"The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret"

"The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon is a scholarly book on the history of slavery at Mount Vernon during the times of George Washington. Written by Mary V. Thompson, the book was published in the United States in 2019.

"The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon
AuthorMary V. Thompson
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistory
PublisherUniversity of Virginia Press
Publication date
2019
Pages502
ISBN0813941849
OCLC1035366283

Background

Thompson stated that she had worked on the book for "about thirty years, although for a lot of that time, it didn't know that it wanted to be a book."[1]

Topics covered

Thompson's book contains major chapters that focus on topics that include George Washington and Martha Washington as slave owners; George Washington's changes in views about slavery over time; supervisors of slaves who were hired, indentured, or enslaved; family life in Mount Vernon's slave community; the slaves' quarters; the slaves' diets; slaves' recreation and private enterprise; and control and resistance and among Mount Vernon's slaves.

Reviews and influence

Reviews have appeared in the London Review of Books,[2] Journal of Social History,[3] the Washington Independent Review of Books,[4] The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,[5] the Journal of the American Revolution,[6] and Choice.[7]

In the London Review of Books, Eric Foner wrote that

virtually all the information Thompson draws on comes from whites; as she ruefully notes, 'only occasionally can the voice of one of the slaves be heard.' Nonetheless, her command of the sources makes possible an almost encyclopedic description of the conditions of slave life. What did slaves eat? At Mount Vernon, cornmeal, buttermilk, fish and, at harvest time, meat, supplemented by food grown in their own gardens or stolen from the big house. What clothing did Washington provide? Aside from the livery for domestic slaves, male slaves each year received a wool jacket and two pairs of trousers, two coarse linen shirts and a pair of shoes; females got a jacket, a skirt, a pair of stockings and two linen shifts.... On the much debated question of whether African elements survived in slave culture, Thompson acknowledges that the evidence is scanty but cautiously suggests that some naming practices, religious beliefs and methods of food preparation reflect an African inheritance....[2]

In the Washington Independent Review of Books, Henry Wiencek wrote that

Drawing upon decades of research and writings as staff historian at Mount Vernon, Mary V. Thompson has, in “The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret,” produced a superb, moving portrait of the plantation's enslaved community. Thompson's admiration for George and Martha Washington is strong, but her focus is on the enslaved, whose stories she tells vividly and without sentimentality.[4]

Editions

The book was published by in 2019 by University of Virginia Press:

  • Thompson, Mary V. (2019). "The only unavoidable subject of regret": George Washington, slavery, and the enslaved community at Mount Vernon. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-4184-4. OCLC 1035366283.


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References
  1. ""The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret" [Washington Library Author Interviews]". George Washington's Mount Vernon. National Library for the Study of George Washington. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  2. Foner, Eric (9 December 2019). "Tremendous in His Wrath: George Washington, Slave Owner". London Review of Books. 41 (24). Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  3. Dickinson, Michael (16 January 2020). "Untitled [Review of "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon. By Mary V. Thompson]". Journal of Social History. doi:10.1093/jsh/shz124.
  4. Wiencek, Henry (2 August 2019). ""The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon". Washington Independent Review of Books.
  5. Conley, Nathaniel (2019). "Review of "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 127 (4): 341–343. ISSN 0042-6636.
  6. Symington, Timothy (17 July 2019). ""The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon". Journal of the American Revolution.
  7. Mann, B. A. (September 2019). "Untitled [Review of "The only unavoidable subject of regret": George Washington, slavery, and the enslaved community at Mount Vernon]". Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 57 (1): 97.


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