In 1799, just a few months before his death, George Washington wrote a will that provided for the freedom of all of the slaves he owned. In addition to freedom, Washington understood that the key to successful and productive lives for these former slaves was education and the learning of a trade. Therefore, he provided in the will that slaves under 25 be taught to read and write and be trained in a useful occupation before being given their freedom. He also provided that a “regular and permanent fund be established for their support so long as there are subjects requiring it.”

One of the slaves gaining his freedom under the terms of Washington’s will was his trusted body-servant, William Lee. In recognition of “my sense of his attachment to me, and for his faithful service during the Revolutionary War,” the will gave Lee the option of staying in his present situation or full freedom and provided an annuity of $30 for the rest of his natural life, in addition to the clothes and food which he was accustomed to receiving.

Washington was one of many slave-owning leaders of his generation who were troubled by the institution of slavery and expressed a number of times his wish to see it abolished. He was, however, one of the few to act on these misgivings and free his slaves. Unfortunately, he was not able to free all of the slaves on the five farms that made up his estate. In 1799, he listed 316 slaves, of which he owned 123. The rest were for the use of his wife, Martha, during her lifetime and could not be freed by either of them.

In providing for the freedom of his slaves, Washington acted as he had many times during his lifetime, by listening to his conscience and leading by example.
 
 

The image on the cover was adapted by an unknown artist from a well-known painting by Edward Savage called Washington and His Family. Mrs. Washington is pointing to a map of the new capital city, Washington, D.C. Although the family sat for the portrait in 1789-90 while living in New York, the nation’s first capital, the painting was not completed until 1796.

The servant at the right is believed to be Washington’s trusted body-servant, William, or “Billy,”  Lee. A slave, Lee had served with Washington in the Revolutionary War and remained in the service of the family until Washington’s death in 1799. Washington, in granting Lee his freedom in his will, noted that, because of “accidents that had befallen him,” Lee could not walk or do any work and provided for him for the rest of his life. Probably because of these infirmities, Washington had another body- servant for the final years of his life, a slave named Christopher Sheels.
 

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