Title
Honoring the life, courage, and resilience of
Ona "Oney"
Judge, whose story of escape to freedom has become a pillar in Black American history for its themes of autonomy, self-actualization, pride, and its particular significance in Philadelphia's abolitionist history.
Body
WHEREAS,
Ona Judge was born in Mount Vernon, Virginia in 1773. She was the daughter of an enslaved woman of African ancestry named Betty and an indentured servant of English descent named Andrew
Judge. Both
Ona's parents were among the 150 people who were forced to work on the Mount Vernon estate for the first President of the United States, George Washington, and his wife, Martha Washington.
Ona would serve Martha Washington continuously through her teenage years, combing Martha's hair daily, picking her outfits, traveling frequently with Martha, and even being forced to sleep in the room next to Martha's; and
WHEREAS, In 1789, when
Ona was just fifteen years old, George Washington was elected first President of the United States. He moved the family to the nation's capital in Philadelphia. At the time, Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 granted freedom from enslavement to any person that could establish residency in the state for more than six months. Because of this law, Philadelphia at the time had the largest Black free population in the North, with thousands of Black people living freely in the City; and
WHEREAS, Pennsylvania's abolition law threatened George Washington's use of slave labor, but he was adamant on continuing his way of life. George Washington created a system to evade the requirements of the law by rotating his enslaved staff across state lines to New Jersey or back to Mount Vernon after five months of work in Philadelphia. These workers were only brought back when their six month residency requirement restarted; and
WHEREAS, These acts did not break the Pennsylvania law, but instead created a loophole to evade the spirit of the abolitionist poli...
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