Were George Washington's teeth ripped from the mouths of living slaves?

Question

I've seen lots of things about George Washington's teeth like this going around.

The real deal is George Washington had the teeth of his slaves in his mouth and not wood.. Wake Up my people they are still using us for body parts, Happy Presidents day.

President George Washington's teeth were not made of wood like you were taught in elementary. In fact they were savagely ripped from his Black slaves mouths and made into dentures.

Happy Presidents Day!

_{Emphases mine}

And this,

did you know?

George Washington's troublesome teeth were made of bone, hippopotamus ivory, human teeth, lead, brass screws, and gold metal wire- but not wood. This is the only remaining full set of the many dentures he wore throughout his life.

_{Emphasis mine}

The official website of Mount Vernon mentions in reference to another less interesting claim about wood,

[...] composed of a variety of materials—including ivory, gold, and lead—wood was never used in Washington's dentures

But it never explicitly mentions the teeth of his slaves.

It was not all that uncommon for people to sell their own teeth. There is a notable scene in Les Miserables (the 2012 film version -- dunno about other versions) where Fantine sells a tooth. This scene would have been set about 1815. — Daniel R Hicks, Mar 01 '18 at 00:48
@DanielRHicks: It's also in the novel: book 5, chapter 10 in my edition. Of course, it's a work of fiction, but at least a contemporary example. — Nate Eldredge, Mar 01 '18 at 03:57
Your title claims "living slaves". The memes do not claim "living". teeth might have been taken from dead slaves too. — Martin Bonner supports Monica, Mar 01 '18 at 13:30
Could you maybe give some sources for the things you've seen going around? At least an inverse google image search to spare us the work to judge the notability. — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Mar 01 '18 at 14:04
According to https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/hippo-haven-107453678/, at least one of his sets was from hippo ivory. — ivan_pozdeev, Mar 01 '18 at 15:01
@MartinBonner The phrasing "savagely ripped" obviously implies living. Who would care how you removed teeth from a corpse? — eyeballfrog, Mar 02 '18 at 09:39
@eyeballfrog The relatives of the deceased might well care. (Of course, they might also object to taking the teeth at all.) — Martin Bonner supports Monica, Mar 02 '18 at 11:11

score 90 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

90

We do know that (at least one of) his dentures used human teeth, as you can see in this picture of the exhibit (taken from Snopes), which says:

Contrary to popular myth, Washington’s false teeth were not made of wood but of human and cow teeth as well as elephant ivory.

In addition, the official website of Mount Vernon notes that:

Washington bought human teeth from African-Americans

Deep within one of Washington’s account books is an entry which details Washington’s purchase of 9 teeth from “Negroes” for 122 shillings. It’s not clear if Washington intended to use these teeth as implants or within a new set of dentures or if he employed the teeth at all. While this transaction might seem morbid to a modern audience, purchasing human teeth was a fairly common practice in the 18th century for affluent individuals.
_{The Trouble with Teeth}

The website also notes that Washington saved a couple of his own teeth in the hopes that they could be used in his dentures.

So, there are a lot of unknowns. We don't know who these "Negroes" were who he bought teeth from; they could free or they could be slaves. According to this PBS article, Washington bought "foodstuffs" from both his own slaves and those of neighboring farms, so it's not a stretch to imagine him buying other things as well. We also don't know whose teeth were used in the dentures.

See also: this article, which gives references for where you can find the original sources, such as the ledger listing the purchase of teeth (see Credit entry #8).

edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

Community

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answered Feb 28 '18 at 18:54

Laurel

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Ironically the purchase suggests at least that the teeth would not have been from *his* slaves. – Dennis Jaheruddin Mar 01 '18 at 15:05
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@Dennis It also doesn't suggest to me that they were taken from _live_ slaves. – JMac Mar 01 '18 at 15:11
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@DennisJaheruddin It's also not clear *in what context* the teeth were purchased. Even if they were bought from living slaves, that doesn't mean they were ripped out on the spot. They could easily have been lost through other means and just been saved to be sold (since that was apparently a common thing at the time). – thanby Mar 01 '18 at 15:22
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In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Fantine sells her teeth to doctors. Then she gets sick and dies. I guess it wasn't necessary that the Negroes were slaves. It was enough for them to be poor, and sell their own teeth or those of a dead family member. – user3653831 Mar 01 '18 at 17:01
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Doesn't the fact that he purchased them from the negroes rather than their masters prove they weren't slaves? – MrLore Mar 01 '18 at 17:18
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Purchasing teeth... am I the only one reading this and now wondering if there's any connection with the *tooth fairy*? – Mathieu Guindon Mar 01 '18 at 17:33
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@MrLore - Not necessarily. Possibly Washington was conscientious enough to pay slaves for their teeth - though if those were his own slaves the teeth would have legally been his property. But they were very probably free persons. – M. A. Golding Mar 01 '18 at 17:40
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@Mat'sMug nope... and at 13 shillings per tooth then and say $1-$5 per tooth now, looking at the http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/summer02/money2.cfm suggests strongly the tooth fairy hasn't done a very good job of keeping up with inflation, unless you want to argue that adult teetth are substantially more valuable than children's teeth, which is probably true in the utilitarian sense... – Foon Mar 01 '18 at 18:50
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@Foon if that's the case, the tooth fairy is profiting extensively from this trade, because recent research shows baby teeth should be more valuable in the future due to [stem cell research](http://www.toothbank.com/faq/)... – Aserre Mar 02 '18 at 12:26
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There's a character in the Sharpe movies from roughly the same time period who lost half his teeth to a musket ball and so roams the battlefields after the shooting is over picking the decent teeth from the corpses trying to get a good enough set to make a nice-looking set of dentures. – Perkins Mar 02 '18 at 20:34
@MrLore No, Washington bought food from slaves (both his and his neighbors'), so it's not out of the question that he could have bought teeth from them too. (Many slaves in the South had property they owned. Some [even owned land](https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2013/spring/slaves-property-ownership-penningroth/)—although I'm not sure if any of Washington's did.) – Laurel Mar 03 '18 at 04:40

Were George Washington's teeth ripped from the mouths of living slaves?

did you know?

1 Answers1

Washington bought human teeth from African-Americans