Augustus Washington was born circa 1820 or 1821 the son of a former slave of African descent and a South Asian mother.
Washington financed his education at Dartmouth by learning how to do daguerrotypes. However, after a year, he was unable to keep up with the tuition and had to leave the college. He then moved to Connecticut where he opened a studio to teach daguerrotype making. In 1853, he moved to Liberia with his wife and two young kids. He worked as a daguerrotypist in Liberia for a number of years, but later gave up the photographic work and became a farmer and politician serving in the Liberian congress. He died in 1875 in Liberia. There are no known images of Washington, but some of the daguerrotypes he created have survived.
"Strange as it may appear, whatever may be a colored man’s natural
capacity and literary attainments, I believe that, as soon as he leaves
the academic halls to mingle in the only society he can find in the
United States, unless he be a minister or lecturer, he must and will
retrograde."
–Augustus Washington, letter to the New York Tribune, 1851
______________________________________________________________________________________
Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is my effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year's profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013. Copyright 2013.
