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George Washington



Main article: George Washington and slavery
George Washington had a small distillery at his house
George Washington had a small distillery at his house
George Washington grew hemp as a crop on his plantation
George Washington grew hemp as a crop on his plantation

For most of his life, Washington operated his plantations as a typical Virginia slave owner. In the 1760s, he dropped tobacco (which was prestigious but unprofitable) and shifted to hemp[45] and wheat growing and diversified into milling flour, weaving cloth, and distilling brandy. By the time of his death, there were 317 slaves at Mount Vernon.

Before the American Revolution, Washington expressed no moral reservations about slavery, but by 1778 he did not want to break up slave families and stopped selling slaves without their consent.

Since maintaining a large (and increasingly elderly) slave population was not economically profitable, Washington wrote to his manager at Mount Vernon that he wished to sell his slaves and "to get quit of negroes" while he was at war in 1778. Washington could not legally sell "dower slaves" (those that belonged to his wife) however, and because these slaves had long intermarried with his own slaves, he could not sell his slaves without breaking up families.[46]

Washington was the only prominent, slaveholding Founding Father who succeeded at emancipating his slaves. He did not free his slaves in his lifetime, however, but instead included a provision in his will to free his slaves upon the death of his wife. Not all the slaves at his estate at Mt. Vernon were owned by him, his wife Martha owned a large number of slaves and Washington did not feel that he could unilaterally free slaves that came to Mt. Vernon from his wife's estate. His actions were influenced by his close relationship with the Marquis de La Fayette. Martha Washington would free slaves to which she had title late in her own life. He did not speak out publicly against slavery, argues historian Dorothy Twohig, because he did not wish to risk splitting apart the young republic over what was already a sensitive and divisive issue.[47]

Religious beliefs

Main article: George Washington and religion

Washington was baptized into the Church of England.[48][49] In 1765, when the Church of England was still the state religion,[50] he served on the vestry (lay council) for his local church. Throughout his life, he spoke of the value of righteousness, and of seeking and offering thanks for the "blessings of Heaven."

In a letter to George Mason in 1785, Washington wrote that he was not among those alarmed by a bill "making people pay towards the support of that [religion] which they profess," but felt that it was "impolitic" to pass such a measure, and wished it had never been proposed, believing that it would disturb public tranquility.[51]

His adopted daughter, Nelly Custis Lewis, stated: "I have heard her [Nelly's mother, Eleanor Calvert Custis, who resided in Mount Vernon for two years] say that General Washington always received the sacrament with my grandmother [Martha Washington] before the revolution."[52] After the revolution, Washington frequently accompanied his wife to Christian church services; however, there is no record of his ever taking communion, and he would regularly leave services before communion—with the other non-communicants (as was the custom of the day), until he ceased attending at all on communion Sundays. Prior to communion, believers are admonished to take stock of their spiritual lives and not to participate in the ceremony unless he finds himself in the will of God.[53][54] Historians and biographers continue to debate the degree to which he can be counted as a Christian, and the degree to which he was a deist.

He was an early supporter of religious toleration and freedom of religion. In 1775, he ordered that his troops not show anti-Catholic sentiments by burning the pope in effigy on Guy Fawkes Night. When hiring workmen for Mount Vernon, he wrote to his agent, "If they be good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe; they may be Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists."[53] In 1790, he wrote a response to a letter from the Touro Synagogue, in which he said that as long as people remain good citizens, their faith does not matter. This was a relief to the Jewish community of the United States, since the Jews had been either expelled from or prejudiced against in many European countries. (The United States Bill of Rights was in the process of being ratified at the time.)

Personal life

In 1796, Gilbert Stuart painted this famous portrait of Washington from life, and then used the unfinished painting to create numerous others, including the image used on the U.S. one-dollar bill.
In 1796, Gilbert Stuart painted this famous portrait of Washington from life, and then used the unfinished painting to create numerous others, including the image used on the U.S. one-dollar bill.
Statue of George Washington, with a medallion of his French ancestor Nicolas Martiau, born in Île de Ré, France
Statue of George Washington, with a medallion of his French ancestor Nicolas Martiau, born in Île de Ré, France

In addition to Martha's biological family noted above, George Washington had a close relationship with his nephew and heir Bushrod Washington, son of George's younger brother John Augustine Washington, who became an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court after George's death.

As a young man, Washington had red hair.[55][56] A popular myth is that he wore a wig, as was the fashion among some at the time. Washington did not wear a wig; instead he powdered his hair,[57] as represented in several portraits, including the well-known unfinished Gilbert Stuart depiction.[58]

Washington suffered from problems with his teeth throughout his life. He lost his first tooth when he was twenty-two and had only one left by the time he became President.[59] According to John Adams, he lost them because he used them to crack Brazil nuts, although modern historians suggest it was probably the mercury oxide he was given to treat illnesses such as smallpox and malaria.[59] He had several sets of false teeth made, four of them by a dentist named John Greenwood.[59] Contrary to popular belief, none of the sets were made from wood. The set made when he became President was carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory, held together with gold springs.[59][60] The hippo ivory was used for the plate, into which real human teeth and also bits of horses and donkeys teeth were inserted.[59] Dental problems left Washington in constant discomfort, for which he took laudanum, and this distress may be apparent in many of the portraits painted while he was still in office, including the one still used on the $1 bill.[59]

One of the most enduring myths about George Washington involves him as a young boy chopping down his father's cherry tree and, when asked about it, using the famous line "I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet." In fact, there is no evidence that this ever occurred.[61] It, along with the story of Washington throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River, was part of a book of stories authored by Mason Weems that made Washington somewhat of a legendary figure.

See also

References: biographies

  • Buchanan, John. The Road to Valley Forge: How Washington Built the Army That Won the Revolution (2004). 368 pp.
  • Burns, James MacGregor and Dunn, Susan. George Washington. Times, 2004. 185 pp. explore leadership style
  • Cunliffe, Marcus. George Washington: Man and Monument (1958), explores both the biography and the myth
  • Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. George! A Guide to All Things Washington. Buena Vista and Charlottesville, VA: Mariner Publishing. 2005. ISBN 0-9768238-0-2. Grizzard is a leading scholar of Washington.
  • Hirschfeld, Fritz. George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal. University of Missouri Press, 1997.
  • Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. (2004) ISBN 1-4000-4031-0. Acclaimed interpretation of Washington's career.
  • Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism. (1994) the leading scholarly history of the 1790s.
  • Ferling, John E. The First of Men: A Life of George Washington (1989). Biography from a leading scholar.
  • Fischer, David Hackett. Washington's Crossing. (2004), prize-winning military history focused on 1775-1776.
  • Flexner, James Thomas. Washington: The Indispensable Man. (1974). ISBN 0-316-28616-8 (1994 reissue). Single-volume condensation of Flexner's popular four-volume biography.
  • Freeman, Douglas S. George Washington: A Biography. 7 volumes, 1948–1957. The standard scholarly biography, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A single-volume abridgement by Richard Harwell appeared in 1968
  • Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. George Washington: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO, 2002. 436 pp. Comprehensive encyclopedia by leading scholar
  • Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. The Ways of Providence: Religion and George Washington. Buena Vista and Charlottesville, VA: Mariner Publishing. 2005. ISBN 0-9768238-1-0.
  • Higginbotham, Don, ed. George Washington Reconsidered. University Press of Virginia, (2001). 336 pp of essays by scholars
  • Higginbotham, Don. George Washington: Uniting a Nation. Rowman & Littlefield, (2002). 175 pp.
  • Hofstra, Warren R., ed. George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry. Madison House, 1998. Essays on Washington's formative years.
  • Lengel, Edward G. General George Washington: A Military Life. New York: Random House, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6081-8.
  • Lodge, Henry Cabot. George Washington, 2 vols. (1889), vol 1 at Gutenberg; vol 2 at Gutenberg
  • McDonald, Forrest. The Presidency of George Washington. 1988. Intellectual history showing Washington as exemplar of republicanism.
  • Smith, Richard Norton Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation Focuses on last 10 years of Washington's life.
  • Spalding, Matthew. "George Washington's Farewell Address." The Wilson Quarterly v20#4 (Autumn 1996) pp: 65+.
  • Stritof, Sheri and Bob. "George and Martha Washington" http://marriage.about.com/od/presidentialmarriages/p/gwashington.htm
  • Wiencek, Henry. An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. (2003).

Further reading

Further information: George Washington bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ a b The birth and death of George Washington are given using the Gregorian calendar. However, he was born when Britain and her colonies still used the Julian calendar, so contemporary records record his birth as February 11, 1731-32. The provisions of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, implemented in 1752, altered the official British dating method to the Gregorian calendar with the start of the year on January 1.
  2. ^ George Washington Birthplace National Monument. National Park Service. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
  3. ^ Image of page from family Bible. Papers of George Washington. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
  4. ^ Under the Articles of Confederation Congress called its presiding officer "President of the United States in Congress Assembled." He had no executive powers, but the similarity of titles has confused people into thinking there were other presidents before Washington. Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (1959), 178-9
  5. ^ a b Stazesky, Richard C. (February 22, 2000). George Washington, Genius in Leadership. The Papers of George Washington. Alderman Library, University of Virginia. Retrieved on 2007-10-07.
  6. ^ Garrity, Patrick (Fall, 1996). "Warnings of a Parting Friend (US Foreign Policy Envisioned by George Washington in his Farewell Address)." The National Interest, No. 45. Retrieved on October 6, 2007.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Bell, William Gardner; COMMANDING GENERALS AND CHIEFS OF STAFF: 1775-2005; Portraits & Biographical Sketches of the United States Army's Senior Officer: 1983, CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY; UNITED STATES ARMY; WASHINGTON, D.C.: ISBN 0–16–072376–0 : pp 52 & 66
  8. ^ At the time Virginia included West Virginia and the upper Ohio Valley area around present day Pittsburgh.
  9. ^ "Washington As Public Land Surveyor: Boyhood and Beginnings" George Washington: Surveyor and Mapmaker. American Memory. Library of Congress. Retrieved on May 17, 2007.
  10. ^ George Washington House Restoration Project in Barbados. Retrieved on 2008-01-21.
  11. ^ "George Washington: Making of a Military Leader". American Memory. Library of Congress. Retrieved on May 17, 2007.
  12. ^ Sparks, Jared (1839). The Life of George Washington". Boston: Ferdinand Andrews. p. 17. Digitized by Google. Retrieved on May 17, 2007.
  13. ^ Tabbert, Mark A. (January 29, 2007). "A Masonic Memorial to a Virtuous Man". Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry. Retrieved on May 17, 2007.
  14. ^ Washington Daylight Lodge #14 (2006). "Commemoration of George Washington’s Birthday". Retrieved on August 21, 2007.
  15. ^ Fred Anderson, Crucible of War (Vintage Books, 2001), p. 6.
  16. ^ On British attitudes see John Shy, Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (1990) p. 39; Douglas Edward Leach. Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763 (1986) p. 106; and John Ferling. Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution (2002) p. 65
  17. ^ Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. (2004) ISBN 1-4000-4031-0.
  18. ^ For negative treatments of Washington's excessive ambition and military blunders, see Bernhard Knollenberg, George Washington: The Virginia Period, 1732–1775 (1964) and Thomas A. Lewis, For King and Country: The Maturing of George Washington, 1748–1760 (1992).
  19. ^ Martha married Daniel Parke Custis on May 15, 1750 when she was 18. Daniel died on July 26, 1757. Martha had four children with Custis:
    • Daniel Parke Custis: Daniel was born in 1751. He died when he was 3 in 1754.
    • Frances Parke Custis: Frances was born in 1753. She died when she was 4 in 1757.
    • Martha Parke Custis ("Patsy"): Patsy was born in 1756 and died when she was 17 of an epileptic seizure on June 19, 1773. She is buried at Mount Vernon.
    • John Parke Custis ("Jacky"): Jacky was born on November 27, 1754. He died at Yorktown at 26 years of age on November 5, 1781 of "camp fever" (typhoid fever) while he was serving as an aide to George.
  20. ^ John K. Amory, M.D., "George Washington’s infertility: Why was the father of our country never a father?" Fertility and Sterility, Vol. 81, No. 3, March 2004. (online, PDF format)
  21. ^ George and Martha had seven grandchildren from Martha's biological children.
    • Baby girl Custis, died in 1775.
    • Eliza Parke Custis was born on August 21, 1776 at Mount Airy Plantation in Maryland. She married an Englishman, Thomas Law, on March 21, 1796 at her mother and stepfather's home, Hope Park Plantation, Virginia.
    • Martha Parke "Patty" Custis was born on December 3, 1777 at Mount Vernon. On January 6, 1795, she married Thomas Peter at her mother and stepfather's home, Hope Park Plantation, Virginia.
    • Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis. She was born on March 21, 1779. She married Lawrence Lewis, George's nephew, on February 22, 1799 at Mount Vernon. She died in 1852.
    • George Washington "Washy, Wash, or Tub" Parke Custis. He was born on April 30, 1781. He remained at Mount Vernon after his mother's second marriage. He died in 1857.
    • Two set of twins died at birth.
  22. ^ Acreage, slaves, and social standing: Joseph Ellis, His Excellency, George Washington, pp. 41–42, 48.
  23. ^ John C. Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799
  24. ^ Washington quoted in Ferling, p. 99.
  25. ^ Orlando W. Stephenson, "The Supply of Gunpowder in 1776," American Historical Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (January 1925), pp. 271-281 in JSTOR
