Ona Judge was enslaved by the Washingtons. When she was to be given to Martha's very difficult daugther, Ona escaped. Despite the Washingtons' efforts, she was never recapatured. "Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge" by Erica Armstrong Dunbar tells the story of this amazing woman. My friend told me about Ona Judge and I knew learning about her was a necessary detour from my presidents project. As you know if you have been following my blogposts, I have been very disturbed by our founding fathers' claims to want to end slavery while owning slaves. This book presented George and Martha as ruthless slave owners. I knew this was so although other biographers stopped short of calling the Washingtons to task on this. While speaking to a friend of mine about this, he said--as have many others--we should not look at the circumstances of the past with today's eyes. In other words, how can we judge the acts of persons in the 18th and 19th centurie......

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