Mount Vernon, Virginia

“A souvenir model of George Washington’s dentures has been withdrawn from sale at his Mount Vernon estate because of evidence that the real version included teeth pulled from the mouths of his slaves.

“According to popular myth, the false teeth worn by America’s founding father were made from wood. In fact, they were made from ivory and human teeth, at least some of which came from enslaved people. Washington’s own accounts reveal that in 1784, he paid six pounds and two shillings for nine teeth taken from “negroes”. This has been known for some time, but has received fresh attention due to the publication of a revisionist biography, which documents Washington’s mistreatment of the slaves at Mount Vernon”.  (The Week, 28 Feb 2020).

When you reflect on the lives of George Washington and Good King George III of England you have to wonder why the colonists chose to rebel.  All King George wanted was a contribution towards the cost, to the British alone, of the war with France that was necessary to defend the colonies.  The colonists wanted this protection totally free!  They seem to have thought this totally reasonable, although it wasn’t to many others. And now you have the future President Washington (very unpopular in that role, incidentally), yanking teeth out of the mouths of his slaves.  This is what the British taxpayer was apparently fighting for the freedom to do.

No one else is going to defend the understandable policies of the Good King , so I have chosen myself to do so, defying slander and contempt!

(Note to those of a serious frame of mind: this is a joke.  Sort of)