On Jan. 6, 1796, George Washington, the sitting president in the temporary capital of Philadelphia, wrote a long letter to his teenage step-granddaughter with relationship advice. Though Washington never had biological children, he helped raise quite a few, including his stepchildren from his wife’s previous marriage, and his stepchildren’s children, like Eliza Custis.
Don’t play too hard to get, he advised her, but don’t be too forward either. Try to pick a husband your own age, “for youth and old age, no more than winter & Summer, can be assimilated,” he wrote. It’s best to pick an American from a “known” family with “visible property” and stable wealth. You should feel some passion for the guy, he told her, but that will fade, so it’s more important he be a friend you have known for a while.
Eliza, bless her heart, didn’t listen. Soon after, she announced her engagement to a man more than twice her age, Thomas Law. He was a “nabob,” an Englishman who had lived in India. Though his wealth was significant, it was not stable, having been invested in risky land speculation.
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And the scandalous cherry on top? Law had three mixed-race sons from a previous relationship with a South Asian woman he hadn’t married. George, John and Edmund Law were among the first known people of South Asian descent in America, and by a twist of fate, they ended up joining one of its most prominent families.
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“Partly because of their racial ambiguity as South Asians rather than Black, they were able to cross boundaries more easily,” Zagarri said. “But also because of their high social class, they gained a lot of acceptance.”
When Law met Custis, he had been in America with two of his sons for about a year. Born into an aristocratic family near Cambridge, England, Law had joined the British East India Company as a teen, rising through the ranks, building a fortune and — like a lot of colonial officials, Zagarri said — maintaining a long-term relationship with a local woman.
Historians have usually referred to her as a “mistress” or “concubine”; Zagarri uses the word “companion.” Her name is unknown — Law was careful never to mention it in his records — but she and Law were together long enough to produce three children between 1784 and 1791.
When Law returned to England in 1791 after 18 years abroad, he took the boys with him, a move Zagarri said “was not unheard of but was unusual.” What became of his companion is unclear.
“This is part of the story of colonization, in that the mothers, the wives, the native women are erased,” Zagarri said.
For decades, many of the mixed-race children of British colonial officials ended up in orphanages, while others were educated in England and returned to work for the East India Company. But in 1786, the company got a new boss, Lord Charles Cornwallis (fresh from defeat in the American Revolution), who imposed rules limiting opportunities for mixed-race children. The clampdown may have been part of Law’s motivation to emigrate, Zagarri said.
“By coming to America,” Law wrote later, “one object was to settle my natural children where a variety of climate reconciles differences of complexion & where there are not such strong prejudices.” In port towns like Salem, Mass., which had ties to trade in Asia, seeing South Asian sailors would not have been out of the ordinary, Zagarri said. But these sailors were visitors, not immigrants, and outside of those areas, they were unheard of.
Law brought two of his sons, George and John, with him across the Atlantic, leaving the youngest boy, Edmund, in England with an aunt. He set up temporarily in New York City, flush with cash and looking for property, and soon joined a group of investors buying up land in what would become Washington, D.C., on the bet that its value would skyrocket as the federal government took shape there.
“He would go back and forth from New York to visit the nascent nation’s capital, and he would stop in Philadelphia on the way, and that’s apparently where he met Eliza,” Zagarri said.
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Don’t play too hard to get, he advised her, but don’t be too forward either. Try to pick a husband your own age, “for youth and old age, no more than winter & Summer, can be assimilated,” he wrote. It’s best to pick an American from a “known” family with “visible property” and stable wealth. You should feel some passion for the guy, he told her, but that will fade, so it’s more important he be a friend you have known for a while.
Eliza, bless her heart, didn’t listen. Soon after, she announced her engagement to a man more than twice her age, Thomas Law. He was a “nabob,” an Englishman who had lived in India. Though his wealth was significant, it was not stable, having been invested in risky land speculation.
ADVERTISING
And the scandalous cherry on top? Law had three mixed-race sons from a previous relationship with a South Asian woman he hadn’t married. George, John and Edmund Law were among the first known people of South Asian descent in America, and by a twist of fate, they ended up joining one of its most prominent families.
📜
http://www.washingtonpost.com/histo...gnet-retropoliswashington_inline_collection_9
“Partly because of their racial ambiguity as South Asians rather than Black, they were able to cross boundaries more easily,” Zagarri said. “But also because of their high social class, they gained a lot of acceptance.”
When Law met Custis, he had been in America with two of his sons for about a year. Born into an aristocratic family near Cambridge, England, Law had joined the British East India Company as a teen, rising through the ranks, building a fortune and — like a lot of colonial officials, Zagarri said — maintaining a long-term relationship with a local woman.
Historians have usually referred to her as a “mistress” or “concubine”; Zagarri uses the word “companion.” Her name is unknown — Law was careful never to mention it in his records — but she and Law were together long enough to produce three children between 1784 and 1791.
When Law returned to England in 1791 after 18 years abroad, he took the boys with him, a move Zagarri said “was not unheard of but was unusual.” What became of his companion is unclear.
“This is part of the story of colonization, in that the mothers, the wives, the native women are erased,” Zagarri said.
For decades, many of the mixed-race children of British colonial officials ended up in orphanages, while others were educated in England and returned to work for the East India Company. But in 1786, the company got a new boss, Lord Charles Cornwallis (fresh from defeat in the American Revolution), who imposed rules limiting opportunities for mixed-race children. The clampdown may have been part of Law’s motivation to emigrate, Zagarri said.
“By coming to America,” Law wrote later, “one object was to settle my natural children where a variety of climate reconciles differences of complexion & where there are not such strong prejudices.” In port towns like Salem, Mass., which had ties to trade in Asia, seeing South Asian sailors would not have been out of the ordinary, Zagarri said. But these sailors were visitors, not immigrants, and outside of those areas, they were unheard of.
Law brought two of his sons, George and John, with him across the Atlantic, leaving the youngest boy, Edmund, in England with an aunt. He set up temporarily in New York City, flush with cash and looking for property, and soon joined a group of investors buying up land in what would become Washington, D.C., on the bet that its value would skyrocket as the federal government took shape there.
“He would go back and forth from New York to visit the nascent nation’s capital, and he would stop in Philadelphia on the way, and that’s apparently where he met Eliza,” Zagarri said.
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