Slavery & Washington's Legacy: Conflict at White House Memorial

by Karen Hatter | June 10, 2010 at 08:37 am

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Since the unearthing of the foundation of the building that served as the United States’ first presidential residence from 1790 to 1800, in 2007, known as the President's House, controversy has been at the forefront regarding how to construct the memorial as well as the portrayal of the lives of the nine enslaved people held at the first White House, their intricately intertwined existence with, and for many, their unexpected link to, the nation’s first president, George Washington. Washington resided in the President's House from 1790 until 1797.

National and international visitors touring historic downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometimes called the ‘cradle of liberty’, often remark they were unaware the nation’s first president and one of its founding fathers had owned slaves.

As of June 2010, the controversy surrounding the memorial remains unresolved.

In recent months:

…. exhibits have been under fire from critics on all sides - from those who say the exhibition paints too rosy a picture of the lives of the nine enslaved people who lived in George and Martha Washington’s house, to those who say Washington’s legacy will be tarnished by the exhibit.

Remains of passageways used by enslaved workers unearthed in 2007

While excavating at the memorial site in 2007, not far from the location of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, passageways were discovered, later identified by historians as being used for the purpose of allowing enslaved workers to go about their work unobserved by visitors to the President’s house.

It was also discovered the enslaved people’s living quarters were in and near the stables with the horses.

Discovery of the passageways causes debate

Once the remains of the passageways were discovered, discussion arose regarding their significance and how or even if the inclusion of the usage of the passageways as part of the routine for the enslaved workers’ daily tasks was deemed necessary to the telling of the story of the Philadelphia White House.

For nearly 400 years, people of African descent contributed their forced labor, ingenuity, lives and blood ….

…. to this nation as they built this nation and created wealth for this nation and the world.

An intended glimpse into the functioning of the household of the man known to the world as the 'father of his country', a household which included the use of enslaved workers, seems appropriate.

An interesting fact regarding Washington’s dealings with those he held captive

Historians have uncovered much information about the nine enslaved people that accompanied George Washington to the Philadelphia White House from Mount Vernon, Virginia, including his concerns regarding their state of enslavement being in jeopardy while residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A residency statute in Pennsylvania provided that enslaved persons that resided for six months in the state would become emancipated.

Washington enlisted the aid of his personal secretary, Tobias Lear, to investigate the particulars of the statute.

Washington instructed Lear if he suspected:

…. the slaves were likely to seek their freedom under Pennsylvania law, Washington wished them sent home to Mount Vernon. "If upon taking good advise it is found expedient to send them back to Virginia, I wish to have it accomplished under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public.”

Facts regarding the escape of Hercules, Washington’s chef, contradict popular legend

For centuries, it had been accepted as fact that Washington’s enslaved chef, Hercules, made good his escape from Philadelphia, amid the hustle and bustle of the city. It has been discovered that while Washington was the guest of honor at his 65th birthday celebration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 22, 1797, Hercules, who was not in Philadelphia during the celebration, made his escape form Mount Vernon in Virginia that same night.

After the escape of an enslaved maid, of whom Washington’s wife, Martha, claimed ownership, during the previous spring and having suspicions that Hercules and his son were planning an escape, Washington, recognizing the increased opportunity of escape from Philadelphia, left Hercules in Virginia when he returned to Philadelphia in the fall of 1796.

Washington later wrote, “That will keep them out of idleness and mischief.”

While in Virginia, Hercules had been assigned more menial, back breaking duties like digging clay for bricks, spreading dung and smashing stones into sand.

A Birthday Shock for Washington

At present, a wayside sign, posted by the National Park Service, identifies the site for the memorial, noting the duality of the nation in 1790 as:

…. reflecting both the ideals and contradictions of the new nation.

The house stood in the shadow of Independence Hall, where the words "All men are created equal” and “We the People” were adopted, but did not apply to all who lived in the new United States of America.

The President’s House project is slated for completion by the fall of 2010, with President Obama scheduled to be in attendance at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

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Karen Hatter

at 09:13 on June 10th, 2010

Good morning/afternoon, Staff!

I have tussled with publishing this story for OVER THREE HOURS!!!! A bit of deja vu from two weeks ago when I published! Glad I had the time this morning/afternoon and that I'm tenacious!

First, I tried Firefox. Kept losing text and links AND format coding visible on Preview.

After copying text from Firefox text box, pasting to Word Document, copying and pasting, blah, blah, blah .... I'll assume you know the drill, I posted using Internet Explorer.

Usual problems, double spacing yet, for some unknown, miraculous reason, lost highlights or links issue did not occur. But, those issues get another chance to appear.

I look forward to THOSE issues when I add either photos or videos.

SO, my dear Staff, please monitor my post so WHEN, and it's damned near a safe bet that it will happen, please re add any photos or vidoes I add AFTER I fix the highlight or links issues that are sure to plague this, my latest contribution.

I'll get back to you folks. Thanks!

