Other than being a runaway slave from George Washington’s plantation, there isn’t much known about Ona or Oney Judge. But her condition and escape shines an inglorious light on one of America’s so-called founding fathers, a light that becomes more revealing as we endure another president with less than charitable regard for the nation’s people.
As usual, it was a recent news story about a biography of Judge that alerted me to her life and legacy. We are given fresh details about Judge from Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.” Not only does Judge’s feat indict the president as a slaveholder, but also, according to Dunbar’s book, his wife Martha was one as well, with her own separate slaves outnumbering her husband’s.
There is no exact date for Judge’s birth, but Dunbar and others place it somewhere in the early 1770s at Mount Vernon, Va. Judge’s father, Andrew, was an indentured English tailor working at Mount Vernon. Her mother, Betty, was an enslaved seamstress and Martha Washington’s personal slave.
Judge’s mother was among the 285 slaves held by Martha Washington’s first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, who died intestate, leaving her a “dower share” and lifetime use of his estate, although without the right to sell or free her slaves. After her marriage to George Washington in 1759, the dower slaves came with her to Mount Vernon, including Betty.
Judge was around 10 years old when she arrived at the Mansion House at Mount Vernon, possibly as a playmate for Martha Washington’s granddaughter, Nelly Custis. Much of what we know about Judge’s early years was disclosed during interviews she gave to abolitionist newspapers when she lived in New Hampshire after her escape. She received neither education nor religious instruction while at Mount Vernon.
In 1789, Judge was among seven slaves President Washington took with him to New York City as part of his household. A year later, when Philadelphia was designated the nation’s capital, Ona was again among the slaves relocated with Washington. It was during this period that Washington began the manipulation of the Gradual Abolition Act that made Pennsylvania the first state to establish a process to emancipate slaves.
To avoid the enactment, Washington claimed that his presence in Philadelphia was because it was the temporary seat of the federal government, and that as a permanent resident of Virginia, he was not bound by laws regarding slavery. From one of his associates, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, Washington learned of a way to keep his slaves by sending them out of the state to interrupt their residency. This rotation of his house slaves continued throughout his presidency, and he was careful not to spend more than six months in Pennsylvania, thereby avoiding the residency classification.
It was during time that Judge began plotting her escape. The Washingtons’ were preparing to return to Virginia and Judge was told that upon arrival there she was to be gift to Martha Washington’s granddaughter. “Whilst they were packing to go to Virginia [for a short trip between sessions of Congress] I was packing to go, I didn’t know where,” Judge told a reporter years later. She was aware that if she returned to Virginia, “I would never get my liberty. I had friends among the colored people of Philadelphia, had my things carried there beforehand, and left Washington’s house while they were eating dinner.”
Almost immediately after her escape on May 21, 1796, advertisements began appearing in the city’s newspaper. Here’s one that was published in The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser, May 24, 1796:
“Absconded from the household of the president of the United States, ONEY JUDGE, a light, mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy hair. She is of middle stature, slender and delicately formed, about 20 years of age.
She has many changes of good clothes, of all sorts, but they are not sufficiently recollected to be described—As there was no suspicion of her going off, nor no provocation to do so, it is not easy to conjecture whither she has gone, or fully, what her design is; but as she may attempt to escape by water, all masters of vessels are cautioned against admitting her into them, although it is probable she will attempt to pass for a free woman, and has, it is said, wherewithal to pay her passage.
Ten dollars will be paid to any person who will bring her home, if taken in the city, or on board any vessel in the harbor;—and a reasonable additional sum if apprehended at, and brought from a greater distance, and in proportion to the distance.
FREDERICK KITT, Steward. May 23.”
According to the abolitionist’s newspaper account, Judge was placed aboard a ship piloted by Captain John Bowles and bound for Portsmouth, N.H. Later, believing she was in a safe haven, Judge was recognized on the street by a friend of Nelly Custis. Aware of her whereabouts, Washington wrote to Oliver Wolcott, Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury, about having her captured and returned by ship.
The plot to capture Judge included Portsmouth’s collector of customs, but he advised against it, believing it would create a strong reaction from the city’s abolitionist community. An alternative plan was hatched for her to return voluntarily, providing she would be freed upon the death of the Washingtons.
Washington refused the offer, writing “to enter such a compromise with her, as she suggested … is totally inadmissible.” With Washington no longer the president, his nephew, Burwell Bassett Jr., traveled to New Hampshire on business in 1798, and tried to convince Judge to return. By this time, she was married to Jack Staines, a free Black sailor who was away at sea. She was also the mother of an infant. She refused all of Bassett’s overtures to return. That evening Bassett plotted to kidnap Judge, but she was tipped off by an elected official and went into hiding.
As a relatively free woman in New Hampshire, Judge learned to read and became a Christian. She and her husband had three children and, after seven years of marriage, he died in 1803. During one of the several interviews she gave to reporters, Judge was asked if she had any regrets about escaping from the Washington plantation. “No, I am free,” she said, “and have, I trust been made a child of God by the means.”
Judge may have believed she was free, but in reality she and her children remained fugitives until their deaths.
On Feb. 25, 1848, Judge died in Greenland, N.H. She was predeceased by her daughters. There is no photograph of her but several depictions by artists.
