Mr. South is wrong on the facts. The slave housing at Mount Vernon was far
worse than that of free white laborers, by Washington's own estimation. And
I suspect that the newly reconstructed cabin might not be representative of
the typical MV housing--it's much too large and substantial to pass the
"will it fit on a cart?" test. A letter from GW to his manager tell us that
Mount Vernon had some cabins so small and insubstantial that the slaves
could carry them from one place to another on carts, and they might not even
need the carts -- the letter refers to "Removing the largest kind of the
Negro quarters (the smaller ones or cabbins I presume the people with a
little assistance of Carts can do themselves) to the ground marked out for
them opposite to [the overseer's] new house." (GW To William Pearce,
December 22, 1793.)
In a 1793 letter to the Englishman Arthur Young, Washington described the
spacious houses available to his overseers while referring to the
habitations of his slaves as mere "coverings"--and he admitted that white
people would probably refuse to live in them. Here is the text:
[At his Union Farm] "A new house is now building in a central position, not
far from the Barn, for the Overlooker; which will have two Rooms 16 by 18
feet below and one or two above nearly of the same size. Convenient thereto
is sufficient accommodation for fifty odd Negroes (old and young) but these
buildings might not be thought good enough for the workmen or day labourers
of your Country. . . .
"Dogue run farm has a small but new building for the Overlooker; one room
only below, and the same above, 16 by 20 each; decent and comfortable for
its size. It has also covering for forty odd negroes, similar to what is
mentioned on Union farm." (GW to Arthur Young, December 12, 1793).
A Polish visitor to Mount Vernon, Count Julien Niemcewicz, left this
account, which makes clear that the poorest white people of impoverished
Poland would not live in an American slave's shack:
"We entered one of the huts of the Blacks, for one can not call them by the
name of houses. They are more miserable than the most miserable of the
cottages of our peasants. The husband and wife sleep on a mean pallet, the
children on the ground; a very bad fireplace, some utensils for cooking, but
in the middle of this poverty some cups and a teapot."
All of this is documented in my book, "An Imperfect God." If you search the
book on Amazon (better yet, buy it and read it), for "miserable" you will
find the descriptions of the slave housing at Mount Vernon; if you search
for "socks" you will find information about clothing. It's all from GW's own
documents and eyewitness descriptions.
As for slaves "living better" than free people, the latter were not whipped
or sold, as were the slaves at Mount Vernon.
When I was writing the book it deeply puzzled me that a man who freed his
slaves would treat them so harshly. After more research and discussions with
historians, I realized that this apparent paradox grew out of Washington's
hierarchical view of society. He knew that there would always be people at
the bottom, white and black, whose lives would be very hard, and he didn't
think they deserved much; but he was convinced that no one should be a
slave--that slavery was an abomination. That was his great insight. As for
African-Americans going "back to the jungle," Washington's will makes it
clear that HE believed African-Americans had a right to live here and a
right to education and decent work. Unlike many people then and now, George
Washington believed in a multi-racial society.
In earlier posts I discussed the peculiar quasi-slavery of indentured
servitude that was fastened upon mixed-race children for thirty years. It
was vastly different from the indentured servitude of immigrant white men,
and Jefferson himself denounced the system as "wicked."
Henry Wiencek
It appears to me that President Washington's slaves were well cared for
>and lived better than most of the free population in that area at the time,
>plantation owners excepted.
>
>J South
>
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