- 1793: As president, George Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act. The law gave slaveholders the right to recapture enslaved Africans even in “free states” that had abolished slavery.
- Washington gave his overseers written authorization to whip those enslaved Africans he considered to be in need of such “correction.”
- On numerous occasions, enslaved men and women ran away from the Washington household in an attempt to gain their freedom.
