Ona Judge

Ona Judge escaped from the household of the President of the United States, was hunted for three years by him personally, and died free in New Hampshire fifty years later. She was born at Mount Vernon to Betty, an enslaved seamstress, and Andrew Judge, a white indentured English tailor, and belonged legally to the Custis dower estate rather than to George Washington, which meant that on Martha Washington's death she would pass to the Custis grandchildren and could not be freed by Washington's will. She was taken to Philadelphia as Martha's personal maid. Pennsylvania law freed any enslaved person resident six months, and the Washingtons evaded it by rotating their household back to Virginia before the term ran. In May 1796, learning that she was to be given to Martha's granddaughter Elizabeth as a wedding present, she waited until the family sat down to dinner, walked out, and was hidden by free Black Philadelphians until a ship took her to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Washington used a customs officer and then a relative to try to recover her, and pressed for her return through official channels while avoiding public advertisement, since a president chasing a runaway was an embarrassment. She refused an offer of eventual freedom, saying she would sooner suffer death than return to slavery. She married a free Black sailor, John Staines, had three children, and was widowed and poor. She gave two newspaper interviews to abolitionists in the 1840s, which is why her account survives in her own words. She was legally a fugitive until she died.

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