Topic 4: Atlantic People

Henry “Harry” Washington   

Henry “Harry” Washington was a slave who at one time was owned by George Washington. His life was filled with travel and toil, he was bought by Washington in 1763 from a plantation in the lower Potomac, he is believed to have been born around 1740 and his origins were most likely in the Gambia River region of West Africa. Henry obviously went through the renaming process described in Berlin’s article as a “process of stripping the newly arrived Africans of the signature of their identity.” (Berlin) Henry was a skilled hostler meaning that he tended to and looked after the horses.

            Although Henry offered skilled labor he still found himself moved from this work that could be considered very easy, to hard labor at the Ferry Plantation, the most distant plantation of Mount Vernon farms, which is accredited to his escape, an escape that was short lived, as his master, Washington, placed an ad for his capture and return. Once returned, Henry suffered through hard labor again for about two years before returning to house service.

            During the time of Henry’s service to the future first president, the Revolutionary War loomed, talk of freedom was a second language to all wanting to free themselves of the restrictions of the crown, but was understood differently by Africans slaves who overheard the conversations of their masters. They saw freedom with the crown, therefore many slaves escaped to the British. In 1775 Lord Dunmore retreated to a British warship as tensions grew between the crown and colonists he welcomed any slaves who could make their way to his fleet and published a proclamation giving freedom to any slave willing to bear arms for the crown. (Berlin)

            Henry found himself in the service of the British and was a Corporal in the Black Pioneers a sort of black non-combat support group. At the end of the war the slaves who had once been promised their freedom were now worried that they would be taken back by their original captors but the English wanting to take a moral stand on this issue after being defeated by the American colonies, made good and did what they could to get as many slaves shipped away as possible.

            Nova Scotia is where Henry ended up after the war along with 405 men, women, and children. Life in Nova Scotia was cold and harsh the land allotted to the blacks was the worst, rocky with poor soil, in time tensions grew between the white and black populations and the option arose for them to be relocated again in Sierra Leone with a new promise of free land for settling the colony. Things here were not different other than the climate. Henry along with twenty three other men were eventually rounded up and banished across the river valley to the Bullom shore after being charged with engaging unprovoked rebellion. (Racine)

             “If slavery meant abuse and degradation, the experience of Atlantic creoles

provided strategies for limiting such maltreatment-contrary to notions that

they were libidinous  heathens without  family,  economy,  or society-and

even for winning to freedom. Freedom meant not only greater independence

but also identification with the larger group. Although the routes to social

Betterment were many, they generally involved reattachment to a commu-

nity through the agency of an influential patron or, better yet, an established

Institution that could broker a slave's incorporation into the larger society.” (Berlin)

The versatility of Henry Washington’s life shows his struggle for greater independence. He continued on through slavery and changed with every move to fit in and find his place. His journey led him back to Africa, and although he was still plagued with misfortune there he completed an Atlantic journey with the aid of circumstance and timing, the above excerpt from Berlin seems to sum this up for me.

References

Ira Berlin, “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African – American Society in Mainland North America.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Series, Vol. LIII, No. 2, April 1996, pp.251-288

Karen Racine and Beatriz G. Mamigonian (eds), Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, 1500-1850