Stories

James Fayette, the Spy Both Sides Trusted

He spied on the British from inside their own camp, then had to petition the Virginia legislature for his own freedom because the law only covered soldiers.

Ona Judge, the Woman Who Said No

She was twenty-two, enslaved in the President's House, and about to be given away as a wedding present. On a May evening in 1796, she walked out the door instead.

Yorktown: The Town the Sea Decided

Yorktown was a tobacco port for ninety years before it was anything else. What settled its most famous moment was not the land at all. It was the water.

Chef Hercules, the Cook Who Chose Freedom

The true story of Hercules Posey, George Washington's enslaved head chef, who self-emancipated from Mount Vernon on February 22, 1797 and was never found.

Wheatley, the Poet Behind Our Bestseller

Our bestselling candle is named for a poet who published a book while still enslaved, and who met George Washington at twenty-two on the strength of her writing.