and he must additionally take safeguards so as not to sink to the same “level with the Negroes.” Indeed, the slaves had an adverse effect on their bosses, for the overseers tended to “fall into the slovenly mode” of the chattel they were hired to work. The job required men of “activity and Spirit,” but most of his hirelings eithe
r were too lenient or too harsh. Usually they erred on the side of cruelty, he discovered, treating the bondsmen “as they do the brute beasts, on the farms.” His overseers were not to be merciless, he asserted, but they were to threaten and intimidate the slaves. The chattel with the more desirable duties were to be cajoled with threats of being made into “a common hoe negro.” Or, they might be coerced by pledges that they would be sold to the West Indies. If the desired results still were not achieved, the overseers were to transfer the slave to another task, even if in some instances it meant exchanging a hard job for an easier one. And, if necessary, Washington authorized his overseers to resort to the lash. No one was immune. Washington sanctioned the scourging of female slaves, and when confronted by a particularly recalcitrant bondsman he simply directed his manager to “give him a good whipping.” The best tactic for obtaining work, however, was constant supervision. Most slaves would work if they were watched, he said, recommending that overseers not assign the slaves to tasks where they could not be observed, that they vigilantly stand over them, and that they check the quality of their labor. But, whatever they did, the overseers were warned not to use the chattel for their own ends. “I expect to reap the benefit of the labour myself,” Washington emphasized.60

  Unremitting labor and coercion were the chattel’s fate at Mount Vernon, and their lot does not seem to have been ameliorated in the least by the environment in which they lived. The same Polish visitor who believed that Washington was more beneficent than the ordinary Virginia planter described Mount Vernon’s slave quarters as “habitations [that] cannot be called houses,” and he hinted at a scene of abysmally squalid destitution, suggesting even that the residences were “far more miserable than the cottages of our peasants” in Eastern Europe. Washington referred to these lodgings as “Negro cabins,” or simply as “coverings,” whereas his livestock were sheltered in a “shed” and his overseers in a “house.” Washington also acknowledged that the slave quarters at Mount Vernon “might not be thought good enough for the workmen or day laborers” of England.61

  The allocation of victuals at Mount Vernon must also have been meager, for Washington’s slaves took the extraordinary step of petitioning their master, claiming they received an inadequate supply of food. Frequently, they maintained, they were made to go as long as forty-eight hours without an allotment of cornmeal. Meat was provided even less regularly. While Washington sought to deny these charges, his remarks lent credence to his chattels’ allegation. “It is not my wish . . . that my Negros should have one oz of meal more, nor less, than is sufficient to feed them plentifully,” but he defined a “plentiful” diet as a fare that consisted of cornbread, buttermilk, “fish (pickled herring) frequently, and meat now and then.” Nor do his chattel seem to have been deluged with other provisions. While he annually spent about five dollars to clothe each bondsman who was on public display at the President’s House in Philadelphia, clothing, shoes, stockings, and blankets for each adult slave at remote Mount Vernon cost him less than a dollar per year. As late as Christmas one year he acknowledged that some of his slaves lacked winter garments, and in October of another year, a season when evening temperatures at Mount Vernon averaged only about 50°, he expressed annoyance that the “Negroes are all teazing me” for blankets. The next spring he acknowledged that he had “lost more Negroes [from illness] last winter, than I had done in 12 or 15 years.”62

  Historians have made much of Washington’s yearning in the 1790s to free his slaves. There can be little doubt that he had grown uneasy about the institution and his involvement with it. A slaveowner living in a northern city, his discomfort grew to such proportions that he eventually sought to use only white attendants at all public functions, though, out of sight, his black chattel continued to toil for the First Family. Yet he not only took no legal steps to liberate any slaves during his presidential years, he shuffled bondsmen between Mount Vernon and Philadelphia lest any live in a free state long enough to qualify as residents. Moreover, his response to the loss of two slave runaways during these years was revealing. When Hercules, his cook, escaped, Washington sought to purchase another slave with similar talents. Earlier, when a female slave fled from the President’s House, he had her hunted down and eventually captured in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Washington characterized her act as one of “ingratitude” and wished to have her returned to Philadelphia, but when informed that a riot would result if the captive runaway was shipped back to her master, he demured and set her free.63

