Slavery History Erased from National Parks

In 1790, George Washington brought eight enslaved people from Mount Vernon to serve in the President's House in Philadelphia — among them Oney Judge, who would later escape to New Hampshire, and Hercules, his chief cook. Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, the first legislative abolition of slavery in the United States, entitled enslaved people to claim freedom after six months of residency. Washington deliberately rotated his enslaved workers back to Virginia every six months to prevent them from gaining their freedom under that law. The exhibit that told this story opened on December 15, 2010, steps from where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

On January 22, 2026, NPS employees dismantled the exhibit. On February 16, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe — a George W. Bush appointee — ordered it restored, writing: "As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984 now existed, with its motto 'Ignorance is Strength,' this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not." A Third Circuit judge paused the injunction one hour before the restoration deadline. The case remains in litigation.

The 26 removed panels told the stories of individual enslaved people — their names, their work, their resistance. Panels like "The Dirty Business of Slavery," "Life Under Slavery," and "Oney Escapes!" gave visitors the names the Declaration of Independence left out. Oney Judge, Martha Washington's personal attendant, escaped in May 1796 at age 20, aided by Philadelphia's free Black community. Hercules, Washington's enslaved chef, also escaped. These were not abstract historical figures — they were people who lived and worked on this exact ground.

The Danish colonized St. John in 1718 to develop sugar plantations. By 1733, 109 plantations operated on the island, with enslaved Africans comprising the vast majority of the population. At Annaberg Plantation alone, over 600 enslaved people worked 18–20 hour days during harvest, with a life expectancy of just 7–9 years. On November 23, 1733, enslaved Akwamu people launched one of the earliest slave rebellions in the Western Hemisphere, seizing control of the island for nearly nine months before French troops from Martinique restored colonial rule.

The removed signs — installed in 2023 after extensive community engagement with local historians and the St. John Historical Society — told the stories of people like Carl Francis, born into slavery at Annaberg in 1800, who later owned the plantation himself. The signs included artwork from local artists depicting the brutal life of enslaved people in the Caribbean. Denmark did not abolish slavery in the Virgin Islands until 1848. The signs were removed by February 4, 2026.

Archaeological sites belonging to the Taíno people — the indigenous inhabitants of St. John before European colonization — were also targeted. PEN America condemned the removals, noting that the signs represented a deliberate NPS effort to more accurately interpret the island's history. The Virgin Islands Daily News reported widespread community outcry over the erasure of history that local residents had worked years to see properly told. See also: Indigenous History Censorship for more on the Taíno archaeological context.