Oney Judge

Let’s get right down to it, from the beginning, George Washington owned more slaves than Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler in “Gone With The Wind”… The first president of the United States had enslaved more than 317 people by the time of his death in 1799. He owned 124 enslaved people outright and rented another 40 enslaved people from other enslavers. The rest were enslaved dowers. Dowers were enslaved people who were part of the estate. They were left to his wife and grandchildren by Martha Custis first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. This meant that although Washington enslaved them, they could neither be sold nor freed. That was just their azz. They were doomed to be enslaved for their entire life on the Mount Vernon Plantation. Using a population projection algorithm, the dowers alone which totaled 154 people, could produce 25 other enslaved individuals every year. Of course, this is speculation because other variables also have to be considered, like death rates. If the Massa had toes dangling every week, then of course the net population gain would decrease, but generally speaking 25 more people would be born enslaved every year under normal conditions at Mount Vernon.

I Ain’t Seen Him

In 1773, when Ona was born, Ona being the name she was known by… the colonist had all but abandoned the pretext of black folks being even remotely human. It was straight up, “Ya’ll belong to me and from now on my name is “Massa!” Colonial enslavement was a female dog. As we all know, slavery started in earnest in the colonies in 1619, when the British captured a Portuguese slave ship. The ship had 20 enslaved people aboard and they were taken to Jamestown, Virginia, where their names were changed to Toby… okay, they didn’t change their names, but they were enslaved in Virginia instead of being set free.
New York was the first to disrespect a brother in 1702 when they passed a law that forbade three or more Nigras from gathering in groups, and giving enslavers the right to punish uppity Nigras anyway they saw fit as long as they didn’t dismember or kill them.
Massa: “You know I want to kill you … right? You smacked me across my lips right in front of the honeybee… just because I told you to go get her that flower I saw on the other side of the riverbank. I didn’t know there were alligators in there… but still, you picked the wrong flower… and when I told you to go back and get the right one… you smacked me across my lips!! Now I can’t kill ya… but when I go to England next week, you’re coming with me… and when I throw my hat over… I mean when the
the wind blows my hat overboard… into that shark-infested ocean… guess who’s gonna go in there and git it?”
So yeah, there were ways around it.
In 1705 Virginia passed the Virginia Slave Codes. The codes basically said that if you weren’t a white male Christian, then you were a slave. If you were a white woman… then you should have stayed in England because, in Virginia, you were nothing but a light skinned nigra. White women had very few rights in the colonies. That’s the reason there were so few.
Every person brought to Virginia who wasn’t a Christian in their home country was sold as a slave. That one put a nail in most black coffins right there. If a free white woman had a child out of wedlock with a black man or person of color, then the child would be a slave until the age of 31. The law specifically said, “out of wedlock,” because interracial marriage was a hot no-no. There wasn’t that much “out of wedlock” shenanigans going on either… you can believe that after the first time a black man and a white woman had a baby… that black man and another part of him would never be in the same room again… if you know what I mean…
Of course, you couldn’t carry firearms, and say for instance you converted to Christianity, well that doesn’t mean anything, because you’re still going to be a slave and you can do your praying out there in the cotton field.
In the 1600s if you converted to Christianity, they would free you. They stopped freeing black people because everybody coming off the ship wanted to be baptized and converted.
They also had provisions for when the master mistreated you. You could tell the Sheriff and the Massa could be fined.
Blackman: “Ima tell the Sheriff on you!! You ain’t gonna get away with this!!”
Later:
Blackman 2: “Massa have you seen Blackman… He said he was going to see the Sheriff yesterday… We ain’t seen him since he left… somebody found his hat, but…”
Massa: “Naw I ain’t seen him…”
So yeah, they put that provision in there because they like faquing with them psychologically.
Massa: “Oh my!! What am I going to do!! Please don’t tell the Sheriff on me!!!”
It’s like when your kid tells you they are going to call the police because you had to put the switch on them… and you’re like:
“Ima tell you right now… if you call the police on me… by the time they get here there won’t be a tree in this neighborhood with a branch still on it!!!”
So yeah, the colonists were big proponents of the saying “snitches get stitches…”

