In the Margins

It feels like we know basically everything about George Washington.

He's probably the most famous man in the country.

But even after all these years, there's one question that historians have failed to answer conclusively.

What did George Washington really think about slavery?

His record is full of contradictions.

As president, he passed laws that upheld slavery and others that limited it.

He mused about a plan to abolish slavery while also profiting as the fifth largest enslaver in Virginia.

The key to understanding Washington could be in the story of one young woman.

Ona Judge, an enslaved housemaid turned "fugitive" who Washington tried to recapture up until his death.

Her story complicates the legacy of this celebrated president so much that people TODAY are trying to erase it.

So why was the most powerful man in the country so fixated on capturing this one young woman?

I'm Harini Bhat and this is In The Margins.

Washington's position on slavery had been shifting even before he took office.

In 1775, as general, he banned Black people from joining the Continental Army.

Within a year, Washington's flip flopped, recruiting Black soldiers after the British enticed thousands of enslaved people to their side by promising freedom.

As the founders were writing the Constitution, the question of slavery was still being debated.

The nation's leaders came to compromise with the Slave Trade Clause, which basically kept the status quo and allowed the slave trade to go on for 20 years.

In 1786, Washington seemed to have personal doubts about slavery.

He wrote to a close friend, quote "it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by slavery in this country may be abolished by a slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees."

End quote.

Meanwhile, he and his wife Martha had enslaved about 300 people on his six sprawling Virginia plantations, who he had both inherited and purchased.

That number included Ona Judge, her four half siblings, and her mother.

In 1789, when Washington became president, Judge was just 15 years old.

She was Martha's closest housemaid in bondage.

She drew her bath, arranged her hair, skillfully mended her dresses as fitting for a first lady.

Judge and six other enslaved people went with the Washingtons briefly to New York before settling into the temporary capital of Philadelphia.

Then one day, the Attorney General, Edmund Randolph, visited Martha Washington with an urgent message.

Three of the people Randolph enslaved had declared their freedom.

Pennsylvania law mandated that all adult enslaved people in the state must be set free after six months of residence.

They cited that law to the Attorney General's face, and ran off.

At the time.

Pennsylvania was one of the first states to limit slavery.

The Quakers of Philadelphia had vowed to shun the slave trade in 1711.

By 1780, the state passed the first anti-slavery law that freed enslaved people once they reached the age of 28.

Martha quickly wrote to Washington, who turned to his personal secretary, Tobias Lear, with a secret plan.

He wrote, quote, "I request that these sentiments and this advice may be known to none but yourself and Mrs.

Washington."

End quote.

Washington wanted Lear to discreetly move the people he enslaved out of the presidential home every six months, effectively resetting the legal limit for keeping people enslaved.

The Washingtons carried out this ruse for five years.

For a young nation, the Washingtons actions set a dangerous precedent.

That the most powerful people in the country could skirt the law, when it served them.

So while he may have pondered some vague plan to end slavery, when confronted with sacrificing his own comfort and wealth, Washington chose to keep people enslaved.

The Washingtons were committed to keeping Judge and the others as lifelong captives.

So how did she manage to slip out from right under their noses?

After all, an escape would have been easy.

Judge was on call around the clock and lived in the President's house, along with about more than two dozen other people, white servants and presidential staff.

Judge even shared a bedroom that was attached to the Washington's bedroom.

But in 1796, Judge received news that made her determined to leave.

Martha had decided to give Judge away as a wedding gift to her notoriously temperamental granddaughter, Eliza.

This act showed Judge that no matter how long or how well she served the Washingtons, her life could be traded away on a whim.

As a Black woman, she had no legal protections for her bodily safety.

She would be separated from her family and exposed to unknown dangers of physical or sexual violence, a threat that made new environments fearsome for all enslaved people.

Eliza's older husband to be already had biracial children from his time in India.

In planning her escape, Judge never revealed who helped her.

But here's what we do know.

Philadelphia at this time had a growing population of free Black people, which numbered about 5% in 1790.

A few years prior, the Free African Society was founded by abolitionists Absalom Jones and Reverend Richard Allen, two Black community leaders who had bought their freedom.

Allen was known to help enslaved people run away.

He also owned a chimney sweeping company, and in March 1796, records show that he paid a visit to the Presidential House just three months before Judge's escape.

We can only speculate if coded looks or words were exchanged.