  26. ^ Bickham, Troy O. "Sympathizing with Sedition? George Washington, the British Press, and British Attitudes During the American War of Independence." William and Mary Quarterly 2002 59(1): 101-122. ISSN 0043-5597 Fulltext online in History Cooperative
  27. ^ Fleming, T: "Washington's Secret War: the Hidden History of Valley Forge.", Smithsonian Books, 2005
  28. ^ Wuhl, Robert. Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl. HBO Films, 2006
  29. ^ George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 3b Varick Transcripts. Library of Congress. Accessed on May 22, 2006.
  30. ^ Morison, Samuel Eliot (1972). "Washington's First Administration: 1789-1793", The Oxford History of the American People, Vol. 2. Meridian. 
  31. ^ Leonard D. White, The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History (1948)
  32. ^ After Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented four terms, the two-term limit was formally integrated into the Federal Constitution by the 22nd Amendment.
  33. ^ Hoover, Michael. The Whiskey Rebellion. United States Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
  34. ^ "Supreme Court of the United States". About The Court: Members of the Supreme Court (1789 to Present) (PDF). Retrieved on May 31, 2007.
  35. ^ Matthew Spalding, The Command of its own Fortunes: Reconsidering Washington's Farewell address," in William D. Pederson, Mark J. Rozell, Ethan M. Fishman, eds. George Washington (2001) ch 2; Virginia Arbery, "Washington's Farewell Address and the Form of the American Regime." in Gary L. Gregg II and Matthew Spalding, eds. George Washington and the American Political Tradition. 1999 pp. 199-216.
  36. ^ Library of Congress - see Farewell Address section
  37. ^ "Religion and the Federal Government". Religion and the Founding of the American Republic. Library of Congress Exhibition. Retrieved on May 17, 2007.
  38. ^ George Washington's Distillery.
  39. ^ Fund, John. "George Washington, whiskey entrepreneur", The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2007. 
  40. ^ Vadakan, M.D., Vibul V. (Winter/Spring 2005). A Physician Looks At The Death of Washington. Early America Review. Archiving Early America. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
  41. ^ http://www.washingtondaylight.org/news/GW-Birthday-Speech.pdf
  42. ^ He has gained fame around the world as a quintessential example of a benevolent national founder. Gordon Wood concludes that the greatest act in his life was his resignation as commander of the armies—an act that stunned aristocratic Europe. Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), pp 105-6; Edmund Morgan, The Genius of George Washington (1980), pp 12-13; Sarah J. Purcell, Sealed With Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America (2002) p. 97; Don Higginbotham, George Washington (2004); Ellis, 2004. The earliest known image in which Washington is identified as such is on the cover of the circa 1778 Pennsylvania German almanac (Lancaster: Gedruckt bey Francis Bailey).
  43. ^ Jefferson to Washington April 16, 1784. Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Retrieved on 2006-09-05.
  44. ^ www.gwmemorial.org/.
  45. ^ Brooks, John (2000-02-10). marijuana. Stanford University School of Medicine. Retrieved on 2007-12-14. “As an aside, George Washington had large fields of cannabis on his plantation, which were used for fiber production.”
  46. ^ Slave raffle linked to Washington's reassessment of slavery: Wiencek, pp. 135–36, 178–88. Washington's decision to stop selling slaves: Fritz Hirschfeld, George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal, p. 16. Influence of war and Wheatley: Wiencek, ch 6. Dilemma of selling slaves: Wiencek, p. 230; Ellis, pp. 164–7; Hirschfeld, pp. 27–29.
  47. ^ Twohig, "That Species of Property", pp. 127–28.
  48. ^ Family Bible entry http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/hh/26/hh26f.htm
  49. ^ Image of page from family Bible http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/faq/bible.html
  50. ^ Colonial Williamsburg website has several articles on religion in colonial Virginia
  51. ^ George Washington to George Mason, 3 October 1785, LS. Library of Congress: American Memory. Retrieved on 2006-09-05.
  52. ^ ushistory.org Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis' letter written to Jared Sparks, 1833
  53. ^ a b The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner.
  54. ^ [1] Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis' letter written to Jared Sparks, 1833
  55. ^ Homans, Charles (2004-10-06). Taking a New Look at George Washington. The Papers of George Washington: Washington in the News. Alderman Library, University of Virginia. Retrieved on 2007-09-28.
  56. ^ Ross, John F (October 2005), Unmasking George Washington, Smithsonian Magazine 
  57. ^ George Washington's Mount Vernon: Answers. Retrieved on 2006-06-30.
  58. ^ Gilbert Stuart. Smithsonian National Picture Gallery: George Washington (the Athenaeum portrait). Retrieved on 2006-06-30.
  59. ^ a b c d e f Lloyd, J & Mitchinson, J: "The Book of General Ignorance". Faber & Faber, 2006.
  60. ^ Barbara Glover. George Washington - A Dental Victim. Retrieved on 2006-06-30.
  61. ^ Nicholas F. Gier, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho (1980 and 2005). Religious Liberalism and the Founding Fathers. Retrieved on 2007-12-11.

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Persondata
NAME Washington, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION 1st President of the United States, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1732(1732-02-22)
PLACE OF BIRTH Colonial Beach, Virginia, United States of America
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1799
PLACE OF DEATH Mount Vernon (plantation), Mount Vernon, Virginia, United States of America




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