Lives Bound Together: Primary Sources
This page provides resources accompanying the Books and Manuscripts Galleries in the Lives Bound Together Virtual Exhibit. It contains different primary sources that explore the stories of the enslaved community at Mount Vernon. Use these resources to aid exhibit exploration, learn more about the system of slavery, and find useful learning materials.
Education Sources
Click on the link to access interactive primary sources on slavery, ranging from farm reports to archaeological artifacts and census records.
Explore the Primary Sources
Oral Histories
This twenty-minute video explores the oral histories passed down from the descendants of the enslaved community at Mount Vernon.
Listen to Oral Histories
Database of Mount Vernon's Enslaved Community
Information comes in the forms of artifacts, letters, reports, and articles. The Database of Mount Vernon's Enslaved Community compiles all of this information and identifies individuals who labored at Mount Vernon.
Research an IndividualVideo
Archaeology of the Slave Quarters
Learn more about how archaeology has helped us understand how people lived at Mount Vernon.
The Document Room
Primary sources help tell us about the people who were enslaved at Mount Vernon. Many of these primary source documents are kept in the room below at the Washington Library.
Forgotten No Longer
Click the link to learn about the archaeological research on the cemetery at Mount Vernon
Archaeology Online - The House for Families
Archaeology has helped us uncover a lot about people who lived at Mount Vernon. The House for Families project, in particular, contains traces of artifacts that the enslaved community once used, at a site where the majority of enslaved peoples who worked at Mansion House Farm lived.
Virtual Tour
Explore the 18th-century working and living spaces of the people who were enslaved at Mount Vernon.
Museum Collections
Despite being primarily used by the Washingtons, these objects mostly interacted with the enslaved community who created them, served with them, or fixed them.
How do we know about the enslaved population that lived at Mount Vernon?
Primary Sources
Use these primary sources to learn more about the enslaved community at Mount Vernon
- George Washington on Ona Judge
- 1799 George Washington List of Enslaved People
- French's Slave Census, July 1799
- 1801 Martha Washington List of Enslaved Peoples
- Database of Mount Vernon's Enslaved Community
- The Mount Vernon Mansion
- 1781 HMS Savage List
- Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
- Dogue Run Farm Lease
- 1793 Farm Report
- Weekly Report
- 1793 Carpenter's Report
- 1793 Gardener's Report
- 1791 Receipted Bill
- Martha Washington to Fanny Bassett, 1791
- Distillery Ledger
- Distillery Ledger Transcription
Secondary Sources
Use these secondary sources to learn more about researching the enslaved community at Mount Vernon
- Ona Judge - Video
- Ona Judge
- Researching Slavery
- Forgotten No Longer - An Archaeology Project
- Washington's Changing Views
- Washington's Complex Views on Slavery Timeline
- George Washington and Slavery
- Slavery in the United States
- Gradual Abolition Act of 1780
- Hercules
- The George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon
- Ask an Archaeologist
Back to Lives Bound Together Resources
Click the link to go back to the Lives Bound Together home page
Back to Lives Bound Together