When we talk about the name Washington, many people immediately think of the founding father and first president of the United States, who played a central role in the struggle for American independence and is revered as the "Father of the United States".
President Washington's public advocacy for the belief that "all men are created equal" has led many to see him as a staunch defender of equal rights. What is less well known, however, is that he was also a slave owner and was involved in the trade of blacks throughout his life.
The Declaration of Independence recorded the following passage: "We firmly believe that it is self-evident that the Creator has endowed mankind with equality and a number of inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness......"
These words seem to strongly promote the idea of equality, but it is regrettable that the great man who wrote these words did not correspond to the words of the manifesto in his family, who had many black slaves in his family.
They believed that blacks and Indians were inherently slaves and should not have equal rights and dignity with whites. Washington was one of those slave-holders.
The landlord family kept many black slaves
The story of Washington begins with a wealthy family in Virginia, where many white families owned their own black slaves and ran lucrative crop businesses, including the Washington family, in the era of plantations.
Washington's father was a well-known slave owner in the state who was in charge of a large plantation, but fate dealt him a heavy blow when Washington was only 11 years old, first with his father's death, and soon after his mother Mary Washington followed his father.
Young George Washington was orphaned at an early age and raised by his older brother, Lawrence Washington, and his guardian, Marshall Washington.
Strictly speaking, Washington had no traditional formal education, but it was nurtured by family and community with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, self-improvement through self-directed reading, math learning, and actual farm work.
As a young man, Washington showed an extraordinary talent for land surveying, sweating again and again on the land of colonial Virginia, accumulating valuable practical experience.
At the age of twenty, Washington joined the local militia and actively participated in the French war against the Indians, which greatly enhanced his military skills and leadership.
After the death of his brother Lawrence, Washington took over the family estate and embarked on a career as a farmer and plantation operator, an experience that made him proficient in estate management, labor deployment, and crop cultivation.
In the process, Washington also inherited more than a dozen black slaves, and under the influence of his father and brother's treatment of slaves, he regarded these black slaves as his own property, and everything seemed logical to him.
In 1759 George Washington decided to marry Martha Dandridge Castise, a widow and raising four children, but not in a big way, because she was born into a wealthy slave-owning family.
At the time of the wedding, Marks and Spa's 85 slaves were brought as dowry, and the couple lived together as slave owners on the plantation.
After their marriage, the Washingtons worked together to expand the size of the plantation, which was in high demand for labor, and they frequented the slave market, and at one point even purchased 40 black slaves.
Thanks to his family's network of contacts and personal intelligence, Washington's plantations prospered and became a 20,000-acre farmer.
Overall, perseverance and steadfastness played an indelible role in shaping Washington's character, and an in-depth knowledge of agricultural land, military talent, and a rich family background laid a solid foundation for later careers, and became an important asset in military and political journeys.
American Revolutionary War
At first, Washington was very satisfied with this situation, believing that his life was already very good, and in 1762, when he was 30 years old, he began to develop many resentments against the British colonial government.
During that period, France and Britain competed for colonies on a global scale, and in addition to the white inhabitants of the North American continent, Britain saw Indians as key allies against French aggression.
The British colonial authorities were committed to protecting the vast hunting territories of the Indians, a move that protected indigenous rights but also limited landowners like Washington from expanding their land holdings.
In fact, part of the British government's strategy was to curb the growth of North American colonists, especially powerful figures like Washington.
If the colonists were unable to expand their territory, they would become dissatisfied with each other, and in this way, an irreconcilable contradiction would be formed between the two sides.
This period also saw the Tea Party in Boston, the tension between the American colonists and the British rulers reached a climax, and the Continental Congress came into being at a critical juncture.
In 1774, Washington, as the representative of Virginia, embarked on a journey to the First Continental Congress, and Washington in military uniform stood out.
This, coupled with his previous outstanding performance in the army, made many delegates admire him as a leader in the fight against British colonial rule.
Washington inherited a team that lacked combat effectiveness, and then carried out relevant reforms, implemented strict discipline, improved equipment and recruited new soldiers, and after unremitting efforts and reorganization, the image and strength of the Continental Army were completely renewed.
In the confrontation of the Revolutionary War, one victory after another destroyed British colonial rule, and with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain finally bowed to the fact of American independence.
The fruits of victory were ripe, and Washington chose to disband the army under his command and allow peace to return. However, the independent and new United States faced a big problem: the imperfection of the legal system and the weakness of the administrative apparatus.
As a leader in the Revolutionary War, Washington was rightly elected the first president of the emerging nation, shouting the slogan of equality from the podium, but his actions did not quite match these noble words.
Words and deeds are inconsistent, and the truth is finally revealed
In the early stages of the American Revolution, Washington proposed the abolition of slavery, but the real intention behind it was more to expand the military than to give freedom to black people.
In the early days of the Revolutionary War, the British army had a large advantage, but the Continental Army was repeatedly in trouble, and in order to strengthen the army, Washington agreed to let the black slaves join the army, promising that they would be freed from slavery status if they made a good career.
Against this backdrop, thousands of black Americans threw themselves into the fray, but only a few were able to truly break free from the slave yoke after the war.
For many whites, these blacks are just pawns in the war, and if they are really given freedom, they lose themselves. Washington, which ascended to the presidency, did not give those black slaves the rights they deserved, and still maintained the tradition of owning slaves.
Among them were nine black slave women who were at his side, taking care of his daily life, and Washington had undisputed control over these nine women.
Later, Washington arrives in Pennsylvania to start a new life, only to unexpectedly find himself trapped in slavery.
In 1780, a law called the Abolition Progressive Act was passed, which stipulated that slaves who had reached the age of 28 would be freed from the control of their masters; In addition to this, any unclaimed slave who has lived in Pennsylvania for more than six months will automatically become free.
Naturally, the law cannot be directly violated, but its own interests cannot be harmed, so in order to maintain the consistent slave service, Washington used his wisdom to conceive an ingenious plan.
He only used black slaves under the age of 28, while also hiding the real age of the slaves, and taking them out of state for a short stay every six months, so as to subtly reset the time the slaves lived in Pennsylvania through a certain period of time.
Washington also changed slaves frequently, also in order to refresh the calculation of the number of days slaves lived in the state, and in this way successfully circumvented the laws and continued to enjoy the service of slaves.
In order to hide the fact of keeping black slaves from the world, Washington also carefully opened a secret passage under the presidential palace to allow black slaves to enter and exit quietly. These blacks were isolated from the world and had no knowledge of the Progressive Slavery Laws that had been implemented in Philadelphia.
Accidents happen unexpectedly, and a black slave named Anne sneaks into a garbage truck while the management is careless, and escapes from the symbol of power under the cover of night.
Later, when she learned of the "Abolition Progressive Act" and that she only had to wait for another six months for the slaves to be free, she was full of anger but helplessness, after all, the power in Washington was there, and she could only choose to stay away from the city incognito.
After the incident, Washington sent men to hunt down Anne, who had to embark on a long life on the run.
It was not until Washington's death in 1799 that Anne's life on the run finally came to an end, and she was finally able to expose the truth about Washington's slavery in the past.
Back in 2007, it was accidentally revealed that there was a secret underground passage under the presidential residence in Washington, which was confirmed to be the activity and residence of nine slaves in Washington's family back then.
After this incident was exposed, it was further confirmed that the words of the escaped slave girl Ang Ni privately raised the black slave and treated the slave cruelly
As a politician who has left a deep mark on American history, Washington is known as the founder of the United States, but his treatment of black slaves is embarrassing, and some of his actions are even more cruel to reality.
What do you think differently about this?