Mount Vernon exhibit looks at Washington as slaveholder

MOUNT VERNON, Va. – George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate is turning a museum space previously dedicated to the Founding Father’s furniture and fineries into an exhibit that takes a hard look at Washington’s life as a slave owner.

The $750,000 Lives Bound Together exhibition will open in October and explore the lives of hundreds of slaves who provided the labour that kept Mount Vernon running as a Southern plantation.

A centerpiece of the new exhibit is a display of Washington’s handwritten list of slaves on the estate from 1799, likely written in preparation for his will. Washington’s will freed the slaves that were under his control upon the death of his wife, Martha.

The exhibit also includes an acknowledgment that Washington’s adopted son likely fathered a child with one of the family’s slaves.