Ona Judge

Ona Judge Staines (c. 1773 – February 25, 1848), also known as Oney Judge, an enslaved woman owned by the George Washington family, was born and held at the family's plantation at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

New York City served as the first national capital, from January 1785 to December 1790. George Washington was elected the first President of the United States under the U.S. Constitution in early 1789, and was inaugurated at Federal Hall on April 30, 1789. Judge worked in both the New York presidential households, and later in the President's House in Philadelphia. Although Pennsylvania had begun a gradual abolition of slavery in 1780, slaveholding members of Congress were specifically exempted from the state law. In December 1790, when Philadelphia became the temporary national capital for a 10-year period, the question of whether the president, vice-president, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other officers of the federal government also were exempted from Pennsylvania's abolition law remained untested.

Judge was in her 20s when she escaped from the Philadelphia household in May 1796, to get to freedom farther north. She was classified as a fugitive slave and Washington advertised for her return. She had learned that Martha Washington intended to transfer her ownership to her granddaughter, which meant Judge would be returned to Virginia with little chance of freedom.

Judge reached Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, a free state. There she married, had children, and converted to Christianity. Though Judge was never formally freed, after Washington's death, his survivors ultimately stopped pressing her to return to enslavement in Virginia.