title: George Washington and slavery

text: As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in 1775, he initially refused to accept African-Americans, free or enslaved, into the ranks, but bowed to the demands of war, and thereafter led a racially integrated army. In 1778, Washington expressed moral aversion to selling some of his enslaved workers at a public venue or splitting their families. At war's end, Washington demanded without success that the British respect the preliminary peace treaty which he said required return of escaped slaves without exception. His public statement on resigning his commission, addressing challenges facing the new confederation, made no explicit mention of slavery. Politically, Washington felt that the divisive issue of American slavery threatened national cohesion, he never spoke publicly about it, and signed laws that protected slavery as well as laws that curtailed slavery.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Privately, Washington considered plans in the mid 1790s to free his enslaved population. Those plans failed because of his inability to raise the finances necessary, the refusal of his family to approve emancipation of the dower slaves, and his own aversion to separating enslaved families. By the time of Washington's death in 1799 there were 317 enslaved people at Mount Vernon. 124 were owned outright by Washington, 40 were rented, and the remainder were owned by the estate of Martha Washington's first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, on behalf of their grandchildren. Washington's will was widely published upon his death in 1799, and provided for the eventual emancipation of the enslaved population owned by him, one of the few slave-owning founders to do so. Because many of his slaves were married to the dower slaves, whom he could not legally free, the will said that, except for his valet William Lee who was freed immediately, the use of his enslaved workers was bequeathed to his widow Martha until her death. She felt unsafe being surrounded by slaves whose freedom depended on her death, and exercised her right to free them in 1801, but neither Martha nor George Washington had any legal power to decide the fate of the dower slaves, the use of whom was inherited by her grandchildren when she died in 1802.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Slavery was introduced into the English colony of Virginia when the first Africans were transported to Point Comfort in 1619. Those who accepted Christianity became "Christian servants" with time-limited servitude, or even freed, but this mechanism for ending bondage was gradually shut down. In 1667, the Virginia Assembly passed a law that barred baptism as a means of conferring freedom. Africans who had been baptised before arriving in Virginia could be granted the status of indentured servant until 1682, when another law declared them to be slaves. In the lowest stratum of Virginian society, white people and people of African descent shared common disadvantages and a common lifestyle, which included intermarriage until the Assembly made such unions punishable by banishment in 1691.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: In 1671, Virginia counted 6,000 white indentured servants among its 40,000 population but only 2,000 people of African descent, up to a third of whom in some counties were free. Towards the end of the 17th century, English policy shifted in favor of retaining cheap labor rather than shipping it to the colonies, and the supply of indentured servants in Virginia began to dry up; by 1715, annual immigration was in the hundreds, compared with 1,500–2,000 in the 1680s. As tobacco planters put more land under cultivation, they made up the shortfall in labor with increasing numbers of enslaved workers. The institution was rooted in race with the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705, and from around 1710 the growth in the enslaved population was fueled by natural increase. Between 1700 and 1750 the number of enslaved people in the colony increased from 13,000 to 105,000, nearly eighty percent of them born in Virginia. In Washington's lifetime, slavery was deeply ingrained in the economic and social fabric of Virginia, where some forty percent of the population and virtually all African Americans were enslaved.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: George Washington was born in 1732, the first child of his father Augustine's second marriage. Augustine was a tobacco planter with some of land and 50 slaves. On his death in 1743, he left his Little Hunting Creek to George's older half-brother Lawrence, who renamed it Mount Vernon. Washington inherited the Ferry Farm and ten slaves. He leased Mount Vernon from Lawrence's widow two years after his brother's death in 1752 and inherited it in 1761. He was an aggressive land speculator, and by 1774 he had amassed some of land in the Ohio Country on Virginia's western frontier. At his death he possessed over . In 1757, he began a program of expansion at Mount Vernon that would ultimately result in an estate with five separate farms, on which he initially grew tobacco.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Agricultural land required labor to be productive, and in the 18th-century American south that meant slave labor. Washington inherited slaves from Lawrence, acquired more as part of the terms of leasing Mount Vernon, and inherited slaves again on the death of Lawrence's widow in 1761. On his marriage in 1759 to Martha Dandridge Custis, Washington gained control of eighty-four dower slaves. Martha had a life interest in those dower slaves, whom she held in trust for the heirs of the Custis estate, and although Washington had no legal title to them, he managed them as his own property. Between 1752 and 1773, he purchased at least seventy-one slavesmen, women and children. He scaled back significantly his purchasing of enslaved workers after the American Revolution but continued to acquire them, mostly through natural increase and occasionally in settlement of debts. In 1786, he listed 216 enslaved people – 122 men and women and 88 children. – making him one of the largest slaveholders in Fairfax County. Of that total, 103 belonged to Washington, the remainder being dower slaves. By the time of Washington's death in 1799, the population enslaved at Mount Vernon had increased to 317 people, including 143 children. Of that total, he owned 124, leased 40 and controlled 153 dower slaves.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington thought of his workers as part of an extended family with him the father figure at its head. He displayed elements of both patriarchy and paternalism in his attitudes to the slaves he controlled. The patriarch in him expected absolute obedience and manifested itself in a strict, rigorous control of the enslaved workers and the emotional distance he maintained from them. There are examples of genuine affection between master and enslaved, such as was the case with his valet William Lee, but such cases were the exception. The paternalist in him saw his relationship with his enslaved people as one of mutual obligations; he provided for them and they in return served him, a relationship in which the enslaved were able to approach Washington with their concerns and grievances. Paternal masters regarded themselves as generous and deserving of gratitude. When Martha's maid Oney Judge escaped in 1796, Washington complained about "the ingratitude of the girl, who was brought up and treated more like a child than a Servant".


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Although Washington employed a farm manager to run the estate and an overseer at each of the farms, he was a hands-on manager who ran his business with a military discipline and involved himself in the minutiae of everyday work. During extended absences while on official business, he maintained close control through weekly reports from the farm manager and overseers. He demanded from all of his workers the same meticulous eye for detail that he exercised himself; a former enslaved worker would later recall that the "slaves...did not quite like" Washington, primarily because "he was so exact and so strict...if a rail, a clapboard, or a stone was permitted to remain out of its place, he complained; sometimes in language of severity." In Washington's view, "lost labour is never to be regained", and he required "every labourer (male or female) [do] as much in the 24 hours as their strength without endangering the health, or constitution will allow of". He had a strong work ethic and expected the same from his workers, enslaved and hired. He was constantly disappointed with enslaved workers who did not share his motivation and resisted his demands, leading him to regard them as indolent and insist that his overseers supervise them closely at all times.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: In 1799, nearly three-quarters of the enslaved population, over half of them female, worked in the fields. They were kept busy year round, their tasks varying with the season. The remainder worked as domestic servants in the main residence or as artisans, such as carpenters, joiners, coopers, spinners and seamstresses. Between 1766 and 1799, seven dower slaves worked at one time or another as overseers. Slaves were expected to work from sunrise to sunset over a six-day work week that was standard on Virginia plantations. With two hours off for meals, their workdays would range between seven and a half hours to thirteen hours, depending on season. They were given three or four days off at Christmas and a day each at Easter and Whitsunday. Domestic slaves started early, worked into the evenings and did not necessarily have Sundays and holidays free. On special occasions when enslaved workers were required to put in extra effort, such as working through a holiday or bringing in the harvest, they were paid or compensated with extra time off.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington instructed his overseers to treat enslaved people "with humanity and tenderness" when sick. Enslaved people who were less able, through injury, disability or age, were given light duties, while those too sick to work were generally, though not always, excused work while they recovered. Washington provided them with good, sometimes costly medical carewhen an enslaved person named Cupid fell ill with pleurisy, Washington had him taken to the main house where he could be better cared for and personally checked on him throughout the day. The paternal concern for the welfare of his enslaved workers was mixed with an economic consideration for the lost productivity arising from sickness and death among the labor force.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: At Mansion House Farm, most of the enslaved people were housed in a two-story frame building known as the "Quarters for Families". This was replaced in 1792 by brick-built accommodation wings either side of the greenhouse comprising four rooms in total, each some . The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association have concluded these rooms were communal areas furnished with bunks that allowed little privacy for the predominantly male occupants. Other enslaved people at Mansion House Farm lived over the outbuildings where they worked or in log cabins. Such cabins were the standard slave accommodation at the outlying farms, comparable to the accommodation occupied by the lower strata of free white society across the Chesapeake area and by the enslaved on other Virginia plantations. They provided a single room that ranged in size from to to house a family. The cabins were often poorly constructed, daubed with mud for draft- and water-proofing, with dirt floors. Some cabins were built as duplexes; some single-unit cabins were small enough to be moved on carts. There are few sources which shed light on living conditions in these cabins, but one visitor in 1798 wrote, "husband and wife sleep on a mean pallet, the children on the ground; a very bad fireplace, some utensils for cooking, but in the middle of this poverty some cups and a teapot". Other sources suggest the interiors were smoky, dirty and dark, with only a shuttered opening for a window and the fireplace for illumination at night.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington provided his enslaved people with a blanket each fall at most, which they used for their own bedding and which they were required to use to gather leaves for livestock bedding. Enslaved people at the outlying farms were issued with a basic set of clothing each year, comparable to the clothing issued on other Virginia plantations. Slaves slept and worked in their clothes, leaving them to spend many months in garments that were worn, ripped and tattered. Domestic slaves at the main residence who came into regular contact with visitors were better clothed; butlers, waiters and body servants were dressed in a livery based on the three-piece suit of an 18th-century gentleman, and maids were provided with finer quality clothing than their counterparts in the fields.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington desired his enslaved workers to be fed adequately but no more. Each enslaved person was provided with a basic daily food ration of or more of cornmeal, up to of herring and occasionally some meat, a fairly typical ration for the enslaved population in Virginia that was adequate in terms of the calorie requirement for a young man engaged in moderately heavy agricultural labor but nutritionally deficient. The basic ration was supplemented by enslaved people's own efforts hunting (for which some were allowed guns) and trapping game. They grew their own vegetables in small garden plots they were permitted to maintain in their own time, on which they also reared poultry.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington often tipped enslaved people on his visits to other estates, and it is likely that his own enslaved workers were similarly rewarded by visitors to Mount Vernon. Enslaved people occasionally earned money through their normal work or for particular services renderedfor example, Washington rewarded three of his own enslaved with cash for good service in 1775, an enslaved person received a fee for the care of a mare that was being bred in 1798 and the chef Hercules profited well by selling slops from the presidential kitchen. Enslaved people also earned money from their own endeavors, by selling to Washington or at the market in Alexandria food they had caught or grown and small items they had made. They used the proceeds to purchase from Washington or the shops in Alexandria better clothing, housewares and extra provisions such as flour, pork, whiskey, tea, coffee and sugar.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Although the law did not recognize slave marriages, Washington did, and by 1799 some two-thirds of adult slaves at Mount Vernon were married. To minimize time lost in getting to the workplace and thus increase productivity, enslaved people were accommodated at the farm on which they worked. Because of the unequal distribution of males and females across the five farms, enslaved people often found partners on different farms, and in their day-to-day lives husbands were routinely separated from their wives and children. Washington occasionally rescinded orders so as not to separate spouses, but the historian Henry Wiencek writes, "as a general management practice [Washington] institutionalized an indifference to the stability of enslaved families." Only thirty-six of the ninety-six married slaves at Mount Vernon in 1799 lived together, while thirty-eight had spouses who lived on separate farms and twenty-two had spouses who lived on other plantations. The evidence suggests couples that were separated did not regularly visit during the week, and doing so prompted complaints from Washington that enslaved people were too exhausted to work after such "night walking", leaving Saturday nights, Sundays and holidays as the main time such families could spend together. Despite the stress and anxiety caused by this indifference to family stabilityon one occasion an overseer wrote that the separation of families "seems like death to them"marriage was the foundation on which the enslaved population established their own community, and longevity in these unions was not uncommon.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Large families that covered multiple generations, along with their attendant marriages, were part of an enslaved community-building process that transcended ownership. Washington's head carpenter Isaac, for example, lived with his wife Kitty, a dower-slave milkmaid, at Mansion House Farm. The couple had nine daughters ranging in age from six to twenty-seven in 1799, and the marriages of four of those daughters had extended the family to other farms within and outside the Mount Vernon estate and produced three grandchildren. Children were born into slavery, their ownership determined by the ownership of their mothers. The value attached to the birth of an enslaved child, if it was noted at all, is indicated in the weekly report of one overseer, which stated, "Increase 9 Lambs & 1 male child of Lynnas." New mothers received a new blanket and three to five weeks of light duties to recover. An infant remained with its mother at her place of work. Older children, the majority of whom lived in single-parent households in which the mother worked from dawn to dusk, performed small family chores but were otherwise left to play largely unsupervised until they reached an age when they could begin to be put to work for Washington, usually somewhere between eleven and fourteen years old. In 1799, nearly sixty percent of the slave population was under nineteen years old and nearly thirty-five percent under nine.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: There is evidence that enslaved people passed on their African cultural values through telling stories, among them the tales of Br'er Rabbit which, with their origins in Africa and stories of a powerless individual triumphing through wit and intelligence over powerful authority, would have resonated with the slaves. African-born slaves brought with them some of the religious rituals of their ancestral home, and there is an undocumented tradition of voodoo being practiced at one of the Mount Vernon farms. Although the slave condition made it impossible to adhere to the Five Pillars of Islam, some slave names indicate a Muslim cultural origin. Anglicans reached out to American-born slaves in Virginia, and some of the Mount Vernon enslaved population are known to have been christened before Washington acquired the estate. There is evidence in the historical record from 1797 that the enslaved population at Mount Vernon had contacts with Baptists, Methodists and Quakers. Those three Protestant groups advocated abolition, raising hopes of freedom among the enslaved, and the congregation of the Alexandria Baptist Church, founded in 1803, included enslaved people formerly owned by Washington.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: In 1799 there were some twenty mulatto (mixed race) enslaved people at Mount Vernon. However, there is no credible evidence that George Washington had sex with any slave.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The probability of paternal relationships between enslaved and hired white workers is indicated by some surnames: Betty and Tom Davis, probably the children of Thomas Davis, a white weaver at Mount Vernon in the 1760s; George Young, likely the son of a man of the same name who was a clerk at Mount Vernon in 1774; and Judge and her sister Delphy, the daughters of Andrew Judge, an indentured tailor at Mount Vernon in the 1770s and 1780s. There is evidence to suggest that white overseersworking in close proximity to enslaved people under the same demanding master while physically and socially isolated from their own peer group, a situation that drove some to drink had sexual relations with the enslaved people they supervised (sex between black or white overseers and enslaved people whom they supervised was rape, assuming that consent was impossible). Some white visitors to Mount Vernon seemed to have expected enslaved women to provide sexual favors. The living arrangements left some enslaved females alone and vulnerable, and the Mount Vernon research historian Mary V. Thompson writes that relationships "could have been the result of mutual attraction and affection, very real demonstrations of power and control, or even exercises in the manipulation of an authority figure".


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Although some of the enslaved population at Mount Vernon came to feel a (coerced) loyalty toward Washington, the resistance displayed by a significant percentage of them is indicated by the frequent assertions Washington made about "rogueries" and "old tricks". The most common act of resistance was theft (e.g. as a form of self-help) which was so common that Washington made allowances for it as part of normal wastage. Food was stolen both to supplement rations and to sell, and Washington believed the selling of tools was another source of income for enslaved people. Because cloth and clothing were commonly taken without permission, Washington required seamstresses to show the results of their work and the leftover scraps before issuing them more material. Sheep were washed before shearing to prevent the theft of wool, and storage areas were kept locked and keys left with trusted individuals. In 1792, Washington ordered the culling of enslaved people's dogs he believed were being used in a spate of livestock theft and ruled that enslaved people who kept dogs without authorization were to be "severely punished" and their dogs hanged.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Another means by which enslaved people resisted, one that was virtually impossible to prove, was feigning illness. Over the years Washington became increasingly skeptical about absenteeism due to sickness among his enslaved population and concerned about the diligence or ability of his overseers in recognizing genuine cases of physical illness. Between 1792 and 1794, while Washington was away from Mount Vernon as President, the number of days lost to sickness increased tenfold compared to 1786, when he was resident at Mount Vernon and able to exert control over the situation personally. In one case, Washington suspected an enslaved person of frequently avoiding work over a period of decades through acts of deliberate self harm.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Enslaved people asserted some independence and frustrated Washington by the pace and quality of their work. In 1760, Washington noted that four of his carpenters quadrupled their output of timber under his personal supervision. Thirty-five years later, he denigrated his carpenters as an "idle...set of rascals" who would take a month or more to complete at Mount Vernon work that was being done in two or three days in Philadelphia. The output of seamstresses dropped off when Martha was away, and spinners found they could slow their pace by playing the overseers off against her. Tools were regularly lost or damaged, thus stopping work, and Washington despaired of employing innovations that might improve efficiency because he assumed enslaved workers were too clumsy to operate the new machinery involved.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The most emphatic act of resistance was to run away, and between 1760 and 1799 at least forty-seven enslaved people under Washington's control did so. Seventeen of these, fourteen men and three women, escaped to a British warship that anchored in the Potomac River near Mount Vernon in 1781. In general, the best chance of success lay with second- or third-generation African-American enslaved people who had good English, possessed skills that would allow them to support themselves as free people and were in close enough contact with their masters to receive special privileges. Oney Judge, who was an especially talented seamstress, and Hercules Posey escaped in 1796 and 1797 respectively and eluded recapture. Washington took seriously the recapture of these brave fugitives, and in three cases enslaved people who had escaped were sold off in the West Indies after recapture, effectively a death sentence in the severe conditions the enslaved were subjected to there.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington used both reward and punishment to encourage discipline and productivity in his enslaved population. In one case, he suggested "admonition and advice" would be more effective than "further correction", and he occasionally appealed to an enslaved person's sense of pride to encourage better performance. Rewards in the form of better blankets and clothing fabric were given to the "most deserving", and there are examples of cash payments being awarded for good behavior. He opposed the use of the lash in principle, but saw the practice as a necessary evil and sanctioned its occasional use, generally as a last resort, on enslaved people, both male and female, if they did not, in his words, "do their duty by fair means". There are accounts of carpenters being whipped in 1758 when the overseer "could see a fault", of an enslaved person called Jemmy being whipped for stealing corn and escaping in 1773 and of a seamstress called Charlotte being whipped in 1793 by an overseer "determined to lower Spirit or skin her Back" for impudence and refusing to work.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington regarded the 'passion' with which one of his overseers administered floggings to be counter-productive, and Charlotte's protest that she had not been whipped in fourteen years indicates the frequency with which physical punishment was used. Whippings were administered by overseers after review, a system Washington required to ensure enslaved people were spared capricious and extreme punishment. Washington did not himself flog enslaved people, but he did at times use verbal abuse and physical violence when they failed to perform as he expected. Contemporaries generally described Washington as having a calm demeanor, but there are several reports from those who knew him privately that mention his temper. One wrote that "in private and particularly with his servants, its violence sometimes broke out". Another reported that Washington's servants "seemed to watch his eye and to anticipate his every wish; hence a look was equivalent to a command". Threats of demotion to fieldwork, corporal punishment and being shipped to the West Indies were part of the system by which he controlled his enslaved population.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington's early views on slavery were no different from any Virginia planter of the time. He demonstrated no moral qualms about the institution, and referred to slaves as "a Species of Property" during those years as he would later in life when he favored abolition. The economics of slavery prompted the first doubts in Washington about the institution, marking the beginning of a slow evolution in his attitude towards it. By 1766, he had transitioned his business from the labor-intensive planting of tobacco to the less demanding farming of grain crops. His slaves were employed on a greater variety of tasks that needed more skills than tobacco planting required of them; as well as the cultivation of grains and vegetables, they were employed in cattle herding, spinning, weaving and carpentry. Some scholars have asserted that the transition left Washington with a surplus of slaves and revealed to him the inefficiencies of the slave labor system, but another view is that the transition did not result in a surplus of slaves because Washington found other productive work for them.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: There is little evidence that Washington seriously questioned the ethics of slavery before the Revolution. In the 1760s he often participated in tavern lotteries, events in which defaulters' debts were settled by raffling off their assets to a high-spirited crowd. In 1769, Washington co-managed one such lottery in which fifty-five slaves were sold, among them six families and five females with children. The more valuable married males were raffled together with their wives and children; less valuable slaves were separated from their families into different lots. Robin and Bella, for example, were raffled together as husband and wife while their children, twelve-year-old Sukey and seven-year-old Betty, were listed in a separate lot. Only chance dictated whether the family would remain together, and with 1,840 tickets on sale the odds were not good.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The historian Henry Wiencek concludes that the repugnance Washington felt at this cruelty in which he had participated prompted his decision not to break up slave families by sale or purchase, and marks the beginning of a transformation in Washington's thinking about the morality of slavery. Wiencek writes that in 1775 Washington took more slaves than he needed rather than break up the family of a slave he had agreed to accept in payment of a debt. The historians Philip D. Morgan and Peter Henriques are skeptical of Wiencek's conclusion and believe there is no evidence of any change in Washington's moral thinking at this stage. Morgan writes that in 1772, Washington was "all business" and "might have been buying livestock" in purchasing more slaves who were to be, in Washington's words, "strait Limb'd, & in every respect strong & likely, with good Teeth & good Countenance". Morgan gives a different account of the 1775 purchase, writing that Washington resold the slave because of the slave's resistance to being separated from family and that the decision to do so was "no more than the conventional piety of large Virginia planters who usually said they did not want to break up slave familiesand often did it anyway".


title: George Washington and slavery

text: From the late 1760s, Washington became increasingly radicalized against the North American colonies' subservient status within the British Empire. In 1774 he was a key participant in the adoption of the Fairfax Resolves which, alongside the assertion of colonial rights, condemned the transatlantic slave trade on moral grounds. Washington was a signatory to that entire document, and thus publicly endorsed clause 17 "declaring our earnest wishes to see an entire stop forever put to such wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: He began to express the growing rift with Great Britain in terms of slavery, stating in the summer of 1774 that the British authorities were "endeavouring by every piece of Art & despotism to fix the Shackles of Slavry" upon the colonies. Two years later, on taking command of the Continental Army at Cambridge at the start of the American Revolutionary War, he wrote in orders to his troops that "it is a noble Cause we are engaged in, it is the Cause of virtue and mankind...freedom or Slavery must be the result of our conduct." The hypocrisy or paradox inherent in slave owners characterizing a war of independence as a struggle for their own freedom from slavery was not lost on the British writer Samuel Johnson, who asked, "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?" As if answering Johnson, Washington wrote to a friend in August 1774, "The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington shared the common Southern concern about arming African Americans, enslaved or free, and initially refused to accept either into the ranks of the Continental Army. He reversed his position on free African Americans when the royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation in November 1775 offering freedom to rebel-owned slaves who enlisted in the British forces. Three years later and facing acute manpower shortages, Washington approved a Rhode Island initiative to raise a battalion of African-American soldiers.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington gave a cautious response to a 1779 proposal from his young aide John Laurens for the recruitment of 3,000 South Carolinian enslaved workers who would be rewarded with emancipation. He was concerned that such a move would prompt the British to do the same, leading to an arms race in which the Americans would be at a disadvantage, and that it would promote discontent among those who remained enslaved. In 1780, he suggested to one of his commanders the integration of African-American recruits "to abolish the name and appearance of a Black Corps."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: During the war, some 5,000 African Americans served in a Continental Army that was more integrated than any American force before the Vietnam War, and another 1,000 served in the Continental Navy. They represented less than three percent of all American forces mobilized, though in 1778 they provided as much as 13% of the Continental Army. By the end of the war African-Americans were serving alongside whites in virtually all units other than those raised in the deep south.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The first indication of a shift in Washington's attitude on slavery appeared during the war, in correspondence of 1778 and 1779 with Lund Washington, who managed Mount Vernon in Washington's absence. In the exchange of letters, a conflicted Washington expressed a desire "to get quit of Negroes", but made clear his reluctance to sell them at a public venue and his wish that "husband and wife, and Parents and children are not separated from each other". His determination not to separate families became a major complication in his deliberations on the sale, purchase and, in due course, emancipation of his own slaves. Washington's restrictions put Lund in a difficult position with two female slaves he had already all but sold in 1778, and Lund's irritation was evident in his request to Washington for clear instructions. Despite Washington's reluctance to break up families, there is little evidence that moral considerations played any part in his thinking at this stage. He sought to liberate himself from an economically unviable system, not to liberate his slaves. They were still a property from which he expected to profit. During a period of severe wartime depreciation, the question was not whether to sell his enslaved people, but when, where, and how best to sell them. Lund sold nine enslaved including the two females, in January 1779.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington's actions at the war's end reveal little in the way of antislavery inclinations. He was anxious to recover his own slaves, and refused to consider British offers of compensation for the upwards of 80,000 formerly enslaved people evacuated by the British; Washington insisted without success that the British return them to their owners as per a clause in the Preliminary Articles of Peace which prohibited the British from "carrying away any Negroes, or other Property of the American Inhabitants". Before resigning his commission in 1783, Washington took the opportunity to give his opinion on the challenges that threatened the existence of the new nation, in his Circular to the States. That circular letter inveighed against "local prejudices" but explicitly declined to name any of them, "leaving the last to the good sense and serious consideration of those immediately concerned."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Emancipation became a major issue in Virginia after liberalization in 1782 of the law regarding manumission, which is the act of an owner freeing his slaves. Before 1782, a manumission had required obtaining consent from the state legislature, which was arduous and rarely granted. After 1782, inspired by the rhetoric that had driven the revolution, it became popular to free slaves. The free African-American population in Virginia rose from some 3,000 to more than 20,000 between 1780 and 1800; the 1800 United States Census tallied about 350,000 slaves in Virginia, and the proslavery interest re-asserted itself around that time. The historian Kenneth Morgan writes, "...the revolutionary war was the crucial turning-point in [Washington's] thinking about slavery. After 1783...he began to express inner tensions about the problem of slavery more frequently, though always in private..." Although Philip Morgan identifies several turning points and believes no single one was pivotal, most historians agree the Revolution was central to the evolution of Washington's attitudes on slavery. It is likely that revolutionary rhetoric about the rights of men, the close contact with young antislavery officers who served with Washingtonsuch as Laurens, the Marquis de Lafayette and Alexander Hamiltonand the influence of northern colleagues were contributory factors in that process.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington was drawn into the postwar abolitionist discourse through his contacts with antislavery friends, their transatlantic network of leading abolitionists and the literature produced by the antislavery movement, though he was reluctant to volunteer his own opinion on the matter and generally did so only when the subject was first raised with him. At his death, Washington's extensive library included at least seventeen publications on slavery. Six of them had been collated into an expensively bound volume titled "Tracts on Slavery", indicating that he attached some importance to that selection. Five of the six were published in or after 1788. All six shared common themes that slaves first had to be educated about the obligations of liberty before they could be emancipated, a belief Washington is reported to have expressed himself in 1798, and that abolition should be realized by a gradual legislative process, an idea that began to appear in Washington's correspondence during the Confederation period.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington was not impressed by what Dorothy Twohiga former editor-in-chief of The Washington Papersdescribed as the "imperious demands" and "evangelical piety" of Quaker efforts to advance abolition, and in 1786 he complained about their "tamper[ing] with & seduc[ing]" slaves who "are happy & content to remain with their present masters". Only the most radical of abolitionists called for immediate emancipation. The disruption to the labor market and the care of the elderly and infirm would have created enormous problems. Large numbers of unemployed poor, of whatever color, was a cause for concern in 18th-century America, to the extent that expulsion and foreign resettlement was often part of the discourse on emancipation. A sudden end to slavery would also have caused a significant financial loss to slaveowners whose human property represented a valuable asset. Gradual emancipation was seen as a way of mitigating such a loss and reducing opposition from those with a financial self-interest in maintaining slavery.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: In 1783, Lafayette proposed a joint venture to establish an experimental settlement for freed slaves which, with Washington's example, "might render it a general practise", but Washington demurred. As Lafayette forged ahead with his plan, Washington offered encouragement but expressed concern in 1786 about "much inconvenience and mischief" an abrupt emancipation might generate, and he gave no tangible support to the idea.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington expressed support for emancipation legislation to prominent Methodists Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury in 1785, but declined to sign their petition which (as Coke put it) asked "the General Assembly of Virginia, to pass a law for the immediate or gradual emancipation of all the slaves". Washington privately conveyed his support for such legislation to most of the great men of Virginia, and promised to comment publicly on the matter by letter to the Virginia Assembly if the Assembly would begin serious deliberation about the Methodists' petition. The historian Lacy Ford writes that Washington may have dissembled: "In all likelihood, Washington was honest about his general desire for gradual emancipation but dissembled about his willingness to speak publicly on its behalf; the Mount Vernon master almost certainly reasoned that the legislature would table the petition immediately and thus release him from any obligation to comment publicly on the matter." The measure was rejected without any dissent in the Virginia House of Delegates, because abolitionist legislators quickly backed down rather than suffer inevitable defeat. Washington wrote in despair to Lafayette: "Some petitions were presented to the Assembly at its last session for the abolition of slavery, but they could scarce obtain a reading." James Thomas Flexner's interpretation is somewhat different from Lacy Ford's: "Washington was willing to back publicly the Methodists' petition for gradual emancipation if the proposal showed the slightest possibility of being given consideration by the Virginia legislature." Flexner adds that, if Washington had been more audacious in pursuing emancipation in Virginia, then "he undoubtedly would have failed to achieve the end of slavery, and he would certainly have made impossible the role he played in the Constitutional Convention and the Presidency."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Henriques identifies Washington's concern for the judgement of posterity as a significant factor in Washington's thinking on slavery, writing, "No man had a greater desire for secular immortality, and [Washington] understood that his place in history would be tarnished by his ownership of slaves." Philip Morgan similarly identifies the importance of Washington's driving ambition for fame and public respect as a man of honor; in December 1785, the Quaker and fellow Virginian Robert Pleasants "[hit] Washington where it hurt most", Morgan writes, when he told Washington that to remain a slaveholder would forever tarnish his reputation. In correspondence the next year with Maryland politician John Francis Mercer, Washington expressed "great repugnance" at buying slaves, stated that he would not buy any more "unless some peculiar circumstances should compel me to it" and made clear his desire to see the institution of slavery ended by a gradual legislative process. He expressed his support for abolitionist legislation privately, but widely, sharing those views with leading Virginians, and with other leaders including Mercer and founding father Robert Morris of Pennsylvania to whom Washington wrote:


title: George Washington and slavery

text: I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it – but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority: and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington still needed labor to work his farms, and there was little alternative to slavery. Hired labor south of Pennsylvania was scarce and expensive, and the Revolution had cut off the supply of indentured servants and convict labor from Great Britain. Washington significantly reduced his slave purchases after the war, though it is not clear whether this was a moral or practical decision; he repeatedly stated that his inventory and its potential progeny were adequate for his current and foreseeable needs. Nevertheless, he negotiated with John Mercer to accept six slaves in payment of a debt in 1786 and expressed to Henry Lee a desire to purchase a bricklayer the next year. In 1788, Washington acquired thirty-three slaves from the estate of Bartholomew Dandridge in settlement of a debt and left them with Dandridge's widow on her estate at Pamocra, New Kent County, Virginia. Later the same year, he declined a suggestion from the leading French abolitionist Jacques Brissot to form and become president of an abolitionist society in Virginia, stating that although he was in favor of such a society and would support it, the time was not yet right to confront the issue. Historian James Flexner has written that, generally speaking, "Washington limited himself to stating that, if an authentic movement toward emancipation could be started in Virginia, he would spring to its support. No such movement could be started."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, during which it became obvious how explosive the slavery issue was, and how willing the antislavery faction was to accept the preservation of this oppressive institution to ensure national unity and the establishment of a strong federal government. The Constitution allowed but did not require the preservation of slavery, and it deliberately avoided use of the word "slave" which could have been interpreted as authorizing the treatment of human beings as property throughout the country. Each state was allowed to keep it, change it, or eliminate it as they wished, though Congress could make various policies that would affect this decision in each state. As of 1776, slavery was legal in all 13 colonies, but by Washington's death in December 1799 there were eight free states and nine slave states, and that split was considered entirely constitutional.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The support of the southern states for the new constitution was secured by granting them concessions that protected slavery, including the Fugitive Slave Clause, plus clauses that promised Congress would not prohibit the transatlantic slave trade for twenty years, and that empowered (but did not require) Congress to authorize suppression of insurrections such as slave rebellions. The Constitution also included the Three-Fifths Compromise which cut both ways: for purposes of taxation and representation, three out of every five slaves would be counted, which meant that each slave state would have to pay less taxes but would also have less representation in Congress than if every slave was counted. After the convention, Washington's support was critical for getting the states to ratify the document.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington's preeminent position ensured that any actions he took with regard to his own slaves would become a statement in a national debate about slavery that threatened to divide the country. Wiencek suggests Washington considered making precisely such a statement on taking up the presidency in 1789. A passage in the notebook of Washington's biographer David Humphreys dated to late 1788 or early 1789 recorded a statement that resembled the emancipation clause in Washington's will a decade later. Wiencek argues the passage was a draft for a public announcement Washington was considering in which he would declare the emancipation of some of his slaves. It marks, Wiencek believes, a moral epiphany in Washington's thinking, the moment he decided not only to emancipate his slaves but also to use the occasion to set the example Lafayette had urged in 1783. Other historians dispute Wiencek's conclusion; Henriques and Joseph Ellis concur with Philip Morgan's opinion that Washington experienced no epiphanies in a "long and hard-headed struggle" in which there was no single turning point. Morgan argues that Humphreys' passage is the "private expression of remorse" from a man unable to extricate himself from the "tangled web" of "mutual dependency" on slavery, and that Washington believed public comment on such a divisive subject was best avoided for the sake of national unity.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington took up the presidency at a time when revolutionary sentiment against slavery was giving way to a resurgence of proslavery interests. No state considered making slavery an issue during the ratification of the new constitution, southern states reinforced their slavery legislation and prominent antislavery figures were muted about the issue in public. Washington understood there was little widespread organized support for abolition. He had a keen sense both of the fragility of the fledgling Republic and of his place as a unifying figure, and he was determined not to endanger either by confronting an issue as divisive and entrenched as slavery.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: He was president of a government that provided materiel and financial support for French efforts to suppress the Saint Domingue slave revolt in 1791, and which also implemented the proslavery Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. The Fugitive Slave Act gave effect to the Constitution's Fugitive Slave Clause and Extradition Clause, the Act was passed overwhelmingly in Congress (e.g. the vote was 48 to 7 in the House), it was then signed by Washington, and the Act was decried by free blacks who correctly believed it would allow bounty hunting and kidnapping. Indeed, the Act was written amidst a controversy about a free black man named John Davis who was kidnapped from Pennsylvania and brought to Virginia, but the Act did not even resolve that controversy; the kidnappers from Virginia were never extradited to Pennsylvania, and John Davis remained a slave.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: On the anti-slavery side of the ledger, in August 1789 Washington signed a reenactment of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance which had freed all new slaves brought after 1787 into a vast expanse of federal territory north of the Ohio River, except for slaves escaping from slave states. That 1787 law lapsed when the new U.S. Constitution was ratified in March 1789. Washington also signed into law the Slave Trade Act of 1794 that banned the involvement of American ships and American exporters in the international slave trade. Moreover, according to Washington biographer James Thomas Flexner, Washington as President weakened slavery by favoring Hamilton's economic plans over Jefferson's agrarian economics.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington never spoke publicly on the issue of slavery during his eight years as president, nor did he respond to, much less act upon, any of the antislavery petitions he received. He described a 1790 Quaker petition to Congress urging an immediate end to the slave trade as "an illjudged piece of business" that "occasioned a great waste of time", although historian Paul F. Boller has observed that Congress extensively debated that petition only to conclude it had no power to do anything about it, so "The Quaker Memorial may have been a waste of time so far as immediate practical results were concerned."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Late in his presidency, Washington told his Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, that in the event of a confrontation between North and South, he had "made up his mind to remove and be of the Northern" (i.e. leave Virginia and move up north). In 1798, he imagined just such a conflict when he said, "I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union." But there is no indication Washington ever favored an immediate rather than gradual end to slavery. His abolitionist aspirations for the nation centered around the hope that slavery would disappear naturally over time with the prohibition of slave imports in 1808, the earliest date such legislation could be passed as agreed at the Constitutional Convention. Indeed, the dying out of slavery remained possible, until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793 which led within five years to a vastly greater demand for slave labor.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: As well as political caution, economic imperatives remained an important consideration with regard to Washington's personal position as a slaveholder and his efforts to free himself from his dependency on slavery. He was one of the largest debtors in Virginia at the end of the war, and by 1787 the business at Mount Vernon had failed to make a profit for more than a decade. Persistently poor crop yields due to pestilence and poor weather, the cost of renovations at his Mount Vernon residence, the expense of entertaining a constant stream of visitors, the failure of Lund to collect rent from Washington's tenant farmers and wartime depreciation all helped to make Washington cash poor.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The overheads of maintaining a surplus of slaves, including the care of the young and elderly, made a substantial contribution to his financial difficulties. In 1786, the ratio of productive to non-productive slaves was approaching 1:1, and the c. Mount Vernon estate was being operated with 122 working slaves. Although the ratio had improved by 1799 to around 2:1, the Mount Vernon estate had grown by only 10 percent to some while the working slave population had grown by 65 percent to 201. It was a trend that threatened to bankrupt Washington. The slaves Washington had bought early in the development of his business were beyond their prime and nearly impossible to sell, and from 1782 Virginia law made slaveowners liable for the financial support of slaves they freed who were too young, too old or otherwise incapable of working.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: During his second term, Washington began planning for a retirement that would provide him "tranquillity with a certain income". In December 1793, he sought the aid of the British agriculturalist Arthur Young in finding farmers to whom he would lease all but one of his farms, on which his slaves would then be employed as laborers. The next year, he instructed his secretary Tobias Lear to sell his western lands, ostensibly to consolidate his operations and put his financial affairs in order. Washington concluded his instructions to Lear with a private passage in which he expressed repugnance at owning slaves and declared that the principal reason for selling the land was to raise the finances that would allow him to liberate them. It is the first clear indication that Washington's thinking had shifted from selling his slaves to freeing them. In November the same year (1794), Washington declared in a letter to his friend and neighbor Alexander Spotswood: "Were it not then, that I am principled agt. selling Negroes, as you would Cattle in the market, I would not, in twelve months from this date, be possessed of one as a slave."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: In 1795 and 1796, Washington devised a complicated plan that involved renting out his western lands to tenant farmers to whom he would lease his own slaves, and a similar scheme to lease the dower slaves he controlled to Dr. David Stuart for work on Stuart's Eastern Shore plantation. This plan would have involved breaking up slave families, but it was designed with an end goal of raising enough finances to fund their eventual emancipation (a detail Washington kept secret) and prevent the Custis heirs from permanently splitting up families by sale.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: None of these schemes could be realized because of his failure to sell or rent land at the right prices, the refusal of the Custis heirs to agree to them and his own reluctance to separate families. Wiencek speculates that, because Washington gave such serious consideration to freeing his slaves knowing full well the political ramifications that would follow, one of his goals was to make a public statement that would sway opinion towards abolition. Philip Morgan argues that Washington freeing his slaves while President in 1794 or 1796 would have had no profound effect, and would have been greeted with public silence and private derision by white southerners.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Wiencek writes that if Washington had found buyers for his land at what seemed like a fair price, this plan would have ultimately freed "both his own and the slaves controlled by Martha's family", and to accomplish this goal Washington would "yield up his most valuable remaining asset, his western lands, the wherewithal for his retirement." Ellis concludes that Washington prioritized his own financial security over the freedom of the enslaved population under his control, and writes, on Washington's failure to sell the land at prices he thought fair, "He had spent a lifetime acquiring an impressive estate, and he was extremely reluctant to give it up except on his terms." In discussing another of Washington's plans, drawn up after he had written his will, to transfer enslaved workers to his estates in western Virginia, Philip Morgan writes, "Indisputably, then, even on the eve of his death, Washington was far from giving up on slavery. To the last, he was committed to making profits, even at the expense of the disruptions such transfers would indisputably have wrought on his slaves."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: As Washington subordinated his desire for emancipation to his efforts to secure financial independence, he took care to retain his slaves. From 1791, he arranged for those who served in his personal retinue in Philadelphia while he was President to be rotated out of the state before they became eligible for emancipation after six months residence per Pennsylvanian law. Not only would Washington have been deprived of their services if they were freed, most of the slaves he took with him to Philadelphia were dower slaves, which meant that he would have had to compensate the Custis estate for the loss. Because of his concerns for his public image and that the prospect of emancipation would generate discontent among the slaves before they became eligible for emancipation, he instructed that they be shuffled back to Mount Vernon "under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public".


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington spared no expense in efforts to recover Hercules and Judge when they absconded. In Judge's case, Washington persisted for three years. He tried to persuade her to return when his agent eventually tracked her to New Hampshire, but refused to promise her freedom after his death; "However well disposed I might be to a gradual emancipation", he said, "or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People (if the latter was in itself practicable at this moment) it would neither be politic or just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference". Both Hercules and Judge eluded capture. Washington's search for a new chef to replace Hercules in 1797 is the last known instance in which he considered buying a slave, despite his resolve "never to become the Master of another Slave by purchase"; in the end he chose to hire a white chef.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Historian Joseph Ellis writes that Washington did not favor the continuation of legal slavery, and adds "[n]or did he ever embrace the racial arguments for black inferiority that Jefferson advanced...He saw slavery as the culprit, preventing the development of diligence and responsibility that would emerge gradually and naturally after emancipation." Other historians, such as Stuart Leibinger, agree with Ellis that, "Unlike Jefferson, Washington and Madison rejected innate black inferiority..."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The historian James Thomas Flexner says that "The record in relation to George Washington is a conspicuous demonstration of how black history has been neglected. One example: the two‐volume index to the thirty‐nine volume set of Washington's 'Writings' specifies almost everything except the names of slaves." In regard to Washington's racial views, Flexner says that the charge of racism has come from historical revisionism and lack of investigation, in view of the fact that slavery was "not invented for blacks, the institution was as old as history and had not, when Washington was a child, been officially challenged anywhere."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Kenneth Morgan writes that, "Washington's engrained sense of racial superiority to African Americans did not lead to expressions of negrophobia...Yet Washington wanted his white workers to be housed away from the blacks at Mt. Vernon, believing that close racial intermixture was undesirable." According to historian Albert Tillson, one reason why enslaved black people were lodged separately at Mount Vernon is because Washington felt that some white workers had habits that were "not good" (e.g., Tillson mentions instances of "interracial drinking" in the Chesapeake area), and another reason is that, Tillson reports, Washington "expected such accommodations would eventually disgust the white family."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Philip Morgan writes that "The youthful Washington revealed prejudices toward blacks, quite natural for the day" and that "blackness, in his mind, was synonymous with uncivilized behaviour." Washington's prejudices were not hard and fast; his retention of African-Americans in the Virginia Regiment contrary to the rules, his employment of African-American overseers, his use of African-American doctors and his praise for the "great poetical Talents" of the African-American poet Phillis Wheatley, who had lauded him in a poem in 1775, show that he recognized the skills and talents of African-Americans. Historian Henry Wiencek rendered this judgment:


title: George Washington and slavery

text: "If you look at Washington's will, he's not conflicted over the place of African Americans at all," Wiencek said in an interview. "From one end of his papers to the other, I looked for some sense of racism and found none, unlike Jefferson, who's explicit on his belief in the inferiority of Black people. In his will, Washington authored a bill of rights for Black people and said they should be taught to read and write. They were Americans, with the right to live here, to be educated, and to work productively as free people."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The views of Martha Washington about slavery and race were different from her husband's, and were less favorable to African Americans. For example, she said in 1795 that, "The Blacks are so bad in their nature that they have not the least grat[i]tude for the kindness that may be shewed to them." She refused to follow the example he set by emancipating his slaves, and instead she bequeathed the only slave she directly owned (named Elish) to her grandson.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: In July 1799, five months before his death, Washington wrote his will, in which he stipulated that one of his slaves should be freed, and the remainder forced to work for his widow, to be freed on her death. In the months that followed, he considered a plan to repossess tenancies in Berkeley and Frederick Counties and transferring half of his Mount Vernon slaves to work them. It would, Washington hoped, "yield more nett profit" which might "benefit myself and not render the [slaves'] condition worse", despite the disruption such relocation would have had on the slave families. The plan died with Washington on December 14, 1799.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington's slaves were the subjects of the longest provisions in the 29-page will, taking three pages in which his instructions were more forceful than in the rest of the document. His valet, William Lee, was freed immediately and the use of his remaining 123 slaves was bequeathed to his widow until her death. The deferral was intended to postpone the pain of separation that would occur when his slaves were freed but their spouses among the dower slaves remained in bondage, a situation which affected 20 couples and their children. It is possible Washington hoped Martha and her heirs who would inherit the dower slaves would solve this problem by following his example and emancipating them. Those too old or infirm to work were to be supported by his estate, as mandated by state law. In the late 1790s, about half the enslaved population at Mount Vernon was too old, too young, or too infirm to be productive.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington went beyond the legal requirement to support and maintain younger slaves until adulthood, stipulating that those children whose education could not be undertaken by parents were to be taught reading, writing, and a useful trade by their masters and then be freed at the age of 25. He forbade the sale or transportation of any of his slaves out of Virginia before their emancipation. Including the Dandridge slaves, who were to be emancipated under similar terms, more than 160 slaves would be freed. Although Washington was not alone among Virginian slaveowners in providing for the delayed freedom of their slaves, he was unusual among those doing it for doing it so late, after the post-revolutionary support for emancipation in Virginia had faded. He was also unusual for being one of the few slaveowning founders to do so. Other founders who freed their slaves include John Dickinson and Caesar Rodney, both of Delaware.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington's action was ignored by southern slaveholders, and slavery continued at Mount Vernon. Already from 1795, dower slaves were being transferred to Martha's three granddaughters as the Custis heirs married. Martha felt threatened by being surrounded with slaves whose freedom depended on her death and freed her late husband's slaves on January 1, 1801. That action by Martha Washington was not a violation of George Washington's will, which did not require her to keep any slaves in bondage.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Able-bodied slaves were freed and left to support themselves and their families. Within a few months, almost all of Washington's former slaves had left Mount Vernon, leaving 121 adult and working-age children still working the estate. Five freedwomen were listed as remaining: an unmarried mother of two children; two women, one of them with three children, married to Washington slaves too old to work; and two women who were married to dower slaves. William Lee remained at Mount Vernon, where he worked as a shoemaker. After Martha's death on May 22, 1802, most of the remaining dower slaves passed to her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, to whom she bequeathed the only slave she held in her own name.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: There are few records of how the newly freed slaves fared. Custis later wrote that "although many of them, with a view to their liberation, had been instructed in mechanic trades, yet they succeeded very badly as freemen; so true is the axiom, 'that the hour which makes man a slave, takes half his worth away. The son-in-law of Custis's sister wrote in 1853 that the descendants of those who remained slaves, many of them now in his possession, had been "prosperous, contented and happy", while those who had been freed had led a life of "vice, dissipation and idleness" and had, in their "sickness, age and poverty", become a burden to his in-laws. Such reports were influenced by the innate racism of the well-educated, upper-class authors and ignored the social and legal impediments that prejudiced the chances of prosperity for former slaves, which included laws that made it illegal to teach freedpeople to read and write and, in 1806, required newly freed slaves to leave the state.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: There is evidence that some of Washington's former slaves were able to buy land, support their families and prosper as free people. By 1812, Free Town in Truro Parish, the earliest known free African-American settlement in Fairfax County, contained seven households of former Washington slaves. By the mid 1800s, a son of Washington's carpenter Davy Jones and two grandsons of his postilion Joe Richardson had each bought land in Virginia. Francis Lee, younger brother of William, was well known and respected enough to have his obituary printed in the "Alexandria Gazette" on his death at Mount Vernon in 1821. Sambo Andersonwho hunted game, as he had while Washington's slave, and prospered for a while by selling it to the most respectable families in Alexandriawas similarly noted by the "Gazette" when he died near Mount Vernon in 1845. Research published in 2019 has concluded that Hercules worked as a cook in New York, where he died on May 15, 1812.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: A decade after Washington's death, the Pennsylvanian jurist Richard Peters wrote that Washington's servants "were devoted to him; and especially those more immediately about his person. The survivors of them still venerate and adore his memory." In his old age, Anderson said he was "a much happier man when he was a slave than he had ever been since", because he then "had a good kind master to look after all my wants, but now I have no one to care for me". When Judge was interviewed in the 1840s, she expressed considerable bitterness, not at the way she he had been treated as a slave, but at the fact that she had been enslaved. When asked, having experienced the hardships of being a freewoman and having outlived both husband and children, whether she regretted her escape, she replied, "No, I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by [that] means."


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington's will was both private testament and public statement on the institution. It was published widelyin newspapers nationwide, as a pamphlet which, in 1800 alone, extended to thirteen separate editions, and included in other worksand became part of the nationalist narrative. In the eulogies of the antislavery faction, the inconvenient fact of Washington's slaveholding was downplayed in favor of his final act of emancipation. Washington "disdained to hold his fellow-creatures in abject domestic servitude," wrote the Massachusetts Federalist Timothy Bigelow before calling on "fellow-citizens in the South" to emulate Washington's example. In this narrative, Washington was a proto-abolitionist who, having added the freedom of his slaves to the freedom from British slavery he had won for the nation, would be mobilized to serve the antislavery cause.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: An alternative narrative more in line with proslavery sentiments embraced rather than excised Washington's ownership of slaves. Washington was cast as a paternal figure, the benevolent father not only of his country but also of a family of slaves bound to him by affection rather than coercion. In this narrative, slaves idolized Washington and wept at his deathbed, and in an 1807 biography, Aaron Bancroft wrote, "In domestick and private life, he blended the authority of the master with the care and kindness of the guardian and friend." The competing narratives allowed both North and South to claim Washington as the father of their countries during the American Civil War that ended slavery more than half a century after his death.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: There is tension between Washington's stance on slavery, and his broader historical role as a proponent of liberty. He was a slaveholder who led a war for liberty, and then led the establishment of a national government that secured liberty for many of its citizens, and historians have considered this a paradox. The historian Edmund Sears Morgan explained that Washington was not alone in this regard: "Virginia produced the most eloquent spokesmen for freedom and equality in the entire United States: George Washington, James Madison, and, above all, Thomas Jefferson. They were all slaveholders and remained so throughout their lives." Washington recognized this paradox, rejected the notion of black inferiority, and was somewhat more humane than other slaveowners, but failed to publicly become an active supporter of emancipation laws. Historians have found evidence of several reasons for that failure, including Washington's fears of disunion, the racism of many other Virginians, the problem of compensating owners, slaves' lack of education, and the unwillingness of Virginia's leaders to seriously consider such a step.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: In 1929, a plaque was embedded in the ground at Mount Vernon less than from the crypt housing the remains of Washington and Martha, marking a plot neglected by both groundsmen and tourist guides where slaves had been buried in unmarked graves. The inscription read, "In memory of the many faithful colored servants of the Washington family, buried at Mount Vernon from 1760 to 1860. Their unidentified graves surround this spot." The site remained untended and ignored in the visitor literature until the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association erected a more prominent monument surrounded with plantings and inscribed, "In memory of the Afro Americans who served as slaves at Mount Vernon this monument marking their burial ground dedicated September 21, 1983." In 1985, a ground-penetrating radar survey identified sixty-six possible burials. As of late 2017, an archaeological project begun in 2014 has identified, without disturbing the contents, sixty-three burial plots in addition to seven plots known before the project began.


title: Antwon Tanner

text: Antwon Tanner (born April 14, 1975) is an American actor. He is best known for his recurring role as Michael on the UPN sitcom "Moesha" (1996–97), and its spinoff "The Parkers" (2001) and as Antwon "Skills" Taylor on the drama series, "One Tree Hill". He is also known for his role as Jaron "Worm" Willis in the 2005 film "Coach Carter".


title: Antwon Tanner

text: Tanner is mostly known by his role as Antwon "Skills" Taylor on the CW show "One Tree Hill". Tanner had a starring role in the 2005 film "Coach Carter", where he starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson and has appeared in TV series such as "NYPD Blue", "413 Hope St.", "Sister, Sister", "Moesha", "The Parkers", and "". Tanner also had a role in the film "The Wood". In 2007, he starred alongside Brian Hooks, Denyce Lawton, and Cherie Johnson in the horror film "7eventy 5ive".


title: Antwon Tanner

text: Tanner was arrested on April 16, 2009, and was accused by federal authorities of "knowingly and intentionally" transferring Social Security cards "with intent to defraud". On August 20, 2009 he pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to selling more than a dozen Social Security numbers for $10,000. He was handed a jail sentence of 3 months for the offense and had to report to prison by April 30, 2010.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: Bangladesh began the administration of COVID-19 vaccines on 27 January 2021 while mass vaccination started on 7 February 2021.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: The Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine was the only COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use from January to April 2021. Bangladesh ordered vaccines produced by Serum Institute of India, however it delivered less than half of the doses as agreed to Bangladesh. After the vaccine shortage due to this, Bangladesh approved the Russian Sputnik V and Chinese Sinopharm BIBP vaccines for emergency use in late April 2021. Bangladesh has also authorized the emergency use of Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed as part of COVAX. It was reported that the Bangladesh government planned to give permission to Bangladeshi made Bangavax developed by Globe Biotech Ltd. to conduct the first clinical trial that got listed in the 'Draft landscape and tracker of Covid-19 candidate vaccines' by the World Health Organization (WHO). However fate of the Bangavax is still uncertain due to an unknown reason. As of October 2021, Bangladesh has fully approved 7 COVID-19 vaccines.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 21 June 2020, China invited Bangladesh to get priority access to a COVID-19 vaccine once it was successfully developed. In July 2020, Sinovac Biotech was given approval by the Bangladesh Medical Research Council to begin a Phase III trial of CoronaVac at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh later decided to cancel the trial of the vaccine after Sinovac asked to co-fund the domestic trials, which would have cost roughly $7 million.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 2 July 2020, a Bangladeshi private pharmaceutical company named Globe Biotech Limited claimed to be the first company from Bangladesh to have a COVID-19 vaccine under development. The lone Bangladeshi company actually developed three COVID-19 vaccine candidates, all with different technologies. The company named the mRNA based vaccin as Bangavax, which was initially called "Bancovid". Globe Biotech took all the necessary steps from December 2020 to January 2021 to get the permission for ethical approval to conduct the first clinical trial of Bangavax.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 5 November 2020, a tripartite agreement was signed between the government of Bangladesh, the Serum Institute of India, and Beximco Pharma of Bangladesh. Under the agreement, Bangladesh ordered 30million doses of Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum through Beximco costing $4 per shot. The Bangladesh government paid in advance for 15 million doses.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: However, Serum supplied only 7 million doses in the first two months of 2021 and 3.2 million doses of Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine were supplied by Government of India as a gift. Bangladesh was supposed to receive 5 million doses per month but did not receive any shipments in March and April. As a result, the rollout of vaccinations was disrupted. Bangladesh then looked to alternative vaccine sources because India had halted exports. Bangladesh suspended the first dosing of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from 26 April 2021 due to the supply crunch.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: The situation became complicated when the second dose for 1.3 million citizens was uncertain as India halted exports to Bangladesh. The country was worried about whether they would get the second dose at the right time or whether another vaccine would need to be given as a second dose instead. According to experts it would not be wise to inoculate one person with different brands of vaccines. Health experts and the opposition party criticized the government for only relying on India for vaccines instead of multiple sources. In addition, several citizens of Bangladesh have expressed doubts about the vaccine's effectiveness and safety.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 27 April 2021, Bangladesh's drug regulator authorized the emergency use of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. Russia had proposed to produce their vaccine in Bangladesh with joint collaboration with a local pharmaceutical company. Bangladesh has already given policy approval in this regard.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 29 April 2021, Bangladesh's drug regulator authorized the emergency use of China's Sinopharm BIBP vaccine. Bangladesh ordered 15 million doses of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine and received 500,000 doses as a gift. Bangladesh health department has begun administering the vaccine to 1,000 medical students in the beginning to observe its effect and safety. According to Mahbubur Rahman, DGDA Director General, "Mass inoculation will start after the observation period." It is reported that Bangladesh also wants to produce this vaccine locally. It is reported that Bangladesh was interested in producing CoronaVac in addition to the manufacturing being done in China. China has announced that they will send 600,000 doses of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine to Bangladesh as a gift.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 27 May 2021, Directorate General of Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. COVAX is sending 106,000 doses of Pfizer's Covid vaccine on June 2.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: As of 11 June 2021, Bangladesh has received commitment to acquire 1.8 million AstraZeneca vaccines under the Covax programme as shared by Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen. Earlier. it had been projected that there might have been a shortage of vaccines for some 1.5 million people who awaited the second dosage, due to projected shortage of AstraZeneca vaccines in Bangladesh induced by the export restrictions on the vaccine imposed by India.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 15 June 2021, Directorate General of Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine. DGHS is the local distributor of the vaccine.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 25 June 2021, Health Minister Zahid Maleque announced Bangladesh would get 2.5 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine within the next ten days from COVAX facilities. For this, Bangladesh approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on 29 June 2021.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: Bangladesh received 2.5 million Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on 2 July under COVAX from USA and 2 million doses of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine on 3 July 2021.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: Japan has sent 245,000 Astra-Zeneca vaccines on 24 July. They agree to send total 2.9 million Astra-Zeneca vaccines.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 11 August, Bangladesh received 1.77 million doses of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine under COVAX from China.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 12 August, Bangladesh decide to procure six crore more doses of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine from China.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 13 August 2021, China has sent 1 million doses of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine to Bangladesh as a gift.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 16 August,a deal signed between the Bangladesh government, China's Sinopharm and Bangladesh's Incepta Vaccines Ltd for bottling, labelling and dispensing China's Sinopharm BIBP vaccine.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: On 1 September 2021, 1 million doses of Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine arrived from United States under COVAX.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: January 20, the U.S., in partnership with COVAX, delivered an additional 337,350 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to Bangladesh.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: The U.S. donated 10 million additional Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses to Bangladesh via COVAX, on February 1


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: Bangladesh began the administration of COVID-19 vaccines on 27 January 2021, focusing initially on a pilot program of 500 health workers, while mass vaccination started on 7 February 2021. It was planned that 6 million doses would be administered in the first month, and a further 5 million the following month. An online registration portal was launched where citizens registered using their NID number. Initially, registration was open to those aged 55 and above, but due to lower than expected take-up, this was promptly lowered to ages 40 and above. On 5 July 2021, after the vaccination programme had re-opened, DGHS announced the registration age would be lowered to 35 years and then 30 years on 19 July. But it has been challenging to bring the socio-economically disadvantaged urban slum dwellers of Bangladesh under vaccination coverage.


title: COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh

text: University vaccination or Univac was launched to vaccinate university students. Since the vaccination minimum age was reduced to 18, but many did not have NID to register at the main government vaccine website(https://surokkha.gov.bd) another website(https://univac.ugc.gov.bd) was launched to allow university students with birth certificates to register for the vaccine. On November 2, the campaign to vaccinate 12-17 year olds in school started. They had to register through their schools to be vaccinated.


title: Timothy Zahn

text: Timothy Zahn (born September 1, 1951) is an American writer of science fiction and fantasy. He is known best for his prolific collection of "Star Wars" books, chiefly the "Thrawn" series, and has published several other series of sci-fi and fantasy novels of his own original creation, in addition to many works of short fiction.


title: Timothy Zahn

text: Zahn grew up in Lombard, Illinois and attended Glenbard East High School in Lombard. He then went on to Michigan State University, before working towards a doctorate in physics at the University of Illinois.


title: Timothy Zahn

text: Zahn's novella "Cascade Point" won the 1984 Hugo Award. He is the author of the "Blackcollar" trilogy and the "Cobra" series (nine novels so far), fourteen "Star Wars" expanded universe novels, including thirteen novels featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn: the "Thrawn" trilogy, the "Hand of Thrawn" duology, "Outbound Flight", "Choices of One", "", "", "," and the "Thrawn Ascendancy" trilogy.


title: Timothy Zahn

text: Lucasfilm at times used some of the more detailed "" supplements from West End Games as references, and West End sent boxes of their sourcebooks to Zahn when he started work on a new "Star Wars" novel trilogy. At the time, Zahn was writing "Heir to the Empire" (1991), the first book in what became known as the "Thrawn" trilogy, and West End in turn released sourcebooks from 1992–1994 based Zahn's three novels.


title: Timothy Zahn

text: The "Thrawn" trilogy marked a revival in the fortunes of the "Star Wars" franchise, bringing it widespread attention for the first time in years; all three "Thrawn" trilogy novels made the "New York Times" Best Seller List, and set the stage and tone for most of the franchise's expanded universe content. Zahn also wrote the young adult Dragonback series and the popular "Conquerors" trilogy.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: Maryam Rajavi (, , ) is a leader of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), an organization advocating for the overthrow of the Iranian government, and president-elect of its National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). She is married to Massoud Rajavi, who is the co-leader of MEK.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: Rajavi was born Maryam Qajar-Azodanlu on 4 December 1953 in Tehran, Iran. She was raised in a middle-class family of civil servants descended from a member of the Qajar dynasty. She attended the Sharif University of Technology in Iran, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in metallurgy.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: Rajavi has stated that her political activism began when she was twenty-two after her sister Narges was killed by SAVAK. Her other sister, Massumeh, was also executed (while pregnant) in 1982 by Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime. Then she became a member of the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), and began her political career. Rajavi served as deputy commander and MEK Secretary General until 1993. On 22 October 1993, the NCRI elected Rajavi to be "Iran’s interim President" if the NCRI were to assume power in Iran.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: Rajavi served as an organizer of the anti-Shah student movement in the 1970s. In 1979, she became an official of the social section of the PMOI/MEK, where she served until 1981. Rajavi was a parliamentary candidate in 1980.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In 1982, Rajavi was transferred to Auvers-sur-Oise, Île-de-France where the political headquarters of the Mojahedin was located.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In 1985, she became Joint-Leader of the PMOI and served as the Secretary General between 1989 and 1993.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In a statement that condemned the ISIS attacks against Iran's parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic's founder, Rajavi stated: "ISIS's conduct clearly benefits the Iranian regime's Supreme Leader Khamenei, who wholeheartedly welcomes it as an opportunity to overcome his regime's regional and international impasse and isolation. The founder and the number one state sponsor of terror is thus trying to switch the place of murderer and the victim and portray the central banker of terrorism as a victim."


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In October 2011, Theresa May banned Rajavi from coming to Britain in a trip where she was to "explain how women are mistreated in Iran". The high court then sued Theresa May, with Lord Carlile of Berriew (the Government's former independent reviewer of counter-terrorism laws) saying that May's decision "could be viewed as appeasing the Mullahs". In 2014, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom dismissed an appeal from Lord Carlile of Berriew QC and others and upheld it to maintain the ban, which had originally being implemented in 1997. Members of the UK House of Lords argued that the Home Secretary was "violating Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention of Human Rights (the Convention)", saying that "Home Secretary’s reasons were legally irrelevant, because they depended on the potential reaction of a foreign state which did not share the values embodied in the Convention." Rajavi is not excluded from any other European country and engages regularly with parliamentarians in the European Parliament.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: Maryam Rajavi publicly met with the President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas on 30 July 2016 in Paris, France.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In 1992, following the EP Council supported Maryam Rajavi’s advocacy for "the international community act specially in favor of women’s rights" following condemnation of human rights violations by the Iranian government.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: Rajavi presented her plan at the Council of Europe in 2006, which supports complete gender equality in political and social rights and, specifically, a commitment to equal participation of women in political leadership. Her 10-point plan for the future of Iran stipulates that any form of discrimination against women would be abolished and that women would enjoy the right to choose their clothing freely. It also includes the ending of cruel and degrading punishments.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In April 2021, Maryam Rajavi endorsed resolution HR 118, which expresses “support for Iranian people’s desire for a democratic republic” and “condemns ‘violations of human rights and state-sponsored terrorism’ by Tehran”.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In July 2021, Rajavi organized a protest in Berlin to protest the election of Ebrahim Raisi as President of Iran. Rajavi called Raisi the "henchman" of the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988. She was joined in the protest by former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who expressed his support for Rajavi and the National Council of Resistance of Iran.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: A 10-point manifesto published by Rajavi sets out a programme to transform Iran. She states her commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to other international instruments. She calls for the abolition of the death penalty, the creation of a modern legal system and the independence of judges. Rajavi would end Tehran's funding of Hamas, Hezbollah and other militant groups and is committed to peaceful coexistence, relations with all countries and respect for the Charter of the United Nations. The manifesto also contains the statement that "We recognize private property, private investment and the market economy." In June 2020, a majority of members of the USA's House of Representatives backed a "bipartisan resolution" supporting Rajavi and the NCRI's "call for a secular, democratic Iran" while "condemning Iranian state-sponsored terrorism." The resolution, backed by 221 lawmakers (including Louie Gohmert and Sheila Jackson Lee), gave support to Rajavi's 10-point plan for Iran's future (which include "a universal right to vote, market economy, and a non-nuclear Iran") while calling on the prevention of "malign activities of the Iranian regime’s diplomatic missions."


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In 2018, Vienna-based Iranian diplomat Asadollah Asadi was tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison in a high-profile case for masterminding a terrorism plot against a rally led by Maryam Rajavi. The rally was also attended by civilians and high-profile Westerners scheduled to speak (including Rudy Giuliani, Stephen Harper, and Bill Richardson).


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: On 17 June 2003, Rajavi was arrested by Paris Police Prefecture alongside some 150 MEK members. She and 23 other people were investigated over suspicion of links to terrorism. All charges were later dropped.


title: Maryam Rajavi

text: In July 2010, the Iraqi High Tribunal issued an arrest warrant for 39 MEK members, including Rajavi, "due to evidence that confirms they committed crimes against humanity" by "involvement with the former Iraqi security forces in suppressing the 1991 uprising against the former Iraqi regime and the killing of Iraqi citizens". The MEK have denied the charges, saying that they constitute a "politically motivated decision and it’s the last gift presented from the government of Nuri al-Maliki to the Iranian government".


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: Games in the franchise have been released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, 3DO, Super Nintendo, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The title was also released for Macintosh as well as MSX, Amiga, and MS-DOS. As of March 2018, the series has shipped more than 10 million copies worldwide.


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: The player may choose from four campaign scenarios, including "Battle for the East" (beginning in 1560), "Daimyo Power Struggles" (1560), "Ambition Untamed" (1571), and "Road Towards Unification" (1582). In each scenario, the player must allocate resources to raise a capable military force, provide a productive economy to support both military and civilian expansion, and support the peasants in order to sustain their respect and loyalty. Gameplay is taken in turns, with each turn in the map view corresponding to a season, and each turn during battle corresponding to a day. The player may achieve victory through numerous means, among which are forcing the enemy to retreat, destroying the enemy command unit, outlasting an invading force, or prolonging battle until the opposing force has exhausted its supplies.


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: The player can make many choices during the campaign. According to Evan Brooks of "Computer Gaming World": "One may transfer soldiers between fiefs, go to war, increase taxes (which causes a decrease in peasant loyalty which may lead to rebellion), transfer rice or gold to another fief, raise the level of flood control (which decreases productivity), make a non-aggression pact or arrange a marriage, cultivate (which increases productivity, but decreases peasant loyalty), use a merchant (to buy/sell rice, borrow funds, or purchase weapons), recruit for the military (soldiers or ninja), train the army (which increases fighting efficiency), spy on a rival, expand a town (which increases taxes collected, but decreases peasant loyalty), give food/rice to peasants/soldiers (to raise morale), steal peasants from rival daimyos, allocate military strength, recuperate (even a daimyo can get sick), turn over a controlled fief to the computer for administration, or pass a turn."


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: These were released in Asia (in traditional Chinese versions), with physical copies for both versions with and without power up kit, on top of the Japanese versions released.


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: The "Nobunaga's Ambition" series has garnered several awards over the years. According to Koei's website, various releases in the series have won "Log-In" magazine's "BHS Prize", the "Minister of Post & Telecommunications Prize", Nikkei BP's 12th, 13th, and 14th annual "Best PC Software" awards, and "CD-ROM Fan"'s "Fan of the Year 2001 Grand Prize".


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: In North America, where it was released five years after its Japanese release, critical reception was also positive. The game was positively reviewed by "Computer Gaming World", where reviewer Evan Brooks gave it four stars out of five. He introduced the game as "a detailed economic / diplomatic / political / military simulation of the unification of Japan in the Sixteenth Century." He praised the graphics for being "among the best that this reviewer has ever seen for the IBM" and the 5x10 hex map battles, and noted that it used role-playing game elements, including assigning various statistics to a selected persona, a time system where each turn represents a year, as the daimyo ages and eventually dies of old age, and a multiplayer option. He stated that he "thoroughly enjoyed "Nobunaga's Ambition"", concluded with a "Highly Recommended" rating, "Compute!" similarly praised the IBM PC version, calling it "one of the best strategic war games ever designed for a personal computer" and citing the game play, user interface, and documentation. In the May 1990 edition of "Games International", John Scott called this program "One of the best strategy games around." He gave the game a perfect rating of 10 out of 10 for game play.


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: The console versions had a more lukewarm reception. Reviewing the SNES version, "GamePro" praised the control interface and combat system but opined that the game essentially offers nothing to set it apart from Koei's previous historical simulators. The magazine rated the Genesis version similarly, saying that "Like all Koei games, Nobunaga has an easy-to-use but detailed menu-driven interface that activates a load of complex commands."


title: Nobunaga's Ambition

text: In 1996, "Next Generation" listed the series collectively as number 34 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting that, "Lead designer Shou Kibasawa is a tactical genius who realizes that domestic and military strategies are interconnected, and that fielding armies can only be accomplished after building an infrastructure to support them. As a result, "Nobunaga's Ambition" boasts a level of strategic complexity few other series can come close to matching."


title: Spaceport

text: A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word "spaceport", and even more so "cosmodrome", has traditionally been used for sites capable of launching spacecraft into orbit around Earth or on interplanetary trajectories. However, rocket launch sites for purely sub-orbital flights are sometimes called spaceports, as in recent years new and proposed sites for suborbital human flights have been frequently referred to or named "spaceports". Space stations and proposed future bases on the Moon are sometimes called spaceports, in particular if intended as a base for further journeys.