George Washington was not only a planter. He also had one of the largest estates in the Commonwealth of Virginia and owned slaves all his life. An inventory at the time of his death would show that he possessed 124 Negroes in his own right, another 153 dower Negroes belonging to Martha Custis Washington, and he had leased an additional forty from a Mrs. French. After all, Washington lived in a Virginia where slaves were bred to sell to other colonies. Thus in 1772, Washington ordered ‘musty’ flour from wheat raised on his estates to be sold in Jamaica and the proceeds spent on Negroes, provided the ‘choice ones’ could be had for 40 pounds sterling or less. The requirements were straightforward enough:
Let there be two‑thirds of them males, the other third females. The former not exceeding (at any rate) 20 years of age, the latter 16. All of them to be straight‑limbed and in every respect strong and likely, with good teeth and good countenances, to be sufficiently provided with clothes.
Like other Virginia slaveholders, Washington made no provision to educate his Negroes, but as a matter of course encouraged their promiscuity. He however urged his manager to be ‘particularly attentive to my negroes in their sickness’ and complained that overseers, as a general rule, ‘view the poor creatures in scarcely any other light than they do a draught horse or ox, neglecting them as much when they are unable to work instead of comforting and nursing them when they lie on a sick bed.’