Judge later revealed that free Black people in town helped by hiding her few possessions ahead of time, raising her chances of survival after escape.

This happened years before the Underground Railroad became more formalized with designated safe houses.

People who ran away were punished with whippings, mutilation, or deprivation of food, clothing, and shelter.

Anyone who helped Judge was also putting themselves in serious danger.

Consequences that were put into law by Washington himself.

In 1793, he approved the first and less famous Fugitive Slave Act that allowed enslavers to capture freedom seekers across state lines and made it a crime to help anyone hide or escape.

The next year, Washington signed the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which banned the U.S.

from exporting enslaved people.

On May 21st, 1796, at 22 years old, Judge disappeared into the night as the Washington's ate supper.

This was one of the only times a day when she wasn't waiting on them hand and foot.

Judge headed to the ports.

One historian says she likely wouldn't have known where she was headed and who would meet her.

A safety measure for everyone involved.

Ultimately, Captain John Bowles took Judge on board his cargo ship, which was carrying molasses, potatoes and coffee, all headed north to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

To protect the captain, Judge didn't reveal his identity until more than ten years after his death.

Two days after Judge escaped, the Washingtons put out an ad offering a $10 reward for her return.

"Absconded from the household of the President of the United States on Saturday afternoon, Oney Judge, a light mulatto."

His personal writings reveal his anger at what he called Judge's ingratitude, and Martha's considerable desire to have her back.

Judge stayed hidden from Washington until he received a letter from Elizabeth Langdon of Portsmouth.

The daughter of Senator John Langdon, she recognized Judge after passing her on the street.

Judge had settled into a quiet life of domestic work.

She married a free Black man named Jack Staines and had a free daughter, who she named Eliza.

Washington, first asked Joseph Whipple, the Portsmouth Collector of Customs, to persuade Judge to return without making a scene.

Though Whipple managed to meet Judge by pretending to hire help, he couldn't convince her to leave.

Frustrated, Washington sent his nephew, Virginia Senate member Burwell Bassett Jr., to Portsmouth.

He instructed Burwell to bring George back to Virginia, not Philadelphia, by any means necessary.

Bassett showed up to Judge's home and lied, saying that she'd be set free if she returned.

She responded, quote, "I am free now and choose to remain so."

End quote.

Bassett came back later with several other men in ropes to bind her.

They broke down her door but Judge wasn't there.

She and her family had escaped again and hid in a nearby town.

Six months later, Washington passed away.

Though is frequently cited that he freed the people enslaved in his will, that's not exactly what happened.

Only William Lee, his most favored enslaved person, was freed immediately.

Washington's wishes were that the other, around 120 enslaved people, served Martha until her death.

Martha finally freed the remaining enslaved people at Mount Vernon in 1801.

Some historians say she feared for her life after a mysterious fire and rumors of poison while other historians suggest she grew tired of the financial burdens of keeping people in bondage.

What did Judge think of her former enslavers?

She didn't disparage them directly, but as a deeply religious woman, Judge offered the observation that she never heard Washington pray and that "Martha read prayers but I don't call that praying."

End quote.

Judge ultimately outlived the Washingtons, as well as her husband and three children.

When she passed away in 1848, she had lived through decades of change as pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates battled in court and in the public sphere.

The same year that Washington died, a group of Black Philadelphian leaders petitioned the government to end the slave trade and repeal Washington's Fugitive Slave Act.

We can trace this lineage of organized resistance in the Black community even to today.

In January 2026, the National Park Service was ordered to remove an exhibit about the enslaved people in Washington's house as part of the Executive Order on Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.

Outcry from the public was swift.

Just one month later, a federal judge ruled that the exhibit be restored.

The judge wrote, quote, "this court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims - to dissemble and disassemble historical truth when it has some domain over historical fact.

It does not."

End quote.

Ona Judge is part of that historical record.

Her story reveals that Washington was unable to resolve the contradiction between freedom, the ideal he fought for white Americans, and slavery, the institution he clung to for enslaved Africans.

As the nation searched for its identity, Washington was hugely influential as the first President, and remains so as we examine his legacy 250 years on.

Perhaps the lesson lies in looking not just at Washington's life, but also the people who challenged him, like Ona Judge and the Free African Society.

She was born into bondage, yet she was willing to stand up against the most powerful man in the country to claim her most important ideal: Freedom.