  For all of Washington’s agonizing over slavery, he took but two steps during his presidential years to emancipate his chattel. Early in the 1790s he concocted a plan to divide and rent his Mount Vernon properties. His hope was to lease the farms to suitable English farmers, while, simultaneously, he manumitted his chattel and made them available for hire as free laborers. Under such a plan Washington would have escaped heavy overhead expenses while he received a steady income in rent money, a combination that would have offset the losses incurred by surrendering his investment in slave property. But no renters surfaced and his plan never was put into operation. When he departed Philadelphia for home in 1797 he took a second step. He left behind some of his house slaves, in effect granting them de facto emancipation. It was done so quietly that no one was aware of his act.64

  As Washington oversaw the packing of his family’s possessions in preparation for the final long ride to Mount Vernon, he seemed pleased with his performance as chief executive, and he could not have been more delighted by what he interpreted to be the “approving voice of my Country.” Of course, not all his countrymen approved of his policies. Some Republican organs did not attempt to hide their glee at his imminent retirement, and one editor even asserted that if “ever a Nation was debauched by a man, the American Nation has been debauched by Washington.”65

  George Washington had faced a difficult presidency. To the hard economic decisions that he knew he would have to make had been added the warfare that arose from the French Revolution, a contagion unforeseen at the moment of his inauguration in 1789. Every move that he made, moreover, was a step into uncharted territory; each decision was likely to set a precedent for his successors. But what made his two terms especially arduous was that he chose to pursue the goals of a minority faction, policies that often were unpopular with the largest part of the population and which could be implemented at all only because of the unsurpassed esteem in which the president was held. Only Washington’s myopia can explain his surprise at the inevitably deep fragmentation brought about by his course.

  Washington had approached the presidency with one overriding aim: the establishment of a powerful new national government and the preservation of American unity. Too often before 1789 he had witnessed the iniquities of an enervated government. As deeply as he believed anything, Washington was certain that national impotence must cease. He came to the presidency speaking of fashioning “our National character.” Later, as president, he urged the creation of an “American character.” By the first expression he meant that it was his objective to so augment the strength of America as to render the nation “respectable” to the powers of Europe. By “American character” he meant to persuade both his countrymen and European statesmen that “we act for ourselves and not for others” His first objective could be realized only by drastic change, and during its two terms the Washington administration, generally thought to be a conservative government, undertook not only a startling and radical economic transformation, but an equally fundamental reorientation of United States foreign policy. Building an “American character” was a more protracted undertaking, and at the end of his presidency, in his Farewell Address, he still preached the need for Americans to put America’s interest above those of every other nation.66

  Washington’s first term was absorbed with the implementation of Hamiltonianism. There can be little doubt that the system worked as the treasury secretary and Washington hoped it would, for Hamiltonian economics solidified the Uni
on by eliminating what had been the greatest threat to unity in the Articles of Confederation era—the danger that the forces of entrenched wealth and greed in one or more sections would scuttle the existing national union rather than submit to a government too weak to satisfy its acquisitive lust. Hamiltonianism, thus, was the logical culmination of the movement that had secured the Constitution of 1787, for the secretary’s economic program utilized the enhanced powers of the new national government to safeguard the economic interests of a portion of the nation’s most wealthy citizenry. In so doing the moneyed interests were bound to the government, fulfilling the nationalistic yearnings of men like Washington. From the outset of his administration, from even before he departed Mount Vernon to assume the presidency, Washington understood those facts, even though he probably never fathomed the intricacies of Hamiltonian economics.

  Diplomatic perplexities had dominated Washington’s second term, but by 1797 he could point to three successes in this area. His government had kept the United States out of the European war, it had secured the removal of the British from the Northwest Territory, and it had attained a satisfactory resolution of the principal differences between the United States and Spain. The gains, however, had been realized not only at the expense of the termination of the Franco-American alliance but with the result that relations between the two former allies had deteriorated to a cold-war status. Yet the loss of the French alliance hardly caused irreparable harm to the United States. Indeed, it was Washington’s genius to see what his adversaries were unable to fathom: with the end of the war in 1783 the alliance was of little benefit to America. But to squander French friendship was another matter. With Europe’s great powers enveloped in a life-and-death struggle the administration concluded that little middle ground existed between friendship and hostility. It was as though Washington surmised that, while he might proclaim America’s neutrality, he was, in fact, compelled to choose between France and Britain. He opted for Britain.