Ona Judge Staines, also known as Oney Judge, was an enslaved woman who famously escaped the household of the first president of the United States, George Washington, and became a symbol of resistance against slavery.
Ona Judge was born around 1773 at Mount Vernon, where she was enslaved from birth. Her mother, Betty, was enslaved at the estate, and her father, Andrew Judge, was a white English tailor who worked as an indentured servant. Under the legal principle of partus sequitur ventrem, which held that children followed the status of their mother, Ona was born into slavery.
Judge’s early life was spent at Mount Vernon, where she eventually became a personal servant to the wife of George Washington. Though Martha treated her as an attendant, Ona was denied an education and religious instruction, as was typical for the enslaved people at the time. Her status as a servant within the Washington household meant she was constantly at the center of the family’s life, serving in various roles.
In 1789, when George Washington became the first president of the United States, he took several enslaved Africans, including Judge, then 16, to New York City, which was then the nation’s capital, to work in his presidential household.
Following the transfer of the national capital to Philadelphia in 1790, Judge was one of nine enslaved persons, Washington took to Philadelphia to work in the President’s House. Along with other enslaved people, Ona was part of the workforce that supported Washington’s daily activities.
When the national capital was transferred to Philadelphia in 1790, Ona Judge was among the select group of slaves George Washington brought with him to serve in the President’s House. As one of only two enslaved women in the household, Judge played an important role in maintaining the daily operations of Washington’s residence. From attending to Martha Washington as her personal servant to supporting the broader needs of the household, Ona was part of the carefully chosen workforce tasked with ensuring the smooth running of the President’s domestic life. Her presence there placed her at the center of one of the most politically significant residences in the nation, all while she quietly observed the workings of power and dreamed of freedom.
Judge’s life soon took a darker turn when she learned she was to be given as a wedding gift to Martha Washington’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Parke Custis Law, who was known for her extreme wickedness. Realizing that her situation would worsen under the her control, Judge decided to escape.
In 1796, while the Washingtons were preparing to return to Virginia for a brief period, Ona Judge seized her opportunity to flee. She packed her belongings and left while the family was dining, heading toward the free city of Philadelphia’s black community. She was able to find refuge with Philadelphia’s abolitionist community before making her way to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Runaway advertisements in Philadelphia newspapers document Judge’s escape to freedom from the President’s House on May 21, 1796. The one below appeared in The Philadelphia Gazette on May 23, 1796:
Shortly after her arrival in Portsmouth, Ona Judge was recognized by a friend of the Washington family. By September 1, George Washington learned of her whereabouts and wrote to Oliver Wolcott Jr., the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, requesting her capture and return by ship.
At Wolcott’s request, Joseph Whipple, Portsmouth’s collector of customs, interviewed Judge and reported back. Whipple warned that attempting to abduct Judge could spark a riot among abolitionist sympathizers at the docks. Refusing to force her onto a ship, Whipple instead relayed Judge’s offer to return voluntarily if the Washingtons guaranteed her freedom after their deaths. They refused, and the plan to capture her was abandoned.
Although Washington could have used the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which he signed into law, to recover Judge, the legal process would have attracted public attention and criticism. Consequently, efforts to recapture her stalled.
In New Hampshire, Ona Judge married Jack Staines, a free Black sailor, and became known as Ona Judge Staines. The couple had children, and Judge became active in her local Christian community. Determined to educate herself, she taught herself how to read and write—skills that had been denied to her during her enslavement in the Washington household.
Washington’s pursuit of Judge persisted even after his retirement in 1797. In August 1799, he enlisted his nephew, Burwell Bassett Jr., to travel to New Hampshire and persuade her to return. By then, Judge was a mother and refused Bassett’s offer. Learning of Bassett’s plan to abduct her, a local ally warned Judge to go into hiding, thwarting yet another attempt to re-enslave her.
After her husband’s death in 1803, Judge faced immense hardship. Unable to support her children, she relied on the assistance of the Jacks family, who sheltered her. Her daughters, Eliza and Nancy, were placed into indentured servitude, and her son, Will, was apprenticed as a sailor.
In the 1840s, Ona Judge shared her story with abolitionist newspapers, including The Liberator and The Granite Freeman. These interviews shed light on her life as an enslaved person in the Washington household, her daring escape, and her struggles in freedom. She expressed no regret about her decision to flee, despite the hardships, stating, “No, I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by the means.”
Though she never achieved legal freedom and remained a fugitive under the law, Ona Judge lived the rest of her life in New Hampshire.
Judge Staines died in Greenland, New Hampshire, on February 25, 1848, having lived a life defined by her courage, her escape from slavery, and her defiance of the Washington family.
