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An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
An Imperfect God is a major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slavery
When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman.
Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system's evil.
Wiencek's revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon's slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true.
George Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.
When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman.
Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system's evil.
Wiencek's revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon's slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true.
George Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.
432 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2003
60 people are currently reading
1487 people want to read
About the author
Henry Wiencek
28 books30 followersHenry Wiencek is a prominent American historian and editor whose work has encompassed historically significant architecture, the Founding Fathers, various topics relating to slavery, and the Lego company. In 1999, The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White, a biographical history which chronicles the racially intertwined Hairston clan of the noted Cooleemee Plantation House, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.
Wiencek has come to be particularly associated with his work on Washington and slavery as a result of his most recent book, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, which earned him the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. Partly as a result of this book, Wiencek was named the first-ever Washington College Patrick Henry Fellow, inaugurating a program designed to provide writing fellowships for nationally prominent historians.
In 2003 Wiencek was appointed to the board of trustees for the Library of Virginia.
He attended Boston College High School, where he was valedictorian. He earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1974 with a double major in Russian Literature and Literary Theory. Soon after graduating, Wiencek moved to New York City, where he worked for Time-Life, editing and writing for its publications.
Wiencek is married to Donna M. Lucey, who is also an American historian. Wiencek has resided in Charlottesville, Virginia since 1992, where he works in his home. He and his wife will be spending the 2008-2009 academic year in residence in a restored colonial house at Chestertown, Maryland in fulfillment of his Patrick Henry Fellowship duties.
Wiencek has come to be particularly associated with his work on Washington and slavery as a result of his most recent book, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, which earned him the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. Partly as a result of this book, Wiencek was named the first-ever Washington College Patrick Henry Fellow, inaugurating a program designed to provide writing fellowships for nationally prominent historians.
In 2003 Wiencek was appointed to the board of trustees for the Library of Virginia.
He attended Boston College High School, where he was valedictorian. He earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1974 with a double major in Russian Literature and Literary Theory. Soon after graduating, Wiencek moved to New York City, where he worked for Time-Life, editing and writing for its publications.
Wiencek is married to Donna M. Lucey, who is also an American historian. Wiencek has resided in Charlottesville, Virginia since 1992, where he works in his home. He and his wife will be spending the 2008-2009 academic year in residence in a restored colonial house at Chestertown, Maryland in fulfillment of his Patrick Henry Fellowship duties.
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September 3, 2022
So much has been written about George Washington that additional books about him are invariably overkill. Fortunately, my knowledge of Washington is scant, and I have not tackled the Ron Chernow biographical tome, or any other bio of our first President.
There was enough info in Wiencek's book to add to my scant knowledge of this man of marmoreal gravitas. While reading it I was reminded of the time in grammar school when our teacher sat down with a serious face (come to think of it, she was always a bit dour) and enlightened us children about the life of George Washington. She served up the usual bromides--never told a lie, chopped down the cherry tree (which seems to be true), threw a coin across some vast river--cannot remember if it was the Delaware or the Potomoc. There was no mention of his owning slaves, or manumitting them in his will. Likewise, Martha Custis Washington did not exist, and Washington's military history was limited to the teacher telling us he was a great war hero, though she failed to mention which war(s). I suppose third and fourth graders have a difficult time with nuanced accounts, but even so I felt like part of the story was missing.
An Imperfect God humanizes Washington and presents a well-balanced account of his strong points--Reluctant leader who ruled, for the most part, with wisdom--his weak points--owning many slaves whom he treated well but with a paternalistic fondness--so long as they did their assigned work. The book also touches on ambivalent sides of Washington, such as his obsessive ambition mingled with a desire to retire to his Monticello mansion and enjoy a bucolic retirement. Washington could also be imperious and had a bad temper when he felt his orders and wishes had not been carried out to his satisfaction.
Washington was not an easy man to analyze and it shows in this book when Wiencek discusses his attitude about slaves and his behavior toward them. He seemed to loath slavery, but had mixed feelings that may have emanated from his time commanding them on fields of battle. He recognized their humanity but also had no qualms about his personal ownership of them. The man who never told a lie apparently told a few big ones when it came to dealing with runaway slaves, and even went so far to circumvent the usual legal procedures to employ slave hunters to track down errant escapees. It appears, though, that he was far more well-disposed toward his slaves than Martha, who comes across as a hidebound termagant who had no ambivalence about slavery.
The biggest takeaway I got from the book, other than Washington's bifurcated views of slavery being an evil on a societal level, but perfectly fine on a personal level, was that Washington was much more educated than he's often depicted, and wrote and spoke with eloquence. He was also, like Jefferson, an oenophile, though the book offers no sordid tales of Washington drinking to excess. He seemed to have an instinctive sense of what behavior was appropriate for the high military rank and political prestige he gradually acquired--an instinct he must have utilized most of his life. Washington also comes across as sometimes being very calculating. Wiencek notes that it was commonplace among Washington's male ancestors to "marry up," just as George did when he wed the widowed Martha Custis who brought with her a fortune in property and slaves.
