Wikipedia:Peer review/George Washington and slavery/archive1

George Washington and slavery

Looking for fresh eyes that might help identify any issues with the content or prose.

Thanks, Factotem (talk) 08:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Comments from Ykraps

• The prose looks to be in pretty good shape IMHO. There appeared to be a mixture of Br and Am English and although I think that's now resolved, it may be worth taking a second look.
• Might be worth mentioning that Washington's wife only freed his slaves because she was scared they were trying to kill her.[[1]]
• Same article also suggests that her decision might have been financial.
• This source seems to be implying that at the time he was president and resident in Philadelphia, Washington went to the trouble of shipping his slaves in and out to prevent them gaining legal residency and thereby circumvented a gradual abolition law.[[2]] This seems at odds with what's currently written in the Presidency section.--Ykraps (talk) 21:05, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated. In response:

• I have tried to use AmEng throughout, but it's not native to me, and some spelling differences, such as practise/practice, I wasn't aware of. And I think a "behaviour" snuck in one time when I wasn't concentrating. Appreciate you catching my errors.
• The threat that Martha felt from the slaves after Washington's death is mentioned in the aftermath section with the sentence, "Martha felt threatened by the fact that she was surrounded with slaves whose freedom depended on her death, and emancipated her late husband's slaves on January 1, 1801."
• I'll recheck my sources, but I don't recall reading anything about her decision being anything other than fearing for her life.

Have checked the source used by the author of that history.com article, and will add update the article to reflect what it says about financial concerns and not wishing to mix soon-to-be-free slaves with never-to-be-free dower slaves. Factotem (talk) 21:59, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

• Washington rotating his slaves out of Philadelphia is covered in the "As Virginia farmer" section with the sentence, "In 1791, he arranged for those who served in his personal retinue while he was President in Philadelphia to be surreptitiously rotated out of the state before they became eligible for emancipation after six months residence per Pennsylvanian law." Although he was President at the time, in this instance he was acting in his capacity as a farmer to protect his own slaveholdings, not in any public capacity that affected government policy, which is why it's not covered in the "As President" subsection. Factotem (talk) 21:35, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

• Sorry Factotem. I thought I’d read through the article thoroughly so I don’t know how I overlooked those bits. I was also wrong apparently about the practice spelling. I was confused by a quotation which used the s spelling and the fact that Americans use the s spelling for license. So I’m not sure I’ve been all that helpful. Ho hum.

One final thing: The article makes much of the notion that Washington always wanted to free his slaves but was prevented from doing so because he didn’t want to split up families or make a political statement. Yet when he had an opportunity in Philadelphia to gradually emancipate selected slaves without looking like an abolitionist, he went out of his way to avoid doing so. Do any of the sources explore why this might have been?--Ykraps (talk) 06:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

The narrative does touch on the general reason why at the beginning of both the subsection and the paragraph, i.e. for all Washington's expressions of sympathy for abolition, financial considerations remained a priority and his slaves were still an asset. You make a valid point, though, and I've expanded the narrative on that episode to give more detail. Factotem (talk) 09:35, 20 June 2019 (UTC)