Didn’t Washington free his slaves in his will? Point being, I’m pretty sure he knew it was disgusting.
If you judge the people of the 18th century by the social standards of the 21st century then you will get a VERY distorted view of history.
From what I have read Washington specified that his slaves should be freed after his wife passed away. However, she ended up freeing them promptly after his death. I guess because they had a vested interest at her death, and she didn’t want to be looking over her shoulder.
He freed his valet immediately, the rest upon his wife’s demise.
Yes, and he was bothered with being associated with slavery for many years. During the Revolution, he saw the hypocrisy of claiming that the British wanted "to enslave" Americans while he and others were literally enslaving people.
Washington treated his slaves rather well, and would not sell slaves that did not want to be sold as he did not like to break up families. Because he was not an active slave trader, he did not make much money from having slaves. The population of his slaves grew due to not selling them, and he was never a successful planter; so they became a liability for him as he had to feed and clothe and house a large population of people he did not really need.