Recommended for slackers like me who are interested in learning more about various subjects but lacking the discipline to site for 36 hours reading Ron Chernow's esteemed biography. (I do plan to read it, someday. :-)
There was enough info in Wiencek's book to add to my scant knowledge of this man of marmoreal gravitas. While reading it I was reminded of the time in grammar school when our teacher sat down with a serious face (come to think of it, she was always a bit dour) and enlightened us children about the life of George Washington. She served up the usual bromides--never told a lie, chopped down the cherry tree (which seems to be true), threw a coin across some vast river--cannot remember if it was the Delaware or the Potomoc. There was no mention of his owning slaves, or manumitting them in his will. Likewise, Martha Custis Washington did not exist, and Washington's military history was limited to the teacher telling us he was a great war hero, though she failed to mention which war(s). I suppose third and fourth graders have a difficult time with nuanced accounts, but even so I felt like part of the story was missing.
An Imperfect God humanizes Washington and presents a well-balanced account of his strong points--Reluctant leader who ruled, for the most part, with wisdom--his weak points--owning many slaves whom he treated well but with a paternalistic fondness--so long as they did their assigned work. The book also touches on ambivalent sides of Washington, such as his obsessive ambition mingled with a desire to retire to his Monticello mansion and enjoy a bucolic retirement. Washington could also be imperious and had a bad temper when he felt his orders and wishes had not been carried out to his satisfaction.
Washington was not an easy man to analyze and it shows in this book when Wiencek discusses his attitude about slaves and his behavior toward them. He seemed to loath slavery, but had mixed feelings that may have emanated from his time commanding them on fields of battle. He recognized their humanity but also had no qualms about his personal ownership of them. The man who never told a lie apparently told a few big ones when it came to dealing with runaway slaves, and even went so far to circumvent the usual legal procedures to employ slave hunters to track down errant escapees. It appears, though, that he was far more well-disposed toward his slaves than Martha, who comes across as a hidebound termagant who had no ambivalence about slavery.
The biggest takeaway I got from the book, other than Washington's bifurcated views of slavery being an evil on a societal level, but perfectly fine on a personal level, was that Washington was much more educated than he's often depicted, and wrote and spoke with eloquence. He was also, like Jefferson, an oenophile, though the book offers no sordid tales of Washington drinking to excess. He seemed to have an instinctive sense of what behavior was appropriate for the high military rank and political prestige he gradually acquired--an instinct he must have utilized most of his life. Washington also comes across as sometimes being very calculating. Wiencek notes that it was commonplace among Washington's male ancestors to "marry up," just as George did when he wed the widowed Martha Custis who brought with her a fortune in property and slaves.
Recommended for slackers like me who are interested in learning more about various subjects but lacking the discipline to site for 36 hours reading Ron Chernow's esteemed biography. (I do plan to read it, someday. :-)
June 12, 2022
America's founders owned slaves. On a large scale. Their fortunes were built upon human bondage and misery. This is the nasty worm festering in the apple of America’s founding mythology. It’s an extremely uncomfortable subject, one that many Americans would prefer to ignore altogether. The idea that men we have come to view as great and noble could on the one hand stake their lives and honor on the cause of freedom and liberty for "all men,” and on the other exclude an entire race that they held in bondage for their own profit is a huge contradiction that does not easily fit into the ideal American mythos that we have learned to revere. Yet it is vital that we face it, own it as part of our history, and begin to understand the meaning and consequences of this stain on the American ideal.
In An Imperfect God Henry Wiencek examines this question by focusing on the foremost founder - George Washington. In Washington, he detects a clear evolution of thought. He shows us Washington the young man who seemingly accepted the institution without question; the mature man who began to question it on moral and ethical grounds, and the old man who found it morally repugnant, and against the wishes of his family, emancipated all of his slaves in his will, making him unique among the slave owning founders.
Wiencek recreates the world that Washington was born into, showing us the context of his thought and action. He explains the social system of the great landed plantation owners, whose wealth and prestige were built upon human slavery. He is unsparing in his depiction of an institution that often led to shared blood ties between masters and slaves, so that many masters held in bondage their own children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and reveals that some of the slaves held at Mt. Vernon were blood relatives of Martha Washington. And he makes it clear, not from the judgment of our own times, but from Washington's and other founder's own words that they were aware of the great moral evil of this vile institution. He shows us the great change in attitude that Washington experienced over the course of his lifetime, from a young man so hardened to the evils of the institution that he helped to run a lottery that raffled off Black children to pay a friend's debts, to the old man who, after many missed opportunities, wrote a remarkable will ten months before his death to free and care for all of his slaves, repudiating in death the evil system he was never willing to directly confront during his life.
Wiencek writes respectfully of Washington. He doesn’t reduce him to a one dimensional, evil caricature, but refuses to ignore his failure to act in the face of institutionalized evil of which he was well aware and from which he profited. The failure of Washington and the other founders to eradicate slavery in their new land of liberty led directly to the terrible Civil War (an event which both Washington and Jefferson anticipated), and the continuing consequences of their failure still haunt us today. As such, An Imperfect God is a cautionary tale for our contemplation.
In An Imperfect God Henry Wiencek examines this question by focusing on the foremost founder - George Washington. In Washington, he detects a clear evolution of thought. He shows us Washington the young man who seemingly accepted the institution without question; the mature man who began to question it on moral and ethical grounds, and the old man who found it morally repugnant, and against the wishes of his family, emancipated all of his slaves in his will, making him unique among the slave owning founders.
Wiencek recreates the world that Washington was born into, showing us the context of his thought and action. He explains the social system of the great landed plantation owners, whose wealth and prestige were built upon human slavery. He is unsparing in his depiction of an institution that often led to shared blood ties between masters and slaves, so that many masters held in bondage their own children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and reveals that some of the slaves held at Mt. Vernon were blood relatives of Martha Washington. And he makes it clear, not from the judgment of our own times, but from Washington's and other founder's own words that they were aware of the great moral evil of this vile institution. He shows us the great change in attitude that Washington experienced over the course of his lifetime, from a young man so hardened to the evils of the institution that he helped to run a lottery that raffled off Black children to pay a friend's debts, to the old man who, after many missed opportunities, wrote a remarkable will ten months before his death to free and care for all of his slaves, repudiating in death the evil system he was never willing to directly confront during his life.
Wiencek writes respectfully of Washington. He doesn’t reduce him to a one dimensional, evil caricature, but refuses to ignore his failure to act in the face of institutionalized evil of which he was well aware and from which he profited. The failure of Washington and the other founders to eradicate slavery in their new land of liberty led directly to the terrible Civil War (an event which both Washington and Jefferson anticipated), and the continuing consequences of their failure still haunt us today. As such, An Imperfect God is a cautionary tale for our contemplation.
May 1, 2022
Generally, I am somewhat skeptical when an author tries to inject him or herself into the narrative of the history or biography that they are writing about, unless it is their own of course. If done sparingly, I think it can help augment what the author is attempting to convey. In his book about George Washington and his enslaves persons, Henry Wiencek did this in multiple places: visiting Washington's birthplace, visiting Mount Vernon to learn about the lives of the enslaved people (this in itself is not bad - in fact I think it would be required research for a book on this topic), and attending a mock slave auction in Williamsburg. Some of this worked, but in totality the author kept popping up in what should be a story that takes place almost exclusively in the 18th century.
Too much time was spent early on describing Washington's birthplace. Wiencek describes his meeting with the current owners of the home, and what they knew of Washington. I thought this was unnecessary and really did not add to the story of Washington's actions and thoughts towards slavery. I don't care what the house looks like now, nor what Washington's heirs several generations removed from him have to say.
Wiencek's trip to Williamsburg (which was the Virginia capitol at the time that Washington was a member of the House of Burgesses, and thus Washington spent a considerable amount of time there) was even more unnecessary. While the town apparently has gone to great lengths to replicate how it appeared in colonial times, the bottom line is that Wiencek went to see it around the turn of the 20th into the 21st century. Even with extreme historical accuracy, it is not going to adequately simulate how an enslaved person thought nor how white slaveowners behaved. Even with people acting in costume and in period, as Wiencek notes, for the simulated slave auction, that is far different than someone being paraded out onto a block of wood in front of a crowd of white men and bid on. Wiencek does note that even this does not come close to approximating what that person could possibly have been feeling. My issue with this is that I don't think it added to the book. And, it gets away from Washington. Jaunts like this sometimes made Washington appear as a secondary character in the narrative.
Where this approach did work is when Wiencek visits Mount Vernon and tries as best as possible to gleam some understanding of what an average day would have been like amongst the enslaved population there. He takes pains to learn what the 18th century farming tools were and how to use them, and quickly understands just how hard, monotonous, and unrewarding the work was. And what might be the worst thing of all: the lack of hope for those people. There was no end. They toiled for Washington (or whoever the owner was) until they died. Death was the only reason, barring some incapacitating physical injury or disability. How does one survive with no hope?
