During the war, encouraged by the idealistic camaraderie of Laurens, Hamilton, and Lafayette, Washington may have entertained occasional thoughts of abolishing slavery. Now the war’s imminent end turned the question of runaway slaves into an urgent practical matter. Deeply ambivalent, he straddled both sides of the issue. That April, when Governor Benjamin Harrison of Virginia sent him a list of his slaves who had defected to the British side, Washington forwarded it to a Daniel Parker, who was deputized to recapture them. Washington feigned a cavalier indifference toward the fate of his own slaves who had found refuge aboard the Savage. “I scarce ever bestowed a thought on them,” he assured Harrison. “They have so many doors through which they can escape from New York that scarce anything but an inclination to return or voluntarily surrender of themselves will restore many to their former masters.”13 Did Washington, after eight years of fighting for freedom, feel vaguely guilty about reclaiming fugitive slaves? Did that clash with the way he had presented himself as a potential abolitionist in wartime discussions with his devoted young aides? When he contacted Parker in late April, Washington expressed skepticism that his own fugitive slaves would be found, while leaving no doubt he yearned for their recapture: “If by chance you should come at the knowledge of any of them, I will be much obliged by your securing them, so that I may obtain them again.”14
By now Washington had opened a civilized correspondence with Sir Guy Carleton about enforcing the peace treaty. No vengeance was apparent in Washington’s letters, only a humane spirit of wishing to retire any residual bitterness. This goodwill was soon threatened by the fate of three thousand escaped slaves in New York, many eking out a desperate existence as they squatted in camps of makeshift huts roofed with sailcloth. The city swarmed with slave catchers hired by southern masters to nab runaway slaves before they left aboard British ships. Even though one article of the peace treaty stipulated that Americans would be allowed to reclaim their slaves, Carleton balked at relinquishing these black refugees, claiming they had won their freedom when they reached British lines. To buttress this ruling, he issued three thousand certificates to protect the former slaves, making it a crime for anyone to abduct them.
Under mounting pressure from southern slave masters, Washington arranged a meeting with Carleton in early May at his own temporary headquarters on the Hudson River at Tappan, New York. Although they also discussed prisoner exchanges and evacuating British posts, slavery formed the crux of the meeting. Washington conducted himself with impeccable ceremony, greeting Carleton’s frigate Perseverance by the river, then proceeding with him by carriage up to a quaint little gabled house with beamed ceilings. Though suffering from a slight fever, Carleton sat tall and ramrod-straight, a man of inflexible integrity. In their talks, Washington’s demeanor was gravely cordial, and one of Carleton’s aides said that he “delivered himself without animation, with great slowness, and a low tone of voice.”15
Refusing to shrink from his unpleasant task, Washington said he intended to take possession “of all negroes and other property of the inhabitants of these states” being held by the British.16 When Carleton retorted that he had just evacuated six thousand people from New York to Nova Scotia, many of them black, Washington bridled at this apparent violation of the treaty. “Already embarked!” he exclaimed.17 One internal British memo portrayed Washington as demanding the slaves’ return “with all the grossness and ferocity of a captain of banditti.”18 Although Washington didn’t know it at the time, four of his slaves were among those being protected by the British. A former slave named Henry Washington had escaped from Mount Vernon in 1776 and would ultimately wind up in Sierra Leone, where he would apply agricultural techniques learned from George Washington. Of the seventeen slaves who found refuge on the Savage in 1781, Washington regained two of the women at Yorktown and at least six of the men in Philadelphia.
Seizing the moral high ground, the honorable Carleton insisted that the British would not renege on wartime promises to free slaves who had joined their ranks and stated with memorable certitude that “the national honor . . . must be kept with all colors.”19 Returning the former slaves “would be delivering them up, some possibly to execution and others to severe punishment, which in his opinion would be a dishonorable violation of the public faith pledged to the Negroes in the proclamations.”20
Although they didn’t say so openly, the British feared that some ex-slaves would commit suicide rather than return to bondage. Trepidation was rampant in the community of ex-slaves at the thought of returning to their masters. “This dreadful rumor filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror,” said a young black carpenter named Boston King, “especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North Carolina, and other parts and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New York or even dragging them out of their beds.”21 Carleton claimed that the British had pledged not to carry off slaves but never promised to restore them to owners. He left open the possibility of compensating the owners of slaves who had fled after hostilities ended and claimed to be keeping a register of former slaves for this purpose. Washington insisted that slaves would give false names and make detection impossible. Both sides agreed to name commissioners to arbitrate the issue and check passengers boarding ships in New York, although Washington doubted that former slaves would ever be reclaimed. Whatever his displeasure, he conducted himself like a gentleman. “Washington pulled out his watch, and, observing that it was near dinner time, offered wine and bitters,” recalled Carleton’s aide. “We all walked out and soon after were called to [a] plentiful repast under a tent.”22 In the aftermath of the meeting, the British refused to water down Carleton’s noble stand, and King George III indicated “his royal approbation” in “the fullest and most ample manner.”23 Before long the American commissioners in New York City found that they could only watch former slaves boarding ships and lacked any power to detain them.
AS WASHINGTON CONTEMPLATED the postwar world and wondered how to make America happy, free, and powerful, he was uniquely well positioned to affect the outcome. Adams, Jay, and Franklin were off on diplomatic assignment in Europe, while Hamilton and Madison were too junior to assume leadership roles. Washington had eliminated or outlived his military rivals, leaving his stature un-equaled. Since the Continental Army had suffered most from the defective Articles of Confederation, Washington was a natural proponent of national unity and worried about anarchy and bloodshed erupting in the war’s aftermath. He saw that the states, to protect themselves against European interference, needed to band together in a more effective union and that Congress required an independent revenue source to service wartime debt.
The prospect of peace posed exceptional challenges for Washington. Throughout the war, he had scrupulously respected congressional supremacy and restricted expressing his political opinions to private correspondence. By serving as a blank slate onto which Americans could project their values, he had been able to unify the country and enhance his own power. Now, as he returned to the status of a private citizen, those inhibitions were lifted, and he did not know how far to go in articulating his views openly. His instincts were the antithesis of a demagogue’s: he feared his own influence and agonized over exerting too much power. On March 31 he broached this dilemma to Hamilton, noting that his private letters “teemed” with opinions about political reforms, “but how far any further essay by me might be productive of the wished for end, or appear to arrogate more than belongs to me, depends so much upon popular opinion and the temper and disposition of [the] people that it is not easy to decide.”24 A major unresolved issue was whether he should cast off the burdens of public life and return to private citizenship. Writing to Lafayette, he sounded as if he meant to retire permanently to Mount Vernon. Echoing Hamlet, he stated that henceforth “my mind shall be unbent and I will endeavor to glide down the stream of life ’till I come to that abyss from whence no traveler is permitted to return.”25