That’s A Mighty Big Check

These codes were pretty well entrenched when Ona was born in 1773. Now don’t get me wrong, for all the harshness of the Virginia Black Codes, black folks were still doing things. When Ona was born the British were already in the colonies showing all of it. They insisted that the colonists were subjects of her Majesty. Of course, the colonists had other ideas, and both the British and the colonists were always involved in skirmishes. As a matter of fact, the Boston Massacre was a skirmish. Unfortunately, that skirmish was one of the ones that led to the Revolutionary War. The first person killed in the Boston Massacre was a black man named Crispus Attucks. I wrote a story about him a few years ago which you can read here. Crispus let his mouth write a check, his ass had to cash. Another thing is, I’m not sure why Attucks is regarded as the first person killed in the Revolutionary War, since the war didn’t start until 1775 and he was killed in Boston in 1770. Strange indeed… As for this writer, I’ll take a black hero any time I can get one.

When The Revolution Comes

Anyway, since the colonists and the British were at each other’s throats, before the war, and the British regarded the colonists as subjects of Her Majesty, they said any enslaved person who joined her Majesty’s Army would be free after their enlistment was up. Nigras were like “Hip hip, Cheerio old chap, where do I sign?” They joined the ranks of the British by the thousands. When the war broke out for real after the American victories at Lexington and Concord in April of 1775, George Washington had barred free blacks and enslaved blacks from enlisting. After the British started whipping some ass, he changed his mind two months later. It’s definitely no doubt, if black folks hadn’t been helping out at the Battle of Bunker Hill, I’d be sitting here typing on her Majesty’s keyboard, in her Majesty’s house, eating her Majesty’s crumpets and drinking her Majesty’s bloody tea. Washington estimated that around 5000 free and enslaved blacks fought for the colonies, while 20,000 went to the British!!
Now there is a rumor that George Washington offered enslaved blacks their freedom if they fought with the colonists. He never did. Many blacks gave their pensions and enlistment bounties to their enslavers in exchange for their freedom. Some fought in the war on behalf of their enslavers. Those who didn’t make plans were sent back to their enslavers after the war.
So, I’m going to tell you right now, it wasn’t a lot of love for us anyway before the war… and now you have thousands of black folks in redcoats, wearing wigs, shooting at folks and stabbing folks with long shiny bayonets hollering “God Save the Queen… it definitely was going to get really ugly for somebody if somehow the British lost… and unfortunately, they did. In the coming 150 years, blacks would pay for fighting against our enslavers and taking a chance at freedom… but that’s another story.

