Episodes

New from the Washington Presidential Library, Leadership and Legacy invites prominent leaders and historians to reflect on their growth, challenges, and innovative approaches that made them the leaders that they are today, as well as how these questions can be informed by the past — in particular the lessons and legacy of George Washington. Learn more at ⁠www.georgewashingtonpodcast.com.

Now Available on all platforms! In this new podcast from the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, we'll explore George Washington as both President and precedent. From the very origins of the US presidency at the Constitutional Convention to Washington’s final warnings in his Farewell Address, we will break down how one man shaped the Presidency—and the many times that it could have all fallen apart. Learn more at ⁠www.georgewashingtonpodcast.com.

What did George Washington write in his personal copy of the Constitution? Who left behind messages inside some of Washington’s books? How did Washington learn to become a professional soldier? Mount Vernon introduces its latest podcast and video series, The Secrets of Washington's Archives. Come explore the books, manuscripts, and maps found inside the George Washington Presidential Library’s special collections and hear stories about George Washington, the American Revolution, and the Preside...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. The Quander Family can trace its roots in Virginia and Maryland back to the early seventeenth century. This family became part of the Mount Vernon story in the early nineteenth century when a free Black man named Charles Quander married Nancy Cart...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. Mount Vernon was as much Martha Washington’s home as it was George Washington’s. It was Martha’s wealth, after all, that helped fund the plantation’s expansion and allowed George to claim his place among the Virginia elite. Like so many Virginia w...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. As a child, Ann Chinn didn’t understand her family’s connection to Mount Vernon, the Washingtons, or the Custis Family. But later in life, she came to learn that she was a descendent of Sall Twine. Twine was a woman assigned to work as a field lab...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. The origins of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community are linked directly to the early history of slavery in Virginia. Although the first enslaved people arrived in Virginia in 1619, slavery did not become the dominate labor system in the Chesapeake Ba...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. Labor dictated life for enslaved communities at Mount Vernon and beyond. And yet despite their enslavement, people like Sambo Anderson, Kate, and Carolina Branham carved out time for themselves, created families, and forged relationships – sometim...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. Historians are in constant conversation with each other about the past. As we uncover evidence, ask new and better questions of our sources, and think about history in relation to our own present, the way that we interpret the past can and does ch...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. In Episode 6 of Intertwined, we began to explore what happened to the enslaved community after January 1, 1801, the day that Martha Washington emancipated the people once enslaved by her late husband. That day transformed the community forever....

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. Throughout Intertwined, archaeological research helped us uncover the lives of Kate, Doll, Frank Lee, Neptune, and hundreds of other people enslaved at Mount Vernon. While we can learn many important details about the past from letters, account...

In Intertwined Stories, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon by bringing you extended versions of some of the interviews with the series' contributors. In Episode 5 of Intertwined we encountered Hercules Posey, a man enslaved by the Washingtons, worked as their chef, and who self-emancipated from Mount Vernon in February 1797. For over 200 years, we had little idea of Posey’s whereabouts after he...

Intertwined is a story about the entangled lives of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community, the Washington Family, and the legacies of slavery at the historic plantation today. The stories we tell in the series are stories of a shared past that continues to shape us all. Music was an essential part of life in eighteenth-century America. It remains so our in own time. Music helps us to experience collectively life’s great joys and its darkest moments in a way that generations past would still recog...

Episode 8: "Legacies" Interpreting slavery at Mount Vernon was not part of the mission of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association when the organization purchased the estate in the mid-nineteenth century. Over time, however, investigating the people enslaved at Mount Vernon and educating the public about their lives and legacies has become central to the Association’s work. In our final episode, we look at how interpreting slavery has become intertwined with interpreting the Washingtons at Mount Ver...

Episode 7: “Preserving” Edmund Parker never knew George and Martha Washington, but he knew Mount Vernon and the Washington Family very well. Parker was one of the many enslaved people who labored on the plantation in the nineteenth century after the Washingtons’ deaths. Later, as a free man, Parker was among Mount Vernon’s first interpreters when the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association purchased the property. In this episode, we explore what happened to the Mount Vernon landscape in the nineteenth ...

Episode 6: “Leaving” Nancy Carter Quander was just a child when George Washington died in December 1799, but his death changed her life forever. Washington’s decision to emancipate his enslaved people in his will had consequences for Mount Vernon’s enslaved community and their descendants that persist into our own time. In this episode, we look at the meaning of freedom for a community intertwined through marriage and kinship, its continued evolution after Martha Washington’s own death in 1802, ...

Episode 5: “Resisting” In May 1796, Ona Judge self-emancipated by fleeing from President George Washington’s Philadelphia home. Her escape was just one example of the many ways that Mount Vernon’s enslaved community resisted their bondage. Some acts were subtle and easy to miss, others were much more dramatic, regardless the threat of punishment was ever present. In this episode, we follow Judge’s flight to freedom, and explore the stories of Hercules Posey and Harry Washington, to examine how e...

Episode 4: “Living” Kate, her husband Will, and their children lived and worked on Muddy Hole Farm. When her family suffered a tragedy, they drew strength from the kinship ties and friendships they shared with other members of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community. In this episode, we examine daily life, culture, and religious practices of the enslaved people at the plantation. We also explore how on-going archeological work at Mount Vernon helps us piece together the enslaved community’s lived expe...

Episode 3: “Revolutions” William Lee was George Washington’s trusted enslaved valet. For over two decades, he attended Washington from early morning until nightfall. In times of peace and war, Lee rode with Washington through Mount Vernon’s fields, out to his western lands, and into battle against the British. In this episode, we follow Lee’s journey to investigate revolutions in Mount Vernon’s agricultural life, American politics, and Washington’s views on slavery. Featuring: Dr. Bruce R...

Episode 2: “Laboring” As an overseer, Davy Gray was entrusted by George Washington with the management of the enslaved laborers on Dogue Run Farm. His weekly reports to Washington revealed progress toward Washington’s goal of transforming Mount Vernon into a model of British agriculture. But Gray was also enslaved, just like the men, women, and children he oversaw. In this episode, we explore Gray’s complicated story to learn about the daily labor of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community and Washing...

Episode 1: “Passages” Sambo Anderson was just a boy when he was captured in West Africa, survived the Middle Passage, and purchased by an ambitious George Washington sometime in the late 1760s. During his years of enslavement at Mount Vernon, Anderson became a carpenter, a husband, and a father. In this episode, we tell the story of Anderson’s life to explore the rise of slavery in the Chesapeake Bay region, George and Martha Washington’s connections to the transatlantic slave trade, and the law...

Intertwined tells the story of the more than 577 people enslaved by George and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon. Told through the biographies of Sambo Anderson, Davy Gray, William Lee, Kate, Ona Judge, Nancy Carter Quander, Edmund Parker, Caroline Branham, and the Washingtons, this eight-part podcast series explores the lives and labors of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community, and how we interpret slavery at the historic site today. Intertwined is narrated by Brenda Parker and is a production o...