| The Slaveowners in Your Wallet |
I recently heard someone claim that everyone whose face appears
on U.S. paper currency was a slaveowner. Not
quite; Lincoln is the exception.Franklin
and Hamilton both became leaders of the early abolitionist movement
and Franklin freed all of his slaves.Hamilton
freed some of his.Grant
mostly had use of slaves his wife inherited.Below
is a chart.The information about
presidents is the same as on the main page.–Rob
Lopresti
| Face |
Currency |
Did
he own slaves? |
Quotations |
| George Washington | $1 | Yes.
When GW took over Mount Vernon at age 22 there were 18 slaves. When
he married he gained control of 200 more which technically belonged
to the estate of his wife’s first husband. By 1786 he
owned 216 slaves. (Flexner, p114)
While GW was serving
as president in Philadelphia a Pennsylvania law was passed freeing slaves
whose owners had been citizens of the
In 1796 Oney (or
Ona) Judge ran away to New Hampshire. She was one of GW’s slaves
– Martha’s personal servant. President GW asked the Treasury
Secretary and a
When GW left the
presidency he
When he died in 1799 his will
Neither GW nor MW could legally
|
1786“I
can only say that no man living wishes more sincerely than I do to see
the abolition of (slavery)…But
when slaves who are happy & content to remain with their present masters,
are tampered with & seduced to leave them… it introduces more evils
than it can cure."(Hirschfield,
Fritz.George Washington and
Slavery.University of Missouri
Press, Columbia.1997.p187)
click here for more
|
| Thomas Jefferson | $2 | Yes.TJ
inherited many slaves. His wife brought a dowry of more than 100 slaves,
and he purchased many more throughout his life.At
some points he was one of the largest slaveowners in Virginia.
In 1790 TJ gave his newly married daughter and her husband 1000 acres
of land and 25 slaves.(Miller) In 1798 TJ owned 141 slaves, many of them elderly.Two
years later he owned 93. (Bigelow,p537.) One of TJ’s slaves was Sally Hemings, allegedly the half-sister of his deceased wife.During TJ’s presidency a rumor started that she was his mistress. TJ denied this story, which was also passed on as Hemings family tradition. The youngest of Heming’s six children (and the only one whose paternity can be traced either DNA) definitely descended from the Jefferson line, either TJ, his brother Randolph, or one of Randolph’s sons. TJ was in the vicinity of SH during each period of conception. (See Miller, p148-176:.)For a discussion of the DNA issue see: http://www. Monticello.org/plantation/hemings _report.html and: http://www. angelfire.com/va/TJTruth/ TJ freed one of Heming’s children and allowed another to run away unpursued.Both of them were light enough to successfully pass for White.(See Miller, p165.) TJ freed five slaves in his will, all members of the Hemings family.Sally
was not among them; TJ’s daughter Martha freed her years later.(See
Miller, p168.) |
1776:“(King
George III) has waged cruel waragainst
human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty
in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating
& carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium
of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain.
Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he
has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt
to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and thatthis
assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now
exciting those very people to rise in arms against us, and to purchase
that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon
whom he also obtruded them thus paying off former crimes committed
against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to
commit against the lives of another.”
-from TJ's draft of the Declaration of Independence.This paragraph was voted down by the Congressional Congress.(Jefferson, 1984. p 22.) click here for more |
| Abraham Lincoln | $5 | No. |
1865:
“I have alwaysthought that all
men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those
who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.
Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to
see it tried on him personally.”(Lincoln,
1953, v8, p360-1) click here for more |
| Alexander Hamilton | $10 | Yes.
AH eventually freed some of his slaves – he says that some of them declined
the offer.He became one of the
founders of an early abolitionist society. |
1785:
"Some of my Negroes to whom I have offered freedom have declined the Bounty,
they will live with me... I believe no man gets more work from his
Negroes than I do, at the same time they are my Watchmen and my friends;
never was an absolute Monarch more happy in his Subjects than at the present
time I am." (Hamilton,
v3, p606-7) click here for more |
| Andrew Jackson | $20 | Yes.
AJ bought his first slave, a young woman, in 1788. By
1794 his business included slave trading and
he had purchased at least 16 slaves. (Remini,
Robert V.Andrew Jackson and
the Course of American Empire, 1767-1821. Harper
and Row, New York. 1977.p.37,
55)
In the 1820s Jackson had about 160 slaves. (James, Marquis.
Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis.
1937.p31) He did not free his slaves in his will. |
1822:
"As far as lenity can be extended to these unfortunate creatures I wish
you to do so; subordination must be obtained first, and then good treatment."(James,
Marquis. Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President. Bobbs-Merrill,
Indianapolis. 1937.p31) click here for more |
| Ulysses S. Grant | $50 | Yes.
The only evidence that USG owned slaves is a document he signed in 1859
freeing one, William Jones.However,
Grant certainly had some control over and use of slaves his father-in-law
gave his wife.(Simon,
p347)
|
1885:
"The
(South)
was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not
brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance
and enervated the governing class... Soon the slaves would have outnumbered
the masters, and, not being in sympathy with them, would have risen in
their might and exterminated them. The war was expensive to the South,
as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all
it cost." (Grant,
1885, v1, p507-8) click here for more |
| Benjamin Franklin | $100 | Yes. He owned a few slaves.Late in life he freed them and became the first president of the first abolitionist society. | 1789: (Writing
as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of
Slavery)“Slavery is such an
atrocious debasement of human nature,
that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes
open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated
as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of
the human species. The
galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties,
and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise,
to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and
enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education
calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines
of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.” (Franklin,
p1154-5)
click here for more
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