Well, George Washington himself did not liberate his slaves until death. His dentures were fashioned from the teeth of his slaves. He married a wealthy widow who continued to keep her slaves despite the manumission of Washington's slaves. She lived in fear that they would kill ere based on excerpts from letters and diaries. Washington, while serving his first term as president in Philadelphia, constructed caves beneath his home to conceal his slaves from the community as PA abolished slavery during the American Revolution. When one of the slaves ran away, she told him she would return if he emancipated her children. Washington refused, and she never came back. Most historians believe he freed his personal human property to preserve his historic image.