Actually, by the late 1700s the vast majority of Europe had outlawed slavery, Slavery was not practiced in most of Asia (outside of India) Australia didn't have slavery. So Africa, Middle East, USA and some European colonies had slavery at the time. As an educated man Washington had to know it was wrong and continued to practice it. The English, French and others criticized us for it at nearly every social and political meeting. Jefferson took some major criticisms while he was in Paris for his slaving.
I think some things are absolute and can not be sugar coated or ignored. Regardless of time or cultural context, certain things are wrong and IMHO...evil
I don't think it should be sugar coated or ignored, and I hope I have no come across that way. Nor did I say the act wasn't evil. It was. and I do not mean that lightly. It was evil.
But I would not judge men of that time and place the way I would judge men of this time and place. You are right that the tide was turning, and that people in Europe critized them for it, and that they knew that it should end. But I won't judge them the way I judge modern slavers in the few countries that still have it. And Australia, at least, didn't have slaves for a reason . . . it had prisioners who were treated worse than slaves because they were worthless to those using them, and occasional press gangs of aborigenes, when they didn't shoot them on sight.
I see 3 ways to view Washington for example (ok, more than that, but 3 major ones)
The first is "Saint Washington" who couldn't tell a lie, and was the father of our country . . . we all learned it in grade school. Its not true, and its a very boring story anyway.
Then there is "Monster Washington" the slave owner, who didn't free the slaves when they made the Constitution (there are reasons why he couldn't, actually, but that's not part of this story). The hypocrite, the dead old white man . . .
Then there is this story, drawing mostly from memory: General/President Washington was a brave, intelligent man. He was also a snob and a hypocrite. He was a planation owner who viewed himself as country gentry, in a place where such people still owned slaves . . . had to to stay in business. He was devoted to his family, but his family was troubled. He was prickly about his honor. He worked his slaves hard, perhaps too hard, but was considered at the time to treat them well and fairly. He was a good guerrilla leader, but not all that good of a general, though he was devoted to his men. He was a very lucky general. He was not one the most philosophical of the Fathers, but he certainly valued freedom, and certainly conisdered the fact that there was something hypocritical about keeping slavery going and fighting for freedom. But most of his slaves weren't his (they were part of his wife's dowry) and it would ruin him to free them. And to try and ban slavery then would have torn the infant nation apart. Given the chance to become king, he turned it down flat, and intervened several times after his presidency to prevent political events that might have killed the country. After his death, he freed his slaves. If he had really wanted to, he could have done so sooner. He should have. But that would have been seen as an eccentric thing to do at best. He could have demanded the slaves be freed when the country escaped Britian. Perhaps he should have . . . that would have been a very good thing to do . . . although very, very politically stupid. So he didn't.
I think the last story (or collection of facts) is fair to the man. He was good in some ways, he was bad in some ways. He was remarkable in many ways. He was human. I think, that in balence, for the time and place that he lived, he was basically a good man, though that is open to debate. He was certainly viewed at the time, even by his enemies, as a good man.
I think to understand history you have to step into it, and judge it on its own terms. To understand the historical figures, you must do the same. That doesn't mean sugar-coating the bad, or ignoring it. Nor does it mean viewing the good as pristine and perfect. But it does mean accepting that what we view as a hopeless evil was not viewed so then; it was still open for debate, and most of that debate focused on the slave trade, not the practice of slavery itself. It does mean understanding that it was a different world, and one that was changing quickly. In less than 100 years, slavery would end, after thousands of years of horror and cruelty. But it was still there then . . . and still practiced in many places, including the colonies of those same European nations that banned it on their own shores. Perhaps it was a time of hypocrisy.
I think what I truly take umbrage to is the idea that this men were monsters. I do not believe they were. We can debate whether they were, on balence, good men or bad men. But I don't think they gloried in the suffering of others, and I think that they usually believed they were doing what they had to do. That thing was, at times, very wrong . . . but, even when they knew that it was an evil practice, they did not view it as we do. For us, slavery is unthinkable. For them it was ordinary. Wrong, perhaps, but ordinary. To understand them, you have to see the world through their eyes . . . to understand the age you must see it through the eyes of those who lived in it. I think there is more to be learned that way.
For that matter, to me at least, to understand slavery, to really understand what it was like, and the depth of evil that it is, you have to look at it through the eyes of those involved. Both the slaves and the masters, at the reasoning, the justification, the lies that people told themselves. To understand (though not justify) why anyone would ever do this.
