Is it true that Martha Washington had a child by a slave ?

Question

Washington said she would never have a child with his surname

Answer 1

At the age of eighteen, Martha was married to Daniel Parke Custis. They had four children, two died in infancy. John Parke, called "Jacky" and Martha, called "Patsy".

Martha married George on January 6, 1759. At the time of their meeting, he was in love with a neighbor, Sally Fairfax, who married another man. George settled on Martha; she had a good disposition and inherited wealth, and he thought her a suitable match. Both Martha and George Washington loved having children in the house (they raised quite a few of Martha's grandchildren) but never had any children of their own.

Martha never had a biracial child. Martha had a mulatto half-sister, Ann Dandridge,  who lived with her throughout her life and who had a child with Jackie Custis, Martha's son by her first marriage.

Answer 2

No, she didn't.  George and Martha never had children.  But George did by slave women.

Answer 3

I highly doubt she would carry a slaves child - she is stated as owning her half sister though... who later had a child with her son... or something like that...

"Historian Henry Wiencek, in his award-winning 2004 book "An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America", citing original documents he discovered in the files of Mount Vernon and the Virginia Historical Society, writes that Martha Washington owned her own mulatto half-sister, a slave named Ann Dandridge, who had a child by Martha's son (and therefore Ann's nephew), John Parke "Jack" Custis. According to Wiencek, this incident was among several that led George Washington to call slavery repugnant, and probably influenced Washington's decision late in life to free all his slaves. Another source on the existence of a slave named Ann Dandridge was Helen Bryan's 2001 "Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty." In this book, which draws upon Wiencek's research, Bryan stated that the "shadow sister" was close to Martha's age and had been with her since they were children.

Wiencek writes that previous historians ignored the documentary evidence that this sister existed. In a brief bibliographical note at the end of her book (page 256), Patricia Brady denies the existence of Martha Washington's half sister and asserts that Wiencek and Bryan accepted "family mythology" and "lore." Brady does not offer a review of the documentary evidence discovered by Wiencek in the Virginia Historical Society and in the Washington, D.C., archives where Ann Dandridge's manumission is recorded--Land Records, Liber H., #8, p. 382; Liber R, #17, p. 288. In assessing the documents that have survived on this question, Wiencek notes that Ann Dandridge was omitted from the Custis estate records and the records of slaves at Mt. Vernon. Having studied plantation families for many years, Wiencek observes that family ties between slaves and slave owners were often kept hidden"

according to anceient germanic custom if you had s*x with your slaves they become free, and you become a slave.