I knew none of this about Washington except that he was our first President and a slave owner. Probably 99% of other Americans don’t know either. Thank you for sharing this and keep sharing your wisdom!
Thank you for your commentary on this anniversary of the founding of our country. It is easy in 2023 to sit back and judge people in the 1700 and 1800s for their lives (and also, as you point out, only one aspect of their lives). But each of us is human and as such, have foibles.
In Thomas Sowell’s book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, he points out that Slavery was not an invention of Western Europe. It was practiced around the world (and some can say, it is still practiced around the world). But judging every action and person through the prism of one lens (slavery) negates every other aspect of these peoples’ character.
Western Europeans did not invent slavery which existed for many thousands of years. However, historically slavery was a technique to limit the vengeance of enemies your people had defeated. Your side lost, and rather than murdering you we make you our slave. You would never be part of our group, but those enslaved were regarded as “losers”, not as inferior. Thus, educated Greek slaves serving as teachers of the upper classes of the Roman Empire. Even Barbados, the first English slave colony founded in the 1620’s, began with poor whites from England and Ireland serving as temporary slaves I.e. indentures. However, the tropical climate took a toll on the English indentures and after about twenty years they started bringing in slaves from Africa. The English poor and the enslaved Africans worked side by side in the sugar cane fields with little or no class distinction between them. In fact, the slaves who boiled down the cane after the harvest, a highly skilled and essential job , were well compensated because the slightest slip might ruin the entire harvest, impoverishing the plantation owner. It was The Enlightenment that enabled the myth of African intellectual inferiority. Enlightenment reasoning could only countenance the subjugation of slaves if they were regarded as “less than human”. Thus the enslaved were no longer regarded as unfortunate humans whose side had lost, but rather as semi-human animals who must be “lead” by Europeans. Not for the first time did a society find justification for building and preserving their wealth by laughably convenient reasoning.
So what about the relationship between the WWII Japanese and the Chinese? Or the Koreans? Or the Tutsis and the Hutus? How about the English / Scots vis-a-vis the Irish? The Barbary Pirates enslaved many Europeans (like the citizens of Vestmannaeyjar who were kidnapped and taken to Northern Africa). Some were enslaved for ransoms that their families might pay. But others were enslaved because the Barbary Pirates could sell them in the slave markets of North Africa. And lastly, how did all of those Africans make it to the Atlantic Coast to be sold into slavery? I am not defending the institution of slavery, however, it is one thing to talk about it looking in the rear view mirror of history.
Indeed human societies have frequently treated each other with contempt and will continue to do so, but the discussion is about slavery, not national oppression. And yes, European Christians and North African Muslims kidnapped each other and pressed their victims into slavery, justified by their religious differences, but not regarding their victims as “less than human”. Have you seen Othello lately? A Blackamoor raised to high position by the Duke and married to the Duke’s very daughter. Written in 1600 when Black folks could be regarded as fully human, and sometimes heroic. The myth of African inferiority came later as the essential justification for a slave system. Of course, most enslaved Africans were driven to the slave ports by their African enemies. As I said in my previous post historically enslavement was a strategy to deprive your enemies of potential combatants. When the Atlantic slave trade opened they could permanently deport their enemies and make some money in the process. Nice, no. Humane, hardly. But it did not require the anyone to believe that their victims were inferior semi-humans. That is the burden that Black Americans have labored under for three hundred years. History is the only way we can diagnose this eternal American problem, and perhaps, finally, solve it.
Thank you for looking at Washington through a wider lens, and for sharing information about him that I had never known. Too many today practice "presentism" which judges people and actions in the past by the standards of today. I always thought the phrase "sick and tired" was a chiche', but truly I am both sick, and tired, of excoriating a person for one facet of their life. We cancel living people and erase dead ones, and every time we do that, we lose a little bit of our human-ity. Thank you for a timely article.
Just found this article today. I will share it with the administration and staff of George Washington High School in my city, where, I pray, it will be shared with all the students. That is going to be a very, very heartfelt prayer and very needed because so many of those that head and teach in our schools have that same hard-heartedness of Pastor Dukes. We'll see. Thank you for this eloquent wide-lens view of the our founding father, George Washington.
And unlike Jefferson, Washington (and Madison) rejected innate black inferiority and thought that blacks and whites could eventually peacefully coexist.
The issue is the global spread of Europeans. Who cares about nationalism? Native Hawaiians leave the state for California because the economic power games designed and evolved by haoles makes Hawaii too expensive.
Washington was a great political leader leagues ahead of his battleing contemporaries Adams and Jefferson. He was the least self-interested of powerful men and for that he is well honored. However, it is not petty to note that his career was enabled by his convenient marriage to Martha, who brought her one hundred slaves to their household. As a man of wealth through marriage he was able to embark on a political life that would otherwise been unlikely. Similarly, the noble gesture of manumitting his slaves upon the deaths of himself and Martha, is a bit less glowing in that they had no children, and thus, no one to logically leave his slaves too. He was indeed a great man with a admirable resistance to the blandishments of power, however, but for the system of slavery, he may well not be remembered at all.
It may be true head did all those things during his life time, however, it doesn't give him a pass for being a hypocrite. He sign the DOI , which stated all men are created equal and that ever man deserves liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The book Never Caught is a good counterpart to this essay. It neither demonizes nor excuses the Washingtons but presents them as often self-seeking and imperfect.
I knew none of this about Washington except that he was our first President and a slave owner. Probably 99% of other Americans don’t know either. Thank you for sharing this and keep sharing your wisdom!
Thank you for your commentary on this anniversary of the founding of our country. It is easy in 2023 to sit back and judge people in the 1700 and 1800s for their lives (and also, as you point out, only one aspect of their lives). But each of us is human and as such, have foibles.
In Thomas Sowell’s book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, he points out that Slavery was not an invention of Western Europe. It was practiced around the world (and some can say, it is still practiced around the world). But judging every action and person through the prism of one lens (slavery) negates every other aspect of these peoples’ character.
Western Europeans did not invent slavery which existed for many thousands of years. However, historically slavery was a technique to limit the vengeance of enemies your people had defeated. Your side lost, and rather than murdering you we make you our slave. You would never be part of our group, but those enslaved were regarded as “losers”, not as inferior. Thus, educated Greek slaves serving as teachers of the upper classes of the Roman Empire. Even Barbados, the first English slave colony founded in the 1620’s, began with poor whites from England and Ireland serving as temporary slaves I.e. indentures. However, the tropical climate took a toll on the English indentures and after about twenty years they started bringing in slaves from Africa. The English poor and the enslaved Africans worked side by side in the sugar cane fields with little or no class distinction between them. In fact, the slaves who boiled down the cane after the harvest, a highly skilled and essential job , were well compensated because the slightest slip might ruin the entire harvest, impoverishing the plantation owner. It was The Enlightenment that enabled the myth of African intellectual inferiority. Enlightenment reasoning could only countenance the subjugation of slaves if they were regarded as “less than human”. Thus the enslaved were no longer regarded as unfortunate humans whose side had lost, but rather as semi-human animals who must be “lead” by Europeans. Not for the first time did a society find justification for building and preserving their wealth by laughably convenient reasoning.
So what about the relationship between the WWII Japanese and the Chinese? Or the Koreans? Or the Tutsis and the Hutus? How about the English / Scots vis-a-vis the Irish? The Barbary Pirates enslaved many Europeans (like the citizens of Vestmannaeyjar who were kidnapped and taken to Northern Africa). Some were enslaved for ransoms that their families might pay. But others were enslaved because the Barbary Pirates could sell them in the slave markets of North Africa. And lastly, how did all of those Africans make it to the Atlantic Coast to be sold into slavery? I am not defending the institution of slavery, however, it is one thing to talk about it looking in the rear view mirror of history.
Indeed human societies have frequently treated each other with contempt and will continue to do so, but the discussion is about slavery, not national oppression. And yes, European Christians and North African Muslims kidnapped each other and pressed their victims into slavery, justified by their religious differences, but not regarding their victims as “less than human”. Have you seen Othello lately? A Blackamoor raised to high position by the Duke and married to the Duke’s very daughter. Written in 1600 when Black folks could be regarded as fully human, and sometimes heroic. The myth of African inferiority came later as the essential justification for a slave system. Of course, most enslaved Africans were driven to the slave ports by their African enemies. As I said in my previous post historically enslavement was a strategy to deprive your enemies of potential combatants. When the Atlantic slave trade opened they could permanently deport their enemies and make some money in the process. Nice, no. Humane, hardly. But it did not require the anyone to believe that their victims were inferior semi-humans. That is the burden that Black Americans have labored under for three hundred years. History is the only way we can diagnose this eternal American problem, and perhaps, finally, solve it.
An inspiring piece about a hero who managed to win and hold a fledgling nation together during a critical time. Where are the Washingtons of today?
Thank you for looking at Washington through a wider lens, and for sharing information about him that I had never known. Too many today practice "presentism" which judges people and actions in the past by the standards of today. I always thought the phrase "sick and tired" was a chiche', but truly I am both sick, and tired, of excoriating a person for one facet of their life. We cancel living people and erase dead ones, and every time we do that, we lose a little bit of our human-ity. Thank you for a timely article.
Just found this article today. I will share it with the administration and staff of George Washington High School in my city, where, I pray, it will be shared with all the students. That is going to be a very, very heartfelt prayer and very needed because so many of those that head and teach in our schools have that same hard-heartedness of Pastor Dukes. We'll see. Thank you for this eloquent wide-lens view of the our founding father, George Washington.
Thank you for this. Thank you very much.
And unlike Jefferson, Washington (and Madison) rejected innate black inferiority and thought that blacks and whites could eventually peacefully coexist.
That is not all:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Destroyer
The issue is the global spread of Europeans. Who cares about nationalism? Native Hawaiians leave the state for California because the economic power games designed and evolved by haoles makes Hawaii too expensive.
Washington was a great political leader leagues ahead of his battleing contemporaries Adams and Jefferson. He was the least self-interested of powerful men and for that he is well honored. However, it is not petty to note that his career was enabled by his convenient marriage to Martha, who brought her one hundred slaves to their household. As a man of wealth through marriage he was able to embark on a political life that would otherwise been unlikely. Similarly, the noble gesture of manumitting his slaves upon the deaths of himself and Martha, is a bit less glowing in that they had no children, and thus, no one to logically leave his slaves too. He was indeed a great man with a admirable resistance to the blandishments of power, however, but for the system of slavery, he may well not be remembered at all.
It may be true head did all those things during his life time, however, it doesn't give him a pass for being a hypocrite. He sign the DOI , which stated all men are created equal and that ever man deserves liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
So are you saying he shouldn’t have signed it or that they should have taken that part out?
The book Never Caught is a good counterpart to this essay. It neither demonizes nor excuses the Washingtons but presents them as often self-seeking and imperfect.