That Blacks could actually be “free,” therefore, sent a strong, unwanted signal to those entrapped in human bondage. George Washington was greatly concerned, as he brought his enslaved entourage to his presidential residence in Philadelphia, a city where free Blacks were nearly five times more prevalent than those “still tethered to the institution of slavery.” He worried that “the idea of freedom might be too great a temptation for them to resist.” His wife, Martha Washington, was even more determined to “shield … her slaves from the contagion of liberty.”28
