Title: Washington’s Changing Views on Slavery · George Washington's Mount Vernon
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Content: Ultimately, Washington made his most public antislavery statement after his death in December 1799, when the contents of his will were revealed. "I wish to get quit of negroes." -George Washington, 1778
George Washington first stated concerns about slavery in economic terms. Later, he added moral objections. Although Washington never identified his influences, many factors likely shaped his increasingly negative views of slavery. Plantation Profits
George Washington first stated concerns about slavery in economic terms. ...half the workers I keep on this Estate, would render me greater net profit than I now derive from the whole...
-George Washington, 1799
Washington found slavery economically inefficient. In the last decades of his life, the profits from his farmland did not cover the cost of feeding and clothing the estate’s enslaved people. By the 1770s, Washington began to realize that slavery was not an efficient labor system for Mount Vernon. After switching his plantation’s focus from tobacco to less labor-intensive grains, Washington had far more enslaved workers than he needed.