T he man who would come to be called Harry Washington was born near the Gambia River, in West Africa, around 1740. As a young man, he was sold into slavery and endured the horrors of the Middle Passage. In Virginia, he was purchased by a neighbor of George Washington, who then bought the young man in 1763 for 40 pounds. After working to drain the colony’s Great Dismal Swamp—one of George Washington’s many land ventures—he was sent to Mount Vernon to care for the horses. Then came war. With