History Repeats! New Historical Findings Reveal Washington Banned From Congress 10 Years After Slapping Enslaved Man Chris Sheels
The star-studded Continental Congress, celebrating the founding fathers and their accomplishments, was marred by violence and controversy when Christopher Sheels, the enslaved manservant of George Washington, made a joke about his master’s frown.
“I was just trying to be funny,” said Christopher Sheels, who had been enslaved to do the evening’s entertainment as congressional jester. “I didn’t know he had a medical condition.”
George Washington rushed the stage, slapped Sheels, and said, “I’m gonna pull the teeth out of yo f*ing mouth.”
The other members of the Continental Congress were shocked, as the highly agitated Washington returned to his seat. Fellow slave owners huddled with Washington; bystanders reported Thomas Jefferson saying to Washington, “At your highest moment—that is when the devil comes for you.”
“If that had been my boy,” James Madison tweeted after the event, “I would have had him lashed until his back looked like plowed field.”
The Philadelphia police were not called, because Christopher Sheels does not have the legal right to press charges against the man who owns him. Nor any White person. The next day, the Continental Congress released a statement saying, “We fell short -unprepared for the unprecedented.”
Washington’s new profile picture on social media features a new grill of human dentures. He has refused to answer questions about the provenance of the teeth but Martha Washington has gone on TikTok to support her husband saying, “He cannot tell a lie.”
Despite the controversy, George Washington will get to keep his town square statues, bust in the Capitol Rotunda, and official portrait in the National Gallery.