Uh Huh…

Anyway, let’s get back to Ona… So earlier we talked about dower slaves. Ona’s mother was a dower enslaved Indvidual, meaning she was part of she estate. Her father was a white rapist… okay no he wasn’t… he was an indentured servant. I said rapist because that’s how most of them got the goodies back then. Indentured servitude meant that he had a contract to work a certain number of years and after that he was free. In this case he had four years to work. After the four years he left to start his own farm. Ona, being the daughter of an enslaved dower woman, remained on the plantation. It didn’t make a difference anyway that her mother was an enslaved dower, because by law, in Virigina if your mother was a slave, then you were too. After the scallywag left, Ona and her mother moved into the mansion. Ona’s mother was a highly gifted seamstress. She soon became the personal maid of “Missy” Washington. I really should show a little respect, after all she was the first lady, but the cotton pimp had more women working for her than Iceberg Slim in Trick Baby… now don’t make me get into that because what she was doing was U.G.L.Y.
Anywho… the year after they moved into the mansion, they went to New York for Washington’s inaugural. She was one of the few enslaved persons that accompanied the Washinton’s to New York. Later when the seat of government was moved to Philadelphia, Ona moved there with them. Now the Washington’s moving to Philadelphia was like Gomer Pyle moving to Harlem. It was nothing like Virginia. There were over 6000 free blacks in the city, and it was a hotbed for abolition. Being such a progressive city, they had legislation put in place that said any enslaved person who resided in the city for more than six month was hence forth free. So, every six months, the president would move his slaves out of the city for a time and then bring them back so that they couldn’t claim residency… U.G.L.Y, right? Well, what would you expect? You remember the document that starts off by saying something about “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created to be equal…? Uh… Washington’s name is not on it. He was in New York… uh… during the signing of the “document that created our nation” “handling other business…”
Now I ain’t going to say he didn’t want to sign it… I mean he was from Virginia, the largest slave holding state at the time and he himself had enslaved hundreds of people… not to mention him and Thomas “Pootang” Jefferson being ride or die bro’s, so there might have been some shenanigans, and he just didn’t want to give it up…. I mean want to sign it… No, I’m not going to say that, because that type of shat gets toes dangling. So, I’m just going to let you decide. In the meantime, Ima goes upstairs and get it and I’ll be right back.
Anyway, Ona moved to Philly with them and her mother and that’s where she started getting ideas about being free. She was nine at the time. When she turned twenty-two, she learned that Missy Washington was going to give her away as a gift to her cousin, like you would give away a fruit basket at Christmas. Them people was mad crazy!!
Missy Washington: Hello Cuz!! I have a gift for you. Here take this human being and do whatever you like with her.
Cuz: Well, I’ll be!! Isn’t she adorable? She’s a little bit on the dark side, but I think we can find work for her in the big house cleaning out our filthy slop pots and working in the back of the kitchen sweeping and mopping everything in sight! She’s too dark to work with the food… but you know… the Nigras say, we have the best table scraps in the city, so she will be well rewarded for her hard work and obedience!! Thank you so much Cuz!!
Missy Washington: You are so welcome Cuz!! Well, the big house… that’s wonderful!! Say thank you Ona!
Ona: Uh huh…
So yeah, she was gonna give Ona to her cousin.

It’s Happened Before

Now as it so happened, the Washington’s were preparing to return to Mount Vernon for the summer. Ona made plan to escape before they hauled her back down to the cut. On May 21, 1796, she made her way out of the mansion, while George and Martha were having dinner. Now sister had gotten all her ducks in a row. She got members of the free black community to help her. They put her on a ship commanded by Captain John Bowles, who incidentally was white. He dropped her off in Portsmouth, New Hampshire after a five-day journey. Now Portsmouth, New Hampshire was akin to being in heaven if you were black. They had virtually no enslaved people and a strong black community of over 350 free men and women, so you didn’t have to worry about Tom’s putting the mouth on you because they were feeling some kind of way, or the Massa, promising somebody a chicken if they would give you up. Ona fit right in, doing domestic work to support herself. It was one of the few jobs a black women could get.
Now everything was going good until one summer day when Ona went for a walk. She ran into a woman named Elizebeth Langdon. Langdon recognized Ona from when they met at the Washington’s house on a visit. Her father was a Senator and that’s how they knew the president and his wife. Ona acted like she didn’t notice her and kept on walking. When Ona didn’t acknowledge Langdon, she ran home and put the mouth on her. Her father, Senator Langdon contacted Washington and told him he seen his enslave property walking around with red lipstick and a white man on her arms… okay no he didn’t… he just told him where she was.
Washington then contacted one of his boys in Portsmouth, and they laid out a plan to trick her into coming out from hiding. He put out an advert on the pretense of hiring domestic help and Ona showed up for the job. Now anywhere else, this would have meant a confession and an ass whooping. However, after all they were in Portsmouth, where nine out of ten people were crazy blood thirsty abolitionist. I mean the kind that hang white folks from the tallest tree they can find for mistreating their Nigras. So, he offered to negotiate on her behalf. Ona told, Washington that she would return if she would be set free after Martha Washington died. Remember she was the daughter of an enslaved dower, and could neither be sold or freed by Washington because she was owned by the estate of his wife’s late husband. Once she died, Washington could do as he pleased, because her estate would fall to him. Now if Martha stabbed that Mfer for shenanigans, then that’s something totally different. Like I said, you know Washington and Thomas Jefferson were buddies… so it ain’t no telling what…. okay let me stop…

Its Coming To An End?

So, two things happened after Washinton’s boy gave him the message. First thing was that Ona had no intentions of going back down there after she had walked off from her trusted position in his household. There was no good look doing that in any way you could see it. Washington had to make an example out of you so other enslaved people wouldn’t try to escape. So no, she wasn’t going back down there. She only told Washinton’s boy, what he wanted to hear. The second thing that happened was Washington wrote back to his boy exactly what I had just said… “If that bit*ch comes back down here Ima whip her ass!!” So, he didn’t say it like that, but he said he couldn’t reward her by giving her freedom after what she had done by being unfaithful. He said if she comes back, he will think about freeing her somewhere down the road, but after his wife died was out of the question. He feared all of his Nigras would do the same thing to gain freedom, runaway and try to make a bargain with him if they returned. Naw, everybody will have to get an ass whooping when she gets back… Okay he didn’t say that.
Now according to historians, Washington had a change of heart in the 1780s about the institution of slavery. He felt an “uneasiness” about it. He confided his feelings to his close friends. However, he did nothing about it. How could he? His fortune depended on the free labor of enslaved men and women. I don’t believe them. Washington was getting really aggressive in trying to bring Ona back to the plantation. Fortunately, Washington’s term was coming to an end and along with it a wanning in his power. Ona was still in Portsmouth walking around with white men… and it was nothing he could do about it… okay she wasn’t walking around with white men…
As a matter of fact, the anti-slavery movement was growing in New Hampshire, and the dude Washington had asked for help in returning Ona to him, stopped pursuing her. In 1797, Ona still in Portsmouth and feeling safe, married a free black seaman named Jack Staines.

A Time To Rest

Now I told you earlier how Washington got his boy to try and get the chains back on Ona but failed. In 1799, he tried it again, but this time he sent his nephew up there. He told him to seize Ona and any children she might have. His nephew had gone up there on a business trip. So as things may have it, his nephew had lunch with Senator Langdon and told him his plans. Langdon sent word to Ona through one of his servants that Washington was at it again. He wanted her back down in Virginia where he would definitely be waiting to whip more ass than at a WWE televised championship. Ona left town. Her and her daughter fled to a nearby city, where free blacks took her in until Washington’s nephew left.
Four months later, George Washington died on December 14, 1799. Funny thing is that he freed all his slaves in his will. Martha Washington, who lived until 1802, couldn’t free Ona also, because they were part of the estate and her first husband had bequeathed the slaves to his grandchildren.
Ona went back to Portsmouth after Washington’s nephew left and lived with her husband Jack, who died in 1803. They had three children, two girls and a boy. After her husband’s death she moved in with another free family where they remained. Her son is believed to have left home and joined the navy in 1820 like his father. Unfortunately, her two daughters were forced into indentured servitude. Both died before Ona. After age prevented Ona from working, she lived in poverty, relying on donations from the community. Several years before her death, Ona granted an abolitionist newspaper an interview about her journey. They asked wouldn’t it have been easier to live in the relative comfort of the Washington household, rather than to face all the hardships you have been through?
Ona Judge Staines said “No, I am free, and have, I trust been made a child of God by the means.”
She died February 25, 1848, at the age of 75 and is buried somewhere in Greenland, New Hampshire.
A historical marker honoring Oney Judge was placed on Mount Vernon Memorial Highway near Mount Vernon Estate in Fairfax, Virginia, the final resting place of George Washington.

What a powerful story. Even in the face of hardships, Oney chose freedom over slavery. May she rest in eternal peace.
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