The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 48, November 9, 2003, Article 12

WASHINGTON'S LOTTERY

  A recent Wall Street Journal book review by Alan Pell
  Crawford discusses a new book about America's founding
  fathers and slavery, titled "Great Men in Black and White"
  It mentions a lottery run by George Washington.  Often
  early colonial lottery tickets find their way into colonial
  currency collections because of their similarity to currency
  of the day.  Many were printed by the same printers who
  produced official notes.

  "In April 1769, George Washington helped set up a lottery
  to pay the debts of a fellow Virginia planter who had
  overextended himself, as large slaveholders often did. Among
  the creditors were Washington's Custis stepchildren, and it
  was as their guardian that Washington helped run the raffle,
  advertised in The Virginia Gazette.

  Among the "prizes" were people -- though slaves were hardly
  regarded as such in that time and place."

  "Thirty years later, with just six months left to live, Washington
  had come to regard such trade in his fellow human beings as a
  great evil and tried to do something about it. Alone among the
  slave-holding Founders, Washington freed his slaves, if
  posthumously."

  The following web pages discuss early lottery history and
  picture some colonial-era lottery tickets.

  http://www.naspl.org/history.html
  http://www.lotterycollectors.com/page4.html

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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