Ann dandridge costin george washington daughter

  • Costin's and his mother's own accounts, as Ann Dandridge.
  • Little is known of Costin's upbringing.
  • Costin may have been the child of Martha Washington's son from her first marriage, John “Jacky” Parke Custis, and an enslaved woman.

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    Martha Washington’s Black Sister

    It was a not very well-kept Washington family secret that Martha Washington had a sister who was black.

    Ann Dandridge was the daughter of Martha Washington’s father, John Dandridge, and an unknown slave of mixed African and Native American blood. After John Dandridge’s death in 1756, Ann, who was a young girl at the time, went to live with George and Martha at Mount Vernon and was kept by them as a slave.

    Why didn’t Martha free her little sister from slavery? If she had felt any resentment towards her half-sister, Martha could easily have sold or otherwise gotten rid of her, yet she didn’t. She kept her around, lived with her, let her children play with her, but did not set her free.

    To Martha, this may have seemed like benevolence. After all, there was no place in 1759 Virginia gemenskap for a free black Dandridge female. Ann’s choices in life would have been very limited. She could perhaps have obtained

  • ann dandridge costin george washington daughter

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    An interview with Henry Wiencek

    Common-place: One of the striking revelations in Imperfect God is just how intertwined Washington’s life was with the institution of slavery. Everyone knows he owned slaves, but few recognize just how pervasive a part of his day-to-day existence slaves and slavery were. Was this a revelation to you as well? If so, how did it come about?

    Henry Wiencek: Because Washington is chiefly known and studied as a political figure, historians have looked at Washington’s encounter with slavery through a political lens. Finding that Washington made no official statements about slavery during his presidency and that the issue did not arise in any dramatically significant way during his term, the political historians have relegated slavery to a footnote in studies of Washington. The story is almost the same for Washington as a military leader. General biographers of Washington have by and large been uninterested in s

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    Rubenstein Center Scholarship

    This article is part of the Slavery in the President’s Neighborhood initiative. Explore the Timeline

    After Washington, D.C. was established as the nation’s capital, Black people found themselves in a precarious position. While some individuals entered the city as enslaved labor for the white elite, there was also a rapidly growing free Black population. This community continued to expand as many enslaved people were manumitted by their enslavers and other free Black people migrated to the city from the surrounding areas in search of greater economic opportunities. As the free Black population soared, the local government passed and enforced laws designed to suppress this growth by restricting the freedoms of African Americans. They hoped these laws would stifle the growing free Black population, but they did not expect the pushback from leaders of the free Black community like William Custis Costin, a free person of color who notably fought against