Washington’s Final Act of Statesmanship: Confronting Slavery
About this episode
The episode discusses George Washington's complex relationship with slavery and his decision to free enslaved people through his will.
George Washington sits at the center of American civic memory, but the hardest truths about him often sit at the edges of what we’re taught. We talk with Dr. Paul Carrese about Washington as an owner of enslaved people and the complicated story behind his decision to free those he legally could through his 1799 will. It’s a conversation that doesn’t look away from the moral contradiction at the founding, and it also refuses to flatten history into easy heroes or easy villains. We trace what ...
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