Moses Washington (died 1865) was the leader of a group of runaway slaves who helped to form the Free State of Jones in 1862. Washington led several slaves into the swamps of Jones County, Mississippi, where they were joined by Confederate deserter Newton Knight. Knight was later joined by more Confederate deserters, and the escaped slaves and the deserters formed a rebel group which waged guerrilla warfare against the Confederate States Army in south-east Mississippi. After the war, Knight succeeded in freeing Knight's son from an "apprenticeship" to Rachel Knight's former master, and Washington later attempted to register blacks to vote, learning to write and writing their names down for them. In the process, he was abducted by a white mob and lynched for his activism.
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