{"id":44606,"date":"2018-11-14T11:12:59","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T16:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=44606"},"modified":"2018-11-14T13:23:43","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T18:23:43","slug":"buried-lives-the-enslaved-people-of-george-washingtons-mount-vernon-by-carla-killough-mcclafferty-in-shelf-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/buried-lives-the-enslaved-people-of-george-washingtons-mount-vernon-by-carla-killough-mcclafferty-in-shelf-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington&#8217;s Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty [in Shelf Awareness]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-44607\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/10\/Buied-Lives-Carla-Killough-McClafferty-BookDragon-652x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/10\/Buied-Lives-Carla-Killough-McClafferty-BookDragon-652x800.jpg 652w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/10\/Buied-Lives-Carla-Killough-McClafferty-BookDragon.jpg 672w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 652px) 100vw, 652px\" \/>When he was just 11 years old, George Washington inherited ownership of 10 human beings. By the time he died in 1799, Washington&#8217;s estate on the Potomac River, Mount Vernon, was home to 317 enslaved African American men, women, and children: 123 people owned by Washington, 41 rented from other owners, and 153 held by his wife, Martha, as an inheritance from her late first husband.<\/p>\n<p>The irony, of course, was that &#8220;the man who led the fight for American freedom&#8221; remained a slave owner his entire life. Washington was one of 12 presidents who owned slaves and, despite his well-stated personal objections to slavery, he never applied his influence or power toward abolishing it. In\u00a0<em>Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington&#8217;s Mount Vernon<\/em>,\u00a0award-winning nonfiction children&#8217;s book author Carla Killough McClafferty (<em>The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon<\/em>) confronts Washington&#8217;s role as a conflicted slave owner through the stories of six enslaved Mount Vernon residents.<\/p>\n<p>Without the forced labor of the half-dozen African Americans profiled, Washington&#8217;s life would likely have been quite different. William Lee was Washington&#8217;s valet, attending to all his personal needs. Lee served Washington valiantly through the Revolutionary War; his intimate knowledge could easily have won him his freedom had he defected to the British army, yet he &#8220;stayed with the man who owned him.&#8221; When severe knee injuries made service impossible for Lee, Christopher Sheels became Washington&#8217;s personal valet, including the years of Washington&#8217;s presidency. Caroline, later known as Caroline Branham, was a housemaid in the mansion, and her husband, Peter Hardiman, rented from Martha Washington&#8217;s son&#8217;s estate, ran Mount Vernon&#8217;s large-scale mule-breeding operation. Ona Maria Judge, who began service as a child at Mount Vernon, was Martha&#8217;s personal maid and accompanied the first First Lady to New York and Philadelphia. Hercules was the renowned &#8220;chief cook in the kitchen of the president of the United States&#8221; in Philadelphia who impressed dignitaries from all over the world with his culinary prowess.<\/p>\n<p>Relying on extensive research \u2013 including Washington&#8217;s own writings and other first-hand accounts of enslaved life at Mount Vernon \u2013 McClafferty provides an alternative history to the existing, too-often idealized founding fathers&#8217; mythology. Beyond the biographies, McClafferty continues with &#8220;And Then What Happened?,&#8221; culling additional information about the descendants of the six profilees; Caroline&#8217;s fourth great-granddaughter, activist and educator ZSun-nee Miller-Matema, wrote the book&#8217;s foreword. McClafferty devotes multiple chapters to the recent archeological reclamation and restoration, begun in 2014, of the unmarked, untended-for-almost-two-centuries burial site of Mount Vernon&#8217;s enslaved. She further illuminates her words with drawings, maps, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other relevant documents that enhance an already compelling, necessary narrative. McCafferty&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Buried Lives\u00a0<\/em>is long overdue, careful testimony for a new generation of questioning, challenging readers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shelf Talker<\/strong>: Carla Killough McClafferty&#8217;s illuminating history of slavery at George Washington&#8217;s iconic Mount Vernon focuses on six African Americans enslaved to the first First Family.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shelf-awareness.com\/issue.html?issue=3376#m42448\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u201cChildren\u2019s Review,\u201d <em>Shelf Awareness Pro<\/em>, November 14, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Middle Grade, Young Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When he was just 11 years old, George Washington inherited ownership of 10 human beings. By the time he died in 1799, Washington&#8217;s estate on the Potomac River, Mount Vernon, was home to 317 enslaved African American men, women, and children: 123 people owned by&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,30,20,6535,31],"tags":[6608,8126,8127,22,10,24,39,6872,146],"class_list":["post-44606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-black-african-american","category-middle-grade-readers","category-nonfiction","category-repost","category-young-adult-readers","tag-bookdragon","tag-buried-lives","tag-carla-killough-mcclafferty","tag-civil-rights","tag-family","tag-historical","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-shelf-awareness","tag-slavery"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington&#039;s Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty [in Shelf Awareness] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/buried-lives-the-enslaved-people-of-george-washingtons-mount-vernon-by-carla-killough-mcclafferty-in-shelf-awareness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington&#039;s Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty [in Shelf Awareness] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When he was just 11 years old, George Washington inherited ownership of 10 human beings. By the time he died in 1799, Washington&#8217;s estate on the Potomac River, Mount Vernon, was home to 317 enslaved African American men, women, and children: 123 people owned by...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/buried-lives-the-enslaved-people-of-george-washingtons-mount-vernon-by-carla-killough-mcclafferty-in-shelf-awareness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-14T16:12:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-11-14T18:23:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/10\/Buied-Lives-Carla-Killough-McClafferty-BookDragon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"672\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"824\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington's Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty [in Shelf Awareness] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/buried-lives-the-enslaved-people-of-george-washingtons-mount-vernon-by-carla-killough-mcclafferty-in-shelf-awareness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington's Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty [in Shelf Awareness] - BookDragon","og_description":"When he was just 11 years old, George Washington inherited ownership of 10 human beings. 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