George Washington Spent Years Looking for Escaped Slave

“We’ve tended to be a little uncomfortable talking about George Washington and slavery,” historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar told . At the time of the founding father’s death in 1799, “there were nearly 300 enslaved people living at Mount Vernon,” she said. One formerly enslaved person who didn’t live there was Ona Judge. Judge escaped captivity in 1796. Until nearly the end of his life, Washington tried to recapture her.