The Enslaved Woman George Washington Could Never Get Back

George Washington’s will provided for the freedom of the enslaved people he personally owned. But one woman associated with his household didn’t wait for him to decide when she would be free. Her name was Ona Judge. And in 1796, she escaped. Judge had been born into slavery at Mount Vernon around 1773. But technically, George Washington didn’t own her. She belonged to the Custis estate, inherited through Martha Washington’s first marriage. As a child, Ona became one of Martha Washington’s personal attendants and eventually accompanied the presidential household to Philadelphia. Pennsylvania presented Washington with a problem. Under the state’s Gradual Abolition Act, enslaved people brought into Pennsylvania by nonresidents could potentially claim freedom after six months of continuous residence. Washington deliberately rotated enslaved members of his household out of Pennsylvania before that deadline, privately instructing that the maneuver should not appear designed to evade the law. Then Ona learned something that changed everything. Martha Washington planned to give her to her granddaughter Eliza Parke Custis Law. Ona later explained that she was determined never to become Eliza’s property. So on May 21, 1796, while the Washington household was eating dinner, Ona slipped away. She boarded the Nancy, captained by John Bolles, and sailed north to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Washington wanted her back. A newspaper advertisement offered $10 for her capture. And this wasn’t simply a private family dispute. Three years earlier, President Washington had signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, strengthening the federal mechanism for recovering people who escaped slavery. Washington then used his federal connections. Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott Jr. contacted Portsmouth customs collector Joseph Whipple, who located Judge and attempted to negotiate her return. She refused. Judge was willing to discuss returning only if the Washingtons guaranteed her eventual freedom. Washington rejected the arrangement. Then, in 1799, another attempt was made. Washington’s relative Burwell Bassett Jr. traveled to New Hampshire and planned to seize Judge. But Senator John Langdon’s family warned her. She fled and avoided capture. George Washington died later that year. But Ona Judge still wasn’t legally free. Because she was Custis estate property, Washington couldn’t free her through his own will. Under the law, she remained a fugitive. She nevertheless spent the rest of her life in New Hampshire. She married. Had children. Worked. And decades later, abolitionist newspapers interviewed her about the escape. When asked whether she regretted leaving the Washingtons despite the hardships she endured, Judge answered: “No, I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by the means.” Ona Judge died in 1848. The Washingtons never got her back. She didn’t wait for America’s first president to give her freedom. She took it herself. #OnaJudge #GeorgeWashington #MountVernon #BlackHistory #Slavery #AmericanHistory #FugitiveSlaveAct #PhiladelphiaHistory #HistoryTok #blackhistoryfacts