Very late in the book, Wiencek makes an unproveable and, at least to me, surprising statement: "Washington was not a racist: he did not believe that the slaves were inherently inferior people;" (page 356). How can he - or anyone - make such a definitive statement? Is he saying that, since Washington apparently behaved more humanely towards the people that he owned than most other slave owners did at that time, that this makes him not a racist? The man owned black people, purely because of their skin color and that the state of Virginia allowed it!
I do want to say that I believe there are degrees of racism. There are folks who are virulent racists, who physically and verbally attack those of a different skin color. And there are many who would never engage in such acts, yet harbor racial prejudices and exhibit racial tendencies. I am not saying that Washington was some evil, cruel man who got joy out of beating black people. No. He wasn't. In fact, when you compare him to even other Virginians such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, he comes off looking almost enlightened in a way. Actually, had Wiencek went into a deep comparison and contrasting of Washington and Jefferson, I think that would have been a fine addition to the book.
Wiencek, while at times a bit more favorable to Washington than I think he need have been, is not afraid to call him out for owning people, for operating a slave lottery, and for trying - while President - illegal means to bring back runaway slave Ona Judge. There are also conflicting accounts of how Washington treated them, with many accounts saying he was a better "master" than almost anyone else, while some depicted a less rosy picture.
Wiencek is at his best when showing Washington's evolution of thought on slavery: going from breaking up families and trying to make injured slaves work, to being against the breaking up of any family, to trying to make end-runs around his wife Martha's family as they did not care what happened to the slaves so long as they profited by them, to freeing all of his slaves in his own will and searching for ways to move towards abolition. I believe that Washington was a strongly moral man who had a great sense of right and wrong, and realized that slavery was inherently wrong and that he had a moral responsibility to try to rectify what little he could. The steps that Washington took (which today obviously look wholly inadequate) were nonetheless radical for 1790s Virginia.
I do like that Wiencek tries to keep the context and analysis of Washington confined to his own time, while also pointing out how hideous all of this was. Viewed from 1795 Virginia, Washington looks fairly benign and ahead of his time. Viewed from 1795 Pennsylvania, Washington looks like a typical Virginia slaveowner who relies on his slaves to bring him profits. Viewed from today, Washington looks horrible: a person who owned other people and, for at least the early part of his life, had little scruples about how he treated them or what happened to them. Perhaps, all three views are valid and, combined, provide a reasoned picture of Washington.
Grade: B
Too much time was spent early on describing Washington's birthplace. Wiencek describes his meeting with the current owners of the home, and what they knew of Washington. I thought this was unnecessary and really did not add to the story of Washington's actions and thoughts towards slavery. I don't care what the house looks like now, nor what Washington's heirs several generations removed from him have to say.
Wiencek's trip to Williamsburg (which was the Virginia capitol at the time that Washington was a member of the House of Burgesses, and thus Washington spent a considerable amount of time there) was even more unnecessary. While the town apparently has gone to great lengths to replicate how it appeared in colonial times, the bottom line is that Wiencek went to see it around the turn of the 20th into the 21st century. Even with extreme historical accuracy, it is not going to adequately simulate how an enslaved person thought nor how white slaveowners behaved. Even with people acting in costume and in period, as Wiencek notes, for the simulated slave auction, that is far different than someone being paraded out onto a block of wood in front of a crowd of white men and bid on. Wiencek does note that even this does not come close to approximating what that person could possibly have been feeling. My issue with this is that I don't think it added to the book. And, it gets away from Washington. Jaunts like this sometimes made Washington appear as a secondary character in the narrative.
Where this approach did work is when Wiencek visits Mount Vernon and tries as best as possible to gleam some understanding of what an average day would have been like amongst the enslaved population there. He takes pains to learn what the 18th century farming tools were and how to use them, and quickly understands just how hard, monotonous, and unrewarding the work was. And what might be the worst thing of all: the lack of hope for those people. There was no end. They toiled for Washington (or whoever the owner was) until they died. Death was the only reason, barring some incapacitating physical injury or disability. How does one survive with no hope?
Very late in the book, Wiencek makes an unproveable and, at least to me, surprising statement: "Washington was not a racist: he did not believe that the slaves were inherently inferior people;" (page 356). How can he - or anyone - make such a definitive statement? Is he saying that, since Washington apparently behaved more humanely towards the people that he owned than most other slave owners did at that time, that this makes him not a racist? The man owned black people, purely because of their skin color and that the state of Virginia allowed it!
I do want to say that I believe there are degrees of racism. There are folks who are virulent racists, who physically and verbally attack those of a different skin color. And there are many who would never engage in such acts, yet harbor racial prejudices and exhibit racial tendencies. I am not saying that Washington was some evil, cruel man who got joy out of beating black people. No. He wasn't. In fact, when you compare him to even other Virginians such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, he comes off looking almost enlightened in a way. Actually, had Wiencek went into a deep comparison and contrasting of Washington and Jefferson, I think that would have been a fine addition to the book.
Wiencek, while at times a bit more favorable to Washington than I think he need have been, is not afraid to call him out for owning people, for operating a slave lottery, and for trying - while President - illegal means to bring back runaway slave Ona Judge. There are also conflicting accounts of how Washington treated them, with many accounts saying he was a better "master" than almost anyone else, while some depicted a less rosy picture.
Wiencek is at his best when showing Washington's evolution of thought on slavery: going from breaking up families and trying to make injured slaves work, to being against the breaking up of any family, to trying to make end-runs around his wife Martha's family as they did not care what happened to the slaves so long as they profited by them, to freeing all of his slaves in his own will and searching for ways to move towards abolition. I believe that Washington was a strongly moral man who had a great sense of right and wrong, and realized that slavery was inherently wrong and that he had a moral responsibility to try to rectify what little he could. The steps that Washington took (which today obviously look wholly inadequate) were nonetheless radical for 1790s Virginia.
I do like that Wiencek tries to keep the context and analysis of Washington confined to his own time, while also pointing out how hideous all of this was. Viewed from 1795 Virginia, Washington looks fairly benign and ahead of his time. Viewed from 1795 Pennsylvania, Washington looks like a typical Virginia slaveowner who relies on his slaves to bring him profits. Viewed from today, Washington looks horrible: a person who owned other people and, for at least the early part of his life, had little scruples about how he treated them or what happened to them. Perhaps, all three views are valid and, combined, provide a reasoned picture of Washington.
Grade: B
January 24, 2015
This book is a well researched history that focuses on George Washington and his slaves. The book title suggests that it contains smudges on Washington's character because of slavery. Well, it does that, but to me it showed him to be a principled man in a difficult environment. Sure, he was human and enjoyed the luxury of living in a big house with slave servants. But this book shows that he gave a lot of thought to how his slaves could be freed at a time when all of his immediate family, his wife Martha in particular, had no qualms about slavery. Idealists of today can be critical of Washington's silence and compromising approach to the issue of slavery. But remember, one of the reasons the newly written Constitution was ratified by the required number of states was because they knew George Washington would be the first one elected to the office of President, and everybody trusted him. The reason they trusted him was his willingness to remain silent on issues that he knew would ruffle the feathers of others.
The book follows the story of Washington's ancestors, his youth, and follows him through his adult years. The story of slavery of America during this time is also described. The book portrays a shift in Washington's attitude toward African-Americans during the Revolutionary War. Washington spent most of his time during the war in the north where there were numerous freed blacks. Between 6% to 13% of the Continental Army were freed blacks, and one Rhode Island regiment was 90% black. Washington learned to respect their abilities during this time. However, George Washington was the consummate politician, and during his presidency and retirement years in Virginia he kept his personal opinions about slavery limited to a select few. In the end he avoided the wrath of his family and wife by freeing his slaves in his will after his death, an act he had not discussed with Martha. One fact I learned from this book is that most of the slaves serving at Mount Vernon were dower slaves, the property of the Custis estate (came to the marriage through Martha), and Washington's will could not free them. His will indicated his wish that they could be freed along with his, but in the end few were freed. That is again an indication of the attitude of his family.
The narrative follows the stories of some of Washington's slaves, some of whom escaped while serving during the presidency years in Philadelphia. The story of an escaped slave named Ona Judge was of particular interest. It appears that Washington may have been willing to do nothing about her escape, but his wife Martha insisted that every effort be made to make her return. Washington knew that the incident had the potential of being politically embarrassing, but Martha wanted her maid back at all costs.
The following are my thoughts, not from the book:
I think the past predicament of white Americans living in slave states was similar to us today who are addicted to the use of fossil fuels. We know it's bad for the world's climate, we know it's bad for the nation's balance of payments, and we know future generations will hate us for it, but we just can't quit. Past slave economies were in a similar situation. They knew there were problems but didn't see how their way of life could survive without slavery. It required the Civil War and 100+ years of continuing struggle to get rid of race based slavery. What will it take to teach us how to live without fossil fuels? Could a world wide financial depression do it?
The book follows the story of Washington's ancestors, his youth, and follows him through his adult years. The story of slavery of America during this time is also described. The book portrays a shift in Washington's attitude toward African-Americans during the Revolutionary War. Washington spent most of his time during the war in the north where there were numerous freed blacks. Between 6% to 13% of the Continental Army were freed blacks, and one Rhode Island regiment was 90% black. Washington learned to respect their abilities during this time. However, George Washington was the consummate politician, and during his presidency and retirement years in Virginia he kept his personal opinions about slavery limited to a select few. In the end he avoided the wrath of his family and wife by freeing his slaves in his will after his death, an act he had not discussed with Martha. One fact I learned from this book is that most of the slaves serving at Mount Vernon were dower slaves, the property of the Custis estate (came to the marriage through Martha), and Washington's will could not free them. His will indicated his wish that they could be freed along with his, but in the end few were freed. That is again an indication of the attitude of his family.
