Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery
威尼斯人娱乐场 Museum
Online
Author Bruce A. Ragsdale takes a fresh, original look at George Washington as an innovative land manager whose singular passion for farming would unexpectedly lead him to reject slavery. Washington at the Plow depicts the 鈥渇irst farmer of America鈥� as a leading practitioner of the New Husbandry, a transatlantic movement that spearheaded advancements in crop rotation. Slavery was a key part of Washington鈥檚 pursuits, and he saw enslaved field workers and artisans as means of agricultural development. But Washington eventually found that his inability to reconcile ideals of scientific farming and rural order with race-based slavery led him to reconsider the traditional foundations of the Virginia plantation. As Ragsdale shows, it was the inefficacy of chattel slavery, as much as moral revulsion at the practice, that informed Washington鈥檚 famous decision to free his slaves after his death.
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