Update:

Well, miracle of miracles! No further issues when photos were added but, I won't press my luck by trying to add video!

annonymous (not verified)

at 09:23 on June 10th, 2010

I think the problem often falls in people's thick denials of reality. This in some ways prevents them from the pain of reality - that some of the foundations of the country were based on half-truths where persons really didn't have the rights supposedly accorded to them by the constitution. It's painful and people should deal with it. The fact that many in the US won't deal with it (bizarrely since in many cases their own ancestors weren't slavers) means that the situation is not dead and in the past. Coming out of that denial about the past and allowing ourselves to feel pain, remorse and later moral and ethical indignation at the hypocrisies of the past will free us to make a better nation in the future----------------------------------- Today we have other "slavery like" conditions for those of us who are victims of organized stalking and electronic harassment. I myself am one of those targets and was placed on the list for reasons outside myself. As I try to go through the myriad of information and disinformation about this problem - who might be behind it, who's making the weapons that are used to hurt us, who can help us (but won't as I see that our problem is only met with agencies who claim they don't have jurisdiction and complete stonewalling even when we provide evidence), etc. I see that our problem is linked to greater problems in society. The greater problem that has allowed for us to be harassed this way is in the marriage of factors of government to big business and money (especially defense contractors), the marriage of academia to money and to the elites in helping them maintain the order, the lack of justice for others in the US and abroad, etc. Even the UN and other organizations that are so concerned with human rights turn their backs on us. This system is as endemic as slavery and is built on the hypocrisies and illegal behavior of those who are supposed to be the "good citizens" based on their money and education or their association with certain facets of government/law enforcement----------------------------------------------------------------- We as a society have barely dealt with slavery, barely dealt with the holocaust (as can be seen by the number of deniers and the general indifference to the fact that since then other holocausts have been occuring in smaller numbers), barely dealt with the deaths of completely innocent non-political persons due to Cold War factionalism... and on and on it goes. When will people wake up and say "NO MORE!" ? Not dealing with the fact that the nation was "built" at a time when the mistreatment of African and African-descent persons and native Americans was rampant places us in danger of future violations of the human rights of others. We can hardly deal with the present when we if we haven't even dealt with the past.

YankeeJim

at 11:13 on June 10th, 2010

George Washington's direction to his lawyer to send the slaves back to Virginia if he suspected they might seek freedom in Philadelphia reflects the same mean spirit of his own mother, who sent him off to war so that she could keep his father's farm to herself. It was a hard life.

Some of our founding fathers had conflicted values and we're fortunate that their best ideas and values found the pages of the Declaration and the Constitution. Tragedy is that the struggle to uphold even these basic principles is difficult and continuing today. Vigilance, attention, persistence and diligence are essential work to keep the nation as free and equal as it is intended to be.

YankeeJim

at 11:17 on June 10th, 2010

http://hnn.us/articles/1135.html

"George Washington's Philadelphia Slave Quarters

By Edward Lawler, Jr.

Mr. Lawler is leading a petition drive to persuade the Park Service to draw attention to George Washington's President's House and slave quarters in Philadelphia. His work has been published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.

In the movie The Sixth Sense, the boy who sees dead people is sitting in his classroom and his teacher asks, "What was the capital of the United States from 1790 to 1800?" No one in the class knows the answer, and probably not one in a hundred Americans watching the movie knew that it was Philadelphia. Until earlier this year, had the question been, "Where was the Philadelphia 'White House' and what did it look like?" perhaps one in a million could have gotten it right."

Karen Hatter

at 14:43 on June 12th, 2010

Thanks for the link, Jim.

I like to think I aided in the process of raising the awareness of others when I first published The President's House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, here at NowPublic, in 2009.

Mr. Lawler is a founding member of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), a self described ".... broad-based organization of African American historians, attorneys, elected officials, religious leaders, media personalities, community activists, and registered voters ...." that has been working in Philadelphia since 2002 to assure that the telling of a more complete Philadelphia history, recognized as the 'birth place of the nation', includes acknowledgment of the participation of those enslaved in George Washington's household.

For the most part, the names and specific histories of the enslaved who toiled nearly 400 years in United States and the so called New World have been lost to time, due to the system of chattel slavery.

Just as odds are the contributions of the oxen, horses and other livestock used for completion of any tasks would not be noted, for obvious reasons and as enslaved people had been categorized as livestock, every opportunity that presents itself to provide information on the lives of a fraction of the millions who toiled in anonymity for centuries is the duty of all seeking to fully comprehend the events of history.

The boys in the photograph are barefoot, dressed in rags and small.

And, according to art historians, they are likely slaves. Almost 150 years after slavery ended in the U.S., more proof of its dark history has been found in a North Carolina attic, a rare photo of slave children that may date to the early 1860s.

The photograph was found at a garage sale in Charlotte. With it was a handwritten document from 1854 describing the sale of "John" for $1,150.

Please click here to see the photo and the original article.

The photo was acquired by Keya Morgan of Keya Gallery, believed to own one of the largest collection of original historic photographs and documents.