Ken Burns Claims George Washington Owned 577 Enslaved People

What was said

"He owns 577 human beings. As the historian and writer Rick Atkinson says, two-thirds of the way through a magisterial trilogy of the American Revolution says, you can't square that circle, and you can't. There's no excuse you can make, man of his times, whatever. It's just not right."

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns states that George Washington personally enslaved 577 people, citing historian Rick Atkinson's assertion that this fundamental contradiction cannot be reconciled with Washington's legacy. Burns emphasizes there is no acceptable justification for this, rejecting the common 'man of his times' defense. This figure provides specific scale to Washington's slaveholding in a major public history platform.