Did George Washington Grow Marijuana?
It is no secret that George Washington grew cannabis for hemp fiber at his Mount Vernon plantation. Hemp grew all over colonial America and was always in demand. But is it possible that the first President may have grown marijuana as well?
A closer look at the evidence reveals tantalizing details. George Washington may have been America’s first marijuana farmer, while he was serving as our first President!
Europeans had long grown non-intoxicating cannabis sativa for hemp and seeds. But they were generally unaware of the drug types that grew in India until the 1700’s. Cannabis indica was first named in 1785 by French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck who studied an imported sample from India. The name indica, or India hemp, was used to distinguish the drug types of cannabis from the sativa fiber types.
George Washington was an Avid Farmer and Kept Careful Notes.
Hemp grows well in America but was rarely profitable because of the excessive labor required to harvest and process the fibers. George Washington grew hemp crops at Mount Vernon through the 1760’s, but he never made any money from it. His records show that he earned a paltry £11 from his 1767 harvest, and a mere £4 in 1770. He did not grow much fiber hemp at all after that.
By the time he became President in 1789, George Washington was one of the most famous people in the world. Washington had extensive contacts throughout Europe and maintained an active correspondence with leading thinkers of the day. Indica varieties of cannabis were a novelty in Europe and unknown in the Americas at this time. Linnaeus had named the plant only a few years prior.
Someone must have passed some cannabis indica seeds to George Washington. In 1794, he was living in Philadelphia and serving as the first President of the USA. Washington began writing letters to his gardener at Mount Vernon, William Pearce, with instructions about the handling of the “India hemp seeds”.
The first President grew India Hemp in the 1790s.
I also gave the Gardener a few Seed of East India hemp to raise from, enquire for the seed which has been saved, and make the most of it at the proper Season for Sowing.
- George Washington to William Pearce (or Howell Lewis), 6 January 1794 1
I am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St foin seed, & that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills.
- George Washington to William Pearce, 24 February 17942
I cannot with certainty recollect, whether I saw the India hemp growing when I was last at Mount Vernon; but think it was in the Vineyard; somewhere I hope it was sown, and therefore desire that the Seed may be saved in due season & with as little loss as possible: that, if it be valuable, I may make the most of it.
- George Washington to William Pearce, 17 August 17943
Presuming you saved all the seed you could from the India hemp, let it be carefully sown agin, for the purpose of getting into a full stock of seed.
- George Washington to William Pearce, 15 March 17954
What was done with the Seed saved from the India Hemp last Summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sown again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have dissiminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp.
- George Washington to William Pearce, 29 May 17965
The First American Marijuana Farmer.
George Washington died in 1799 and there is no record of what he did with his India hemp. There is no evidence that he smoked or consumed it. But it is clear that his India hemp was distinct from common fiber hemp. Cannabis indica would not become common in America until the mid-1800s, so Washington was a man ahead of his time.
Knowledge of cannabis drugs was rare in the Colonial era, but George Washington may have been one of the few to have known. The first president was a lifelong Freemason and exposed to secretive, occult studies, and he had friends all over the world.
This reading of the evidence makes a strong case that the first President was also America’s first marijuana farmer, and that puts the legacy of outlaw marijuana farming in a whole new light.
In another well-known diary entry from August 7, 1765, Washington attempted to separate the male from female hemp plants. Many commentators have suggested that he was trying to produce sinsemilla, seedless marijuana, but this is not the case. It was common to try and produce seedless hemp to promote longer and stronger fibers in the female plants.
Began to seperate the Male from the Female hemp at Do.—rather too late.
- Diaries (11 March 1748–13 December 1799), Volume 1 (11 March 1748–13 November 17656
Interestingly though, in the footnote for the diary entry linked above it states:
In the 1790s he experimented with a variety from India.
It appears the official record keepers at the University of Virginia agree with my assessment. George Washington grew an imported variety of India hemp that could only have been a drug type, while he was President in the 1790s.
Jute is a tropical fiber crop that is also called India hemp, but jute was not grown at Mount Vernon.
*All Quotes from: The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008.
*Painting by Rembrandt Peale – http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=14476
- https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-05-15-02-0026
- https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-05-15-02-0210
- https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-05-16-02-0392
- https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-05-17-02-0442
- https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-00559
- https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-01-01-02-0011-0006-0004