$300 m redo Phili's "White House"-but no memorial for the slave quarters

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ancestors30aug30.story

A Historic Clash of Slavery, Liberty
In Philadelphia, the lack of a memorial for Washington's slave quarters revives dispute.
By David Zucchino
Times Staff Writer

August 30, 2004

PHILADELPHIA — In October 1795 an African named Joe, who was born a slave and died a slave, arrived here from Mount Vernon, Va. He accompanied the presidential coach of George Washington, who called him "Postilion Joe," for Joe was a postilion, or footman.

Joe worked at the Robert Morris house, which served as the presidential residence during Philadelphia's decade as the new nation's capital. Many historians believe he slept in slave quarters behind the mansion, now known as President's House.

Today, the place where Joe and Washington's other slaves once worked and lived is a few feet from the entrance to a new building housing the Liberty Bell, which opened in October 2003 as part of the redesign of Independence National Historical Park.

The National Park Service spent $300 million on a decade-long project improving the park but did not provide a memorial for the slave quarters — or, for that matter, the so-called first White House. The oversight outraged descendants of slaves, who formed the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC — pronounced "attack"). It also drew the ire of a crusading Philadelphia historian whose discovery of Postilion Joe, announced last month, has reignited the 2-year-old dispute.<snip>

• When Oney Judge, Martha Washington's maidservant, escaped to New Hampshire in 1796, Washington ordered his Treasury secretary to find a way to have his wife's "property" returned — after Martha falsely claimed Judge had been abducted by a Frenchman. Judge had fled after Martha informed her that she was to be a wedding gift to Martha's granddaughter.

• Under Pennsylvania's 1780 Gradual Abolition Act, Washington risked losing his slaves (technically, six belonged to Martha) to freedom if he kept them in the state for more than six months. He made sure they were regularly moved out of the state, if only briefly.

• Inside the presidential mansion, Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, buttressing the rights of slave owners to recapture escaped slaves from other states.

<snip>

Inside, historical panels mention two of Washington's "house slaves." One features a copy of a Gilbert Stuart painting of Washington's black cook. Lawler says the slaves of the mansion deserve much more.

"Slavery is permanently stamped on this tiny piece of real estate," he wrote on the website of the nonprofit Independence Hall Assn. "That fact should not be hidden or minimized, but acknowledged and embraced. We all have a need to touch the wound before we can understand. And from understanding, comes healing."