Today, President’s Day, granted many in America time off, honors the nation’s first president, George Washington. Washington’s political legacy is well-known, but not the fact that he used his office to keep slaves in bondage despite laws prohibiting it. In an 2017 piece in the New York Times, University of Delaware associate professor of Black Studies and History and author Erica Armstrong Dunbar found that the Washington family owned slaves throughout their lifetime.
Dr. Dunbar revealed that even after Washington ascended to the presidency in 1789, he continued to own slaves. Though Washington attempted to distance himself from the horrendous practice in his later years, at the end of his life, he still owned 300 slaves at his Virginia estate. During his presidency, Washington lived between New York, Mt. Vernon, Va. and Philadelphia, Pa.