@article{889956,
      recid = {889956},
      author = {Thompson, Mary V.,},
      title = {"The only unavoidable subject of regret" : George  Washington, slavery, and the enslaved community at Mount  Vernon /},
      pages = {xv, 502 pages :},
      abstract = {"American historians began producing in-depth studies of  slavery and slave life shortly after World War II, but it  was not until the early 1980s that the country's museums  took the first tentative steps to interpret those same  controversial topics. Perhaps because of the tremendous  amount of primary material related to George Washington,  almost no one looked into the lives of Mount Vernon's  enslaved population. Incorporating the results of detailed  digging, of both the archaeological and archival varieties,  the number of chapters grew as further questions arose.  While a few scholars outside Mount Vernon turned their  attention to Washington's changing ideas about slavery,  they largely overlooked the daily lives of those who were  enslaved on the estate, a subject about which visitors  expressed a desire to know more. The resulting book makes  use of a wide range of sources, including letters,  financial ledgers, work reports, travel diaries kept by  visitors to Mount Vernon, the reminiscences of family  members, former slaves, and neighbors, reports by  archaeologists, and surviving artifacts to flesh out the  lives of a people who left few written records, but made up  90 percent of the estate's population. The book begins with  a look at George and Martha Washington as slaveowners,  before turning to various facets of slave life ranging from  work, to family life, housing, foodways, private  enterprise, and resistance. Along the way, readers will see  a relationship between Washington's military career and his  style of plantation management, learn of the many ways  slaves rebelled against their condition, and get to know  many of the enslaved people who made Mount Vernon their  home"--},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/889956},
}