Oney "Ona" Judge was born about 1773 at Mount Vernon, the plantation of George Washington, to Betty, an enslaved seamstress, and Andrew Judge, an English tailor and indentured servant.

In 1780 Pennsylvania passed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. It prohibited importation of slaves while protecting the property rights of Pennsylvania slaveholders. It freed only the future children of the current enslaved. Nonresidents could hold slaves in the state for up to six months but, if slaves were held beyond that deadline, Pennsylvania law gave them the power to free themselves. The law exempted Congressmen from the provisions of the residency deadline.When the federal government relocated for ten years to Philadelphia beginning in 1790, officials of the executive and judicial branches, among whom were many slaveholders, had to comply with the law regulating holding of slaves for more than 6 months in the state.
Washington and other slaveholders contended (privately) that, as they were residents of other states, the law should not bind them. Washington held that he was living in Pennsylvania solely as a consequence of Philadelphia's being the temporary seat of the federal government. His attorney general, Edmund Randolph, advised him that, by strict legal interpretation, a slave's residency in Pennsylvania could be terminated by spending one day outside the state. As other slaveholders had exploited this loophole, Pennsylvania eliminated it through a 1788 amendment to the Gradual Abolition Act, prior to the federal government's arrival in the state.
Washington repeatedly violated the amendment to the state law by systematically rotating the slaves serving at the President's House in and out of the state to prevent their establishing a six-month continuous residency. He also was careful to avoid spending six continuous months in Pennsylvania himself (which might have been interpreted as his establishing legal residency). He continued to say, as he was a citizen of Virginia, he was subject to its laws regarding slavery.
Washington was traveling in the South in May 1791 when the first six-month deadline approached. Martha Washington took Oney Judge and Christopher Sheels to Trenton, New Jersey for two days to interrupt their Pennsylvania residency. She had other slaves transported back to Mount Vernon prior to the deadline to prevent them from obtaining freedom

Judge fled when the Washington's were planning to return to Virginia. She feared being given to the First Lady's granddaughter as a wedding present, and thought if she returned to Virginia, she would never be free. Judge said in an 1845 interview:
"Whilst they were packing up to go to Virginia, I was packing to go, I didn't know where; for I knew that if I went back to Virginia, I should never get my liberty. I had friends among the colored people of Philadelphia, had my things carried there beforehand, and left Washington's house while they were eating dinner."[12]
Runaway advertisements announce Judge's escape to freedom from the President's House on May 21, 1796. The following appeared in The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 24, 1796:
Advertisement. Absconded from the household of the President of the United States, ONEY JUDGE, a light mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy hair. She is of middle stature, slender, and delicately formed, about 20 years of age. She has many changes of good clothes, of all sorts, but they are not sufficiently recollected to be described—As there was no suspicion of her going off, nor no provocation to do so, it is not easy to conjecture whither she has gone, or fully, what her design is; but as she may attempt to escape by water, all masters of vessels are cautioned against admitting her into them, although it is probable she will attempt to pass for a free woman, and has, it is said, where- withal to pay her passage. Ten dollars will be paid to any person who will bring her home, if taken in the city, or on board any vessel in the harbour; — and a reasonable additional sum if apprehended at, and brought from a greater distance, and in proportion to the distance. FREDERICK KITT, Steward. May 23

свернуть