Editing Presidents House (section)

== Slavery and Evasion ==

Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 provided that enslaved people brought into the state by residents of other states would become free after six months' continuous residence. Washington, determined to retain his enslaved workers, developed a system of rotating them back to Virginia before the six-month period elapsed, thus preventing them from claiming freedom under Pennsylvania law. Attorney General Edmund Randolph advised Washington on the legal requirements, and the president's secretary Tobias Lear managed the logistics of these rotations. Washington explicitly acknowledged that the purpose was to evade the Pennsylvania law, writing that the moves should be conducted discreetly to avoid public attention.<ref name="wiencek">{{cite book |last=Wiencek |first=Henry |title=An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America |year=2003 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |location=New York}}</ref>

Two of Washington's enslaved workers escaped to freedom during the Philadelphia years. Oney Judge fled in May 1796, apparently with assistance from Philadelphia's free Black community. Despite Washington's efforts to recapture her, Judge made her way to New Hampshire, where she lived the rest of her life in freedom, giving interviews in old age that provide crucial testimony about the experience of enslaved people in the President's House. Hercules escaped in early 1797, shortly before Washington's term ended. His whereabouts thereafter are unknown, though various accounts place him in New York City. The escapes demonstrated that enslaved people actively sought freedom when opportunity presented, despite the power and resources their enslavers could deploy against them.<ref name="dunbar"/>