Andrew Judge Character Analysis

Andrew Judge was Ona Judge’s father. An English-born white man who traveled to America in July of 1772 as an indentured servant—likely to escape difficult circumstances or even a prison sentence back in England—Judge soon found himself in the employ of George Washington at the man’s vast Mount Vernon estate in Virginia. Judge became a trusted and respected tailor, making fine clothes for the most important occasions in Washington’s life. While it is unclear whether Judge carried on a genuine, prolonged love affair with one of the Washingtons’ slaves, Betty, or whether Judge raped Betty, what is clear is that Judge fathered Betty’s daughter Ona and gave the child his last name. Judge did not feel indebted or bound to his child or to Mount Vernon, however, and by the 1780s, he’d left the estate for a property of his own.