In New York, as Ona caters to the nervous, recalcitrant Martha, she encounters for the first time communities of free Black men and women living communally and autonomously. In 1789, as Washington ascends to the presidency, the 16-year-old Ona-now in the personal employ of Martha Washington as a seamstress and handmaiden, charged with outfitting the first lady in finery each day-accompanies the Washingtons northward to New York, the nation’s temporary capital. The daughter of Betty, one of Martha Washington’s “dower slaves,” or human “property” from her first marriage, and a white indentured servant from England named Andrew Judge, Ona was raised primarily by her mother after her father departed alone once his tenure of servitude at Mount Vernon expired. Ona was born in 1773, just days after the death of Martha Washington’s daughter Patsy. Ona escaped to freedom in 1796, absconding from Philadelphia to New Hampshire. In Never Caught, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar tells the story of Ona Maria Judge Staines, who was born into slavery at George and Martha Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |