By Dr. Rick Chromey
If you listen to today’s loudest critics, George Washington is little more than a contradiction in a powdered wig – a slave-owning hypocrite who preached liberty while denying it to others.
In some corners of modern scholarship, activist documentaries, and secular biographies, Washington is flattened into a single, incriminating fact: he owned slaves.
That charge is true. But the conclusion drawn from it is not.
Will the Real George Washington (Please) Stand Up?
Real history does not ask whether a person lived up to modern standards. It asks whether a person changed over time – whether conscience grew, whether convictions deepened, whether action followed belief. By that standard, George Washington’s life tells a far more compelling story than his critics allow.
This is the story of a Virginian shaped by slavery who came to oppose it; of a commander whose experience with Black soldiers transformed his thinking; and of a Christian statesman who believed that liberty, morality, and Divine Providence were inseparable.
A Virginian Born into a Slavery Culture
Washington was born in 1732 into the slaveholding culture of colonial Virginia. Slavery was not merely accepted – it was assumed. Land, labor, inheritance, and law were bound together in a system few questioned openly. Washington inherited his slaves early in life and later acquired more through his marriage to Martha Custis. Mount Vernon had five farms that required a total of 317 slaves.
Crucially, 194 enslaved at Mount Vernon were dower slaves, legally owned by the Custis estate. Washington did not own them outright. Under Virginia law, he could not free them during his lifetime or at his death. This legal reality is often ignored by modern critics, yet it is foundational to understanding his limitations.
Before 1782, manumission* in Virginia required legislative approval and was rarely granted. Even after private manumission became legal, freed Blacks were often required to leave the state, fracturing families and exposing the elderly and infirm to hardship. Freedom was not a simple or universally humane option.
Washington knew this – and increasingly wrestled with it. He also felt emancipating his slaves would create “painful consequences” as many were married to the Custis slaves.
The Revolutionary War Changed Him
Nothing reshaped Washington’s thinking more profoundly than the American Revolution.
At the outset of the war, Washington opposed the enlistment of Black soldiers. This was not unusual among Virginians, and early Continental policy reflected racial restrictions inherited from colonial militias. But war has a way of testing assumptions.
Black soldiers – free and enslaved – had already fought at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. British proclamations offering freedom to enslaved men who joined Loyalist forces forced Washington to reconsider his stance. More importantly, he observed Black soldiers in action: disciplined, courageous, and committed.
By late 1775, Washington reversed his position. Black soldiers were allowed to serve throughout the Continental Army. They fought in integrated units at Trenton, Monmouth, and Yorktown. Washington relied on them, trusted them, and came to respect their service.
Slavery at Mount Vernon
Slavery at Mount Vernon was real and unjust – but it was not indifferent.
Washington opposed the routine sale of slaves, especially when it broke up families. At Mount Vernon, enslaved husbands, wives, and their children were allowed to remain together. Washington was also known to intervene personally in disputes and reprimanded overseers for excessive cruelty.
Washington’s slaves received clothing allowances, medical care, and housing that contemporary observers noted compared favorably with other plantations. These facts do not redeem slavery – but they do distinguish Washington’s conduct within the institution that had shaped Virginia’s social fabric for over 150 years.
More telling still are Washington’s private letters. Over time, his language toward slavery shifted from acceptance to discomfort, and finally to moral opposition. He eventually expressed a desire for gradual abolition, carried out lawfully and without violence.
Black Voices from Washington’s World
One of the most overlooked elements in this discussion is testimony from Black individuals who knew Washington personally.
Former slaves and Black employees later spoke of Washington’s fairness, restraint, and justice. Several distinguished Washington from other masters they had known. Naturally, their voices complicate modern caricatures – but deserve to be heard.
“He has watched over us, and viewed our degraded and afflicted state
with compassion and pity – his heart was not insensible to our sufferings.”
(Richard Allen, Eulogy for George Washington, December 29, 1799)
Many modern biographers and historians ignore these testimonies, attempting to make revisionist corrections to the record, but it only distorts truth.
Faith, Providence, and Moral Accountability
Washington’s moral evolution cannot be separated from his faith.
As a lifelong Anglican, Washington attended church regularly, observed and encouraged national days of fasting and thanksgiving, and frequently invoked Divine Providence in his correspondence. He believed that nations, like individuals, were accountable to God – and that liberty was a sacred trust.
During the war, Washington issued proclamations calling for prayer, repentance, and moral conduct. His letters reveal a man convinced that victory depended on virtue. Contemporary accounts described him praying privately, and later artists portrayed him kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge.
For Washington, patriotism was not merely political. It was moral and religious.
The Will That Spoke Loudest
“Upon the decease of my wife, it is my Will and desire
that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right, shall receive their freedom.”
– George Washington’s Will, July 9, 1799
Washington’s final act on slavery was his most decisive.
In his 1799 will, he ordered the emancipation of every slave he legally owned, to take effect upon Martha’s death. Furthermore, Washington declared that he would care for the elderly and infirm, plus provide education for the young, at great expense to his financial holdings. This act was unprecedented among major Southern founders and deeply unsettling to Virginia’s planter class.
Martha, to relieve tension and fears, freed her slaves first. At death, Washington’s slaves were equally liberated. However, neither George nor Martha had the legal power to emancipate the Custis slaves.
Why the Modern Narrative Falls Short
Modern critics often demand instant moral purity from historical figures who lived within systems that punished dissent and rewarded conformity. But moral revolutions rarely happen overnight.
Washington did not begin as an abolitionist.
He became one.
To judge him solely by his starting point in life, rather than by the direction of his journey, is to misunderstand – if not deny – how moral change occurs. Growth is shaped by experience, conscience, faith, and courage – not lectures, slogans, pressure, and fear.
“Unbiased by the popular opinion,…[Washington]
dared to do his duty, and wipe off the only stain
with which man could ever reproach him.”
(Richard Allen, Washington Eulogy)
Washington’s life does not excuse slavery. However, it does expose the slow, difficult transformation of conscience inside a flawed world.
And that may be Washington’s most enduring lesson.
*The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines manumission as “formal emancipation from slavery.”
SOURCES CONSULTED:
Dr. Rick Chromey is a historian and theologian who speaks and writes on matters of religion, culture, and history. He’s also a Lewis and Clark historian for American Cruise Lines (Columbia and Snake rivers). Rick and his wife Linda live in Star, ID. www.rickchromey.com
