The Enslaved of Washington at Mount Vernon | History Traveler Episode 122

[Music] so we are in virginia and today we've been exploring the grounds of the mount vernon plantation now of course whenever you think of mount vernon the first person that you're probably going to think of is george washington if you gave it a little bit more thought you might even consider martha washington or maybe some of the more famously historic guests that that were entertained here at mount vernon there was another group of people who lived here on this plantation and you would have found them in places like this working in the gardens working in the fields working in the vineyards or attending the livestock and of course i'm referring to the enslaved people of the washington family so today we're going to set aside a little bit of time to explore the the lives and the work and the struggles of the enslaved people here at mount vernon [Music] in the last video we explored a lot of the structures here at mount vernon this is the greenhouse so this is where washington would have kept a lot of his tropical plants that needed to stay warm throughout the year and this isn't the original structure the original burned down in 1835 and the story behind the reconstruction is pretty cool but there's more to this building so we're going to link up with jeremy on the other side and he's going to give us some insight into the history behind this structure [Music] so we're now on the area we call the north lane slave quarters mount vernon itself is five farms on 8 000 acres of land and they were on this property there were 317 enslaved men women and children now it's a little complicated as to the breakdown george washington himself personally owns by the laws of the day 123 of these individuals 153 were dower slaves that were brought in through the marriage to mrs washington she had a husband beforehand who died without a will and she had life rights to his property which included enslaved people 40 individuals were rented as part of a land deal for washington to purchase more property one of those individuals peter hardiman was here as part of a lease deal for a race horse so you can see by the times at the time these human beings were just considered a commodity a tool a thing really and george washington himself was born into this society when he was only 11 years old his father dies and he inherits from his father's property enslaved human beings and washington growing up in a society that had laws that not only allowed for slavery but perpetuated the system didn't really see anything wrong with it at that time he saw it as a means of increasing his wealth and his prominence and all of that however during the revolutionary war we start to see a little bit of change in his thinking washington's meeting men like the marquita lafayette and john laurens who told him you know maybe these ideals these principles of the revolution should apply to everybody and not just the privileged few uh when washington returns from the revolutionary war we start to see a little bit of a change in how he approaches his enslaved labor force first off he he stops purchasing enslaved people he also stops selling them he writes out that he knows that selling the individuals breaks apart families and that this is a traumatic thing that takes place we also see washington in private correspondence writing letters talking about ways to end slavery either his own involvement in the institution or on a larger scale he actually tries to rent his outlying farms to receive an income on the condition that the enslaved people who live there become employees workers are are able to gain their freedom he's unable to find anyone willing to do that and he's also writing that he feels that legislature needs to pass laws that will lead to the gradual abolition of slavery now again i reiterate that these were all private letters publicly washington is very quiet he is being petitioned uh by the quaker community and and abolitionists and others who are saying slavery is wrong it's against everything you fought for everything you stand for but washington sadly understands that this young nation uh is very much tied to this labor force this this awful institution of slavery and he knows that if he makes actions now it would probably lead to the disunion of the young country so the problem gets kicked down the line privately though personally washington does eventually make arrangements in his will to allow for the freedom of the 123 individuals that he owns outright in his will he writes that all of those that he owns are to receive their freedom upon his death and the death of mrs washington mrs washington actually didn't wait until that time and uh 1801 she actually allows for the emancipation of the washington individuals it's possible she was just trying to follow out her husband's wishes but we actually have a nice letter from abigail adams who came to visit mount vernon after general washington's death in 1799 and she uh confided mrs washington fighted in abigail adams that she knew that there were over 100 individuals who knew that their freedom depended upon mrs washington's life so whether or not she may have been afraid for our own safety we're not entirely sure but you could see how complicated uh this institution was uh throughout washington's lifetime [Music] now the room that we're walking into right now is being depicted as the women's bunk house and there was a polish visitor to mount vernon who wrote that there would be about 16 to 20 enslaved individuals who would all be bunked up in the same room so quite the stark dichotomy to to what you see in the mount vernon home and the the kids would have to sleep on on bed rolls on the floor so you can see they have like a little doll there and uh you know some different toys like marbles and and whatnot depicted in this room they also have some other items that tell a little bit of the story of the enslaved people who worked at mount vernon for example we have this spinning wheel so enslaved individuals who were too old to work in the fields might be put to work um you know making clothing or doing spinning there's one seamstress who was apparently very talented by the name of charlotte who who worked here and whenever you come to mount vernon well you can learn a little bit more about her story [Music] some of these other rooms we have i'm gonna follow me down here we have a shoemaker shop now the shoemaker was in charge of repairing uh the shoes that the enslaved people were using they were given you know a set uh for every few years and they had to maintain them and keep them up now at the end of washington's life the shoemaker was actually william lee remember was talking about frankly inside the house they were actually brothers william lee was general washington's valet prior to christopher shields who we also mentioned inside the house william lee was with washington during the revolutionary war served with him it was stated that he was the only other man who could keep up with washington on horseback after the war during the presidency william lee suffered two separate accidents that left him with two broken kneecaps so he was unable to continue his duties as the enslaved valet so he became the shoemaker here in washington's will i mentioned before that 123 enslaved individuals will receive their emancipation upon the death of general and mrs washington there was one exception and that was william lee due to his service during the war washington gave him the option to take his emancipation immediately if he chose to take it which of course he did he stayed on here as the shoemaker and every time there were former officers or soldiers who came to visit at mount vernon they would come see william lee who could then tell them stories about general washington during the war okay now this room right here is the stove room so keep in mind we're on the the back side of the greenhouse here and the stove room was not used to keep the people warm and the slave quarters this was used to keep the greenhouse warm so that the tropical plants didn't die so there'd be an individual keeping a fire burning here 24 hours a day the room that i'm entering into right now is the men's bunk room and um this would have been empty most of the time because most of men would have been out in the fields working so it would have been crowded at night but largely vacant during the day and then you can imagine uh you know anywhere from 10 15 20 guys all stacked up in these bunks and if you look over here you can see this bowl with some cornmeal in it and also a couple of fish this would have made up the daily rations for the uh for the individuals that that worked here as enslaved people on uh on the mount vernon property uh now in the limited amount of free time that they did have well you can see there's a little animal trap here so men would go out and they would fish they would hunt for rabbits or raccoons or whatever as a means of of supplementing their diet and one thing that i really do appreciate so they have all of these different you know information pieces here where you can read about the enslaved individuals but they also have their names men like nat and george who are blacksmiths james and davey who were carpenters and george and harry who are gardeners so these these people are not forgotten [Music] so this structure right here uh as we've mentioned is is not the original structure the original burned down in the 1830s from a fire that started right here in the stove room that i mentioned earlier whenever they reconstructed this building these bricks uh were taken from bricks that were part of the original white house the white house got uh kind of a redesign and an update in the 1950s so they took bricks from there brought them here to reconstruct the slave quarters and the greenhouse and there's something that is so incredibly interesting right up here that i want to show so again what we're looking at here are bricks from the original white house and if you didn't know you would pass right by this but when you look at this particular brick you can see three little unusual markings those are the fingerprints of an enslaved individual who would have built that brick that is something else [Music] [Music] so as i've already kind of mentioned uh one thing that i really like that they have done here at mount vernon is is they're telling the the fuller story of this place it's not just about george washington but also about the enslaved people that lived here but but this is nothing new this is not like a new push that they've had in 1929 the mount vernon ladies association placed a marker at a place that they they found a bunch of graves of the enslaved people here uh anyway we're going to go and take a look at that now all right so we are entering in through this archway at the burial ground of the enslaved people who lived and worked and died here at mount vernon now one thing if you come to mount vernon that you have to look out for yeah here i just found a spot so i don't know if we'll be able to see it or not yeah you can see it every once in a while you can see these little pegs or stakes with string around them those are some of the enslaved people's graves that have been located and marked here in uh in the slave cemetery okay now you might be able to see these a little bit better so really what we're looking at is an ongoing archaeological site where they are still locating these graves now they're not digging them up so don't misunderstand there what they're doing is taking soil samples looking where the ground has been disturbed and then using that information to to mark off these graves some of them are smaller than others indicating children instead of adults but uh yeah i i'm glad that they are taking efforts here to make sure that these people haven't been forgotten so here is the marker that was placed here in 1929 it says in many of the many faithful colored servants of the washington family buried at mount vernon from 1760 to 1860 their unidentified graves surround this spot so there's some language in there that's a little bit problematic in in today's context um but but i think that we can have some grace towards the the people who placed this in 1929 um pretty remarkable [Music] now the elephant in the room in all of this is the fact that george washington as one of the founding fathers and advocates of freedom uh was a slaveholder here at mount vernon and i think it'd be very easy to be hyper critical of george washington for kind of those contradictory stances in life personally this is just me i'm willing to give a little bit of grace to george washington now there's no excusing slavery it was evil it was wrong uh it's it's something that that should have never happened but keep in mind that george washington was born into a world where slavery had been the norm for thousands of years and what we see in george washington that i think is admirable is an evolution of thought over the course of his life to where by the end at least in private correspondence he was advocating for the abolition of slaves but what may seem simple to us now uh may have not been so simple back then who knows what are we doing now that societies two and three hundred years from now will be horrified at something that we think is common practice so again i'm willing to extend you know a a little bit of grace while at the same time uh acknowledging the fact that that the the institution of slavery was uh was an evil thing but anyway those are some of the things that you think about whenever you're here at uh at mount vernon so anyway again so glad that they are telling these stories and keeping that history alive [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 8,503

Rating: 4.9220185 out of 5

Keywords: history, history travel, travel, history traveler, history underground, george washington, mount vernon, mt vernon, slavery, black history, president, presidential home, plantation, virginia, leadership

Id: 85wJ4t5yeZ0

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021