Slaves and Inheritances
Upon her marriage, Martha inherited 61 slaves from her late father's estate. Thomas almost immediately auctioned them off to raise cash, an action that may have inspired the stern rebuke against the breaking up of slave families that George Washington delivered in his will. Her step-grandfather bequeathed her $8,000, 1/32 of his estate.
Martha Washington died in 1802, and Thomas Peter served as executor of her estate. The Peters purchased at a private sale many objects from Mount Vernon to preserve her grandparents' legacy. Martha Peter inherited approximately 35 dower slaves from Mount Vernon following her grandmother's death (from grandfather Daniel Parke Custis's estate). She later inherited about 40 additional slaves following the 1811 death of her mother (from father John Parke Custis's estate).
Read more about this topic: Martha Parke Custis Peter
Famous quotes containing the words slaves and, slaves and/or inheritances:
“When white men were willing to put their own offspring in the kitchen and corn field and allowed them to be sold into bondage as slaves and degraded them as another man’s slave, the retribution of wrath was hanging over this country and the South paid penance in four years of bloody war.”
—Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)
“The laws of custom make our [returning a visit] necessary. O how I hate this vile custom which obliges us to make slaves of ourselves! to sell the most precious property we boast, our time;—and to sacrifice it to every prattling impertinent who chooses to demand it!”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)