The narrative follows the stories of some of Washington's slaves, some of whom escaped while serving during the presidency years in Philadelphia. The story of an escaped slave named Ona Judge was of particular interest. It appears that Washington may have been willing to do nothing about her escape, but his wife Martha insisted that every effort be made to make her return. Washington knew that the incident had the potential of being politically embarrassing, but Martha wanted her maid back at all costs.
The following are my thoughts, not from the book:
I think the past predicament of white Americans living in slave states was similar to us today who are addicted to the use of fossil fuels. We know it's bad for the world's climate, we know it's bad for the nation's balance of payments, and we know future generations will hate us for it, but we just can't quit. Past slave economies were in a similar situation. They knew there were problems but didn't see how their way of life could survive without slavery. It required the Civil War and 100+ years of continuing struggle to get rid of race based slavery. What will it take to teach us how to live without fossil fuels? Could a world wide financial depression do it?
July 10, 2020
A fairly good book on Washington and his involvement in the institution of slavery. Wiencek writes well and weaves a good story. Although many Americans like to approach history with pre-conceptions, romantic ideas, and inflated rhetoric, Wiencek approaches the issue in a restrained manner.
As a young man, Washington accepted the institution of slavery, and it seems that he took a certain pleasure in the power over others that his status gave him. As he aged and matured, Washington questioned the morality of slavery, and finally emancipated his own slaves on his deathbed. At the same time, he made little effort to keep slave families together and was not averse to selling slaves to cover debts. Washington refused to break up slave families by sale. He did, however, break them up to increase their labor efficiency, keeping men at the "Home Farm" and their wives and children on the outlying farms. From time to time he did intervene to keep spouses together, but as a management practice he was indifferent to the stability of slave families. He raffled off slave children to pay off debts, with the odds of slave families staying together dependent on how many tickets were offered for sale. This raffling of slaves went unmentioned by Washington biographers for generations. When Washington got into financial troubles, it was his slaves that paid the price. Washington tried to stop the excesses of cruel overseers, but he also used these overseers as a threat to his house servants.
One black woman, Phillis Wheatly, wrote a poem about Washington, who was impressed and invited her to his headquarters, where he treated her with remarkable courtesy. In a letter to Wheatly, Washington signed himself as "Your obedt humble servant." Another slave owner, Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was outraged at Wheatley's fame and wrote about her with contempt.
Washington also had to deal with racial mixing. He was not horrified by it on racial grounds but for economic and social reasons. He feared such mixing would create a class of mixed-race people that could potentially threaten his own elite white planter class.
One historian has argued that the political power and "greatness" of the Virginia founders stemmed from their practiced mastery over slaves. Although we would like to believe that Washington was somehow "above" politics, this wasn't true: while taking part in the 1761 Virginia House of Burgesses election, Washington willfully and knowingly violated the law by sending damaging information about his opponent to the county sheriff. Washington was very much an elitist. He seemed to revel in his status as a member of the Virginia planter class. He was unimpressed by the "exceedingly dirty & nasty people" that made up the New England regiments.
During the war, Washington forbade blacks from enlisting. It is believable that this was due to prejudice, given the time period, or to a popular opposition to a black presence, but Wiencek finds no record of either of these.
During the war, blacks were accepted into only one unit. The British empire was slowly beginning to restrict the slavery at home. When they attempted to do the same in America, many colonists objected. Slavery played a significant role in uniting British public opinion (mostly anti-slavery) against the colonists, and in uniting the opinion of the southern colonies against Britain. When Lord Dunmore schemed to liberate and arm colonial slaves, Washington dubbed him "that arch traitor to the rights of humanity." While he was president, Washington signed into law the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, enabling southerners to capture runaway slaves and punishing northerners that harbored them.
Wiencek also discusses the issue of black troops in the Continental Army. More specifically, he discusses the lack of evidence regarding a widespread black presence. A historian that Wiencek cites, a certain Robert Selig, claims that "there were so many black soldiers in the Revolutionary army that their presence had ceased to be remarkable to contemporary observers and therefore was underreported." Wiencek, however, fails to provide any actual evidence to support this claim; rather he makes this claim based on lack of evidence, something no historian should do. Besides, I doubt the average white colonist of eighteenth-century America would be capable of such an incredible lack of prejudice. Also, there is only one recorded instance of Washington mentioning black enlistments, and then it was only in response to Britain's use of the same tactic. Brigadier General Mitchell Varnum asked Washington for permission to raise blacks in his home state. "Washington, " Wiencek writes, "gave his immediate approval." This is inaccurate. Washington actually forwarded Varnum's suggestions to the Rhode Island governor. He did not,however, append any comment to the proposal.
Washington's famous "wooden teeth" were actually real teeth taken from his slaves. Oddly, Washington actually paid his slaves for these transplants. And interestingly, when America's temporary capital moved to Philadelphia, he rotated his slaves in and out of state--due to a Pennsylvania law that freed any slaves that had been in the state for six months.
As a young man, Washington accepted the institution of slavery, and it seems that he took a certain pleasure in the power over others that his status gave him. As he aged and matured, Washington questioned the morality of slavery, and finally emancipated his own slaves on his deathbed. At the same time, he made little effort to keep slave families together and was not averse to selling slaves to cover debts. Washington refused to break up slave families by sale. He did, however, break them up to increase their labor efficiency, keeping men at the "Home Farm" and their wives and children on the outlying farms. From time to time he did intervene to keep spouses together, but as a management practice he was indifferent to the stability of slave families. He raffled off slave children to pay off debts, with the odds of slave families staying together dependent on how many tickets were offered for sale. This raffling of slaves went unmentioned by Washington biographers for generations. When Washington got into financial troubles, it was his slaves that paid the price. Washington tried to stop the excesses of cruel overseers, but he also used these overseers as a threat to his house servants.
One black woman, Phillis Wheatly, wrote a poem about Washington, who was impressed and invited her to his headquarters, where he treated her with remarkable courtesy. In a letter to Wheatly, Washington signed himself as "Your obedt humble servant." Another slave owner, Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was outraged at Wheatley's fame and wrote about her with contempt.
Washington also had to deal with racial mixing. He was not horrified by it on racial grounds but for economic and social reasons. He feared such mixing would create a class of mixed-race people that could potentially threaten his own elite white planter class.
One historian has argued that the political power and "greatness" of the Virginia founders stemmed from their practiced mastery over slaves. Although we would like to believe that Washington was somehow "above" politics, this wasn't true: while taking part in the 1761 Virginia House of Burgesses election, Washington willfully and knowingly violated the law by sending damaging information about his opponent to the county sheriff. Washington was very much an elitist. He seemed to revel in his status as a member of the Virginia planter class. He was unimpressed by the "exceedingly dirty & nasty people" that made up the New England regiments.
During the war, Washington forbade blacks from enlisting. It is believable that this was due to prejudice, given the time period, or to a popular opposition to a black presence, but Wiencek finds no record of either of these.
During the war, blacks were accepted into only one unit. The British empire was slowly beginning to restrict the slavery at home. When they attempted to do the same in America, many colonists objected. Slavery played a significant role in uniting British public opinion (mostly anti-slavery) against the colonists, and in uniting the opinion of the southern colonies against Britain. When Lord Dunmore schemed to liberate and arm colonial slaves, Washington dubbed him "that arch traitor to the rights of humanity." While he was president, Washington signed into law the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, enabling southerners to capture runaway slaves and punishing northerners that harbored them.
Wiencek also discusses the issue of black troops in the Continental Army. More specifically, he discusses the lack of evidence regarding a widespread black presence. A historian that Wiencek cites, a certain Robert Selig, claims that "there were so many black soldiers in the Revolutionary army that their presence had ceased to be remarkable to contemporary observers and therefore was underreported." Wiencek, however, fails to provide any actual evidence to support this claim; rather he makes this claim based on lack of evidence, something no historian should do. Besides, I doubt the average white colonist of eighteenth-century America would be capable of such an incredible lack of prejudice. Also, there is only one recorded instance of Washington mentioning black enlistments, and then it was only in response to Britain's use of the same tactic. Brigadier General Mitchell Varnum asked Washington for permission to raise blacks in his home state. "Washington, " Wiencek writes, "gave his immediate approval." This is inaccurate. Washington actually forwarded Varnum's suggestions to the Rhode Island governor. He did not,however, append any comment to the proposal.
Washington's famous "wooden teeth" were actually real teeth taken from his slaves. Oddly, Washington actually paid his slaves for these transplants. And interestingly, when America's temporary capital moved to Philadelphia, he rotated his slaves in and out of state--due to a Pennsylvania law that freed any slaves that had been in the state for six months.
May 11, 2018
Wieneck's book is a pleasing combination of close reading of historical archives and court records along with the author's first-person intrusions into the narrative, as when he goes to Mount Vernon to reenact for himself the type of labor the slaves would have done according to Washington's strict time management requirements, and to Colonial Williamsburg where actors portraying slaves and free blacks hold conversations among the tourists, to sometimes poignant effect. He finds that Washington was not explicitly a racist (1) (unlike Jefferson), and that from the Revolution on, he underwent a slow transformation from a man who accepted slavery's necessity and inevitabilty to one who found it repugnant. One of the book's surprises is the statement President Washington made to his secretary of state, recorded by Jefferson - "that if the Union split apart into North and South 'he had made up his mind to remove and be of the Northern.'"
The popular image is of a man who subjected himself to rigorous self-control and discipline (and who, like Jefferson, cared immensely what society thought of him and what his legacy would be), and that image mostly survives the book although there is the question of whether Washington fathered a mulatto son with a slave named Venus who was owned by his brother and sister-in-law. To this image we can add a man who had enormous personal and military courage, but not as much political courage. Slavery had become disgusting enough to him that he pointedly and vehemently insisted in his will that his slaves be emancipated upon his wife's death (the vehemence was because he knew she and her descendants would try to fight it), but not quite disgusting enough that he was willing to risk making political enemies among southern politicians by freeing them during his life.
Martha Washington does not come off well here. She was an extremely advantageous marriage for George, who needed her wealth to ease his debts already as a young man. But she never developed the moral enlightenment he did on slavery, and was a bad influence on him in the matter of the runaway slave Ona Judge. She spoiled her son Jacky Custis, who was always entitled, lazy, and dissolute, fathering a son with Martha's black-white-Indian slave Ann Dandridge, who was also Martha's half-sister and thus Jacky's aunt. Jacky protested to his stepfather when soldiers and veterans were given the right to vote.
Washington was stingy with his field slaves. They got one set of clothing per year, plus a wool jacket for winter. There was no allowance made for repairing worn out clothing, and when it needed mending, the slaves had to steal wheat sacks. Every newborn got a fresh blanket, but the adults' blankets had to last years, and Washington also required them to carry leaves in their blankets to spread on the floors of the stables and livestock pens. He was obsessed with productivity and calculated how many tobacco seedlings should be planted per day per slave. His slaves always underperformed. When he rode around his plantations and spotted wagons carrying much smaller loads than he thought practical, he would stop and instruct the slaves on efficient wagon-filling and transport. When the productivity of his seamstresses declined, he had an overseer threaten to make them field slaves.
Some of Washington's denture teeth were pulled from his slaves' mouths. They were compensated; Wiencek notes that it had also been European practice for the rich to buy teeth from the poor.
Wiencek unearths a new bit of information - acting as a lottery manager in Williamsburg in 1769, Washington raffled off children in order to settle the debts of a planter named Bernard Moore who was in hock to the Custis estate. As guardian for his stepchildren, Washington was responsible for the financial management of their estates and inheritances. For the purchase of a £10 ticket, gamblers might win 1,800 acres of land with a forge and grist mill, apple and peach orchards, or Sukey, about 12 years old, and Betty, about 7. Moore's bad fortune had started when it was discovered that the recently deceased speaker of the House of Burgesses had embezzled more than £100,000 of public funds. Moore had borrowed heavily from the embezzled money, too much to repay, and his estate had to be liquidated. Wiencek writes, "In modern terms, it was as if the collapse of a Wall Street brokerage, due to the malfeasance of its officers, had led to the sale of the children of the cleaning staff to pay the debts of the corporate vice presidents."
The children of indentured servants also suffered horribly. In the early 1760s Washington had been elected to the vestries of two church parishes and was appointed a justice of Fairfax County - both government positions. It was a crime for an indentured servant to have a bastard child. The punishment could be a fine, the extension of the term of service, or both. If the servant could not pay the fine (and the fines were so high it was rare that she could), she might be whipped. In addition, her owner would take ownership of the bastard children, so the court records contain statements like "the churchwardens of Fairfax parish bind Sarah Blinston about three years old and Thomas Blinston about fifteen months old (base born children) apprentices to Sampson Darrell Gent according to Law." This was a case on which Washington sat in judgment.
Washington was chosen on the first ballot to command the troops in the Revolutionary War. He insisted on no salary but allowed his expenses to be covered. Since this is not a military biography, Wiencek mostly sidesteps battles and focuses on the issue of black troops. They were already in existence when Washington arrived in Massachusetts, having joined up spontaneously. This was disturbing to some Southerners in the Continental Congress, who demanded their expulsion. Washington agreed, on both slaves and free men, and issued the order banning them. At the same time, the British were inviting slaves to join their ranks and gain their freedom (and some Mount Vernon slaves did). Washington revised his order to admit free blacks, but not slaves. Wiencek believes that the "personal appeals had moved him, that the humanity of these free black people made itself apparent to him," and also that he was influenced in his decision by the black poet Phillis Wheatley's poem lauding him. He invited Wheatley to his home in Cambridge and they met for half an hour, according to a biographer, something he would not have done in Virginia (according to Wiencek) because it went so much against custom.
Black and white sailors ferried Washington and his army across the Delaware River in 1776. At Valley Forge, where blacks and whites fought alongