{"id":53456,"date":"2017-04-13T00:04:51","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T00:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=53456"},"modified":"2017-04-13T00:04:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T00:04:51","slug":"portsmouths-ona-judge-is-famous-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=53456","title":{"rendered":"Portsmouth\u2019s Ona Judge is famous at last"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portsmouth\u2019s Ona Judge is famous at last<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Portsmouth Herald<\/a>
\n2017-04-03<\/p>\n

J. Dennis Robinson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nRecently thrust into celebrity, Ona Judge<\/a> was enslaved by George<\/a> and Martha Washington<\/a>. Ona quietly escaped the President’s House in Philadelphia<\/a> in 1796 and lived as a seamstress in Greenland, New Hampshire<\/a>. Washington described the runaway in a newspaper as “a light mulatto<\/a> girl, much freckled.” This illustration by Emily Arnold McCully appears on the cover of her children’s book, “The Escape of Oney Judge<\/a>,” published by Scholastic Press.
\n[Courtesy photo]<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It\u2019s about time America learned her name. Enslaved by George<\/a> and Martha Washington<\/a>, a young Ona Judge<\/a> fled to Portsmouth<\/a> in 1796. A skilled seamstress, Ona Judge lived the rest of her long life in the shadows \u2014 impoverished, independent and defiant. Her presumed burial site remains obscure and unmarked on private land in nearby Greenland<\/a>. But the story of a young black woman who resisted a president is finally being told \u2014 and told again.<\/p>\n

Today you can read about Ona Judge (1773-1848) in The New York Times<\/em>. You can hear her story on National Public Radio<\/em>, watch her on a National Geographic<\/em> special, or find her on popular websites like History.com<\/em> and CNN<\/em>. Ona is featured in \u201cLives Bound Together,\u201d a special exhibit of more than 300 enslaved Africans at Mount Vernon<\/a>. She is portrayed by re-enactors from New Hampshire<\/a> to Virginia<\/a>, and her story is told at the site of the President\u2019s House in Philadelphia<\/a>, where she made her daring solo escape from the Washingtons at age 20.<\/p>\n

The big news for Ona, and for American history, is the success of a runaway bestseller titled \u201cNever Caught, The Washingtons\u2019 Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge<\/a>.\u201d Author Erica Armstrong Dunbar<\/a>, examines the first president\u2019s use of \u201chuman property\u201d from the slave\u2019s point of view…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s about time America learned her name. Enslaved by George and Martha Washington, a young Ona Judge fled to Portsmouth in 1796. A skilled seamstress, Ona Judge lived the rest of her long life in the shadows \u2014 impoverished, independent and defiant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,459,8,6940,20,25],"tags":[1712,26838,26840,1714,5755,26837,26839,26842,26841],"class_list":["post-53456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","category-women","tag-george-washington","tag-greenland","tag-j-dennis-robinson","tag-martha-washington","tag-new-hampshire","tag-ona-judge","tag-portsmouth","tag-portsmouth-herald","tag-the-portsmouth-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53457,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53456\/revisions\/53457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}