Ona Judge was one of at least nine enslaved people owned by George and Martha Washington. At the end of Washington's presidency, the first family prepared to return to Mount Vernon, their Virginia plantation. Ona Judge prepared to flee and live free.
She was not alone. Black women made clear, daily, that remaining in bondage was not their preferred state. And enslavers knew and acknowledged this readily apparent fact. Enslavers throughout Britain's North American colonies passed laws and slave codes that instituted severe physical punishment for resistance and rebellion.
Still, Black women sued enslavers for their freedom. Sometimes, they poisoned, set ablaze, or found other means to murder their enslavers. They fled from their households and plantations, even if for only a short time. Black women slowed down work. They grew their own gardens. They helped sustain their communities despite the ever-looming prospect of sale. They raised children, their own and their enslavers’.
(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)
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