In this 1853 painting, George Washington stands among Black field workers. Buyenlarge/Getty ImagesIf there was anyone who knew the rewards of slavery, it was George Washington. Over a period of about 50 years, the nation’s first president enslaved about 577 Black Americans, starting when he was 11 years old. One of them was a Black man named Morris who was skilled in carpentry and became an overseer of other enslaved men and women working on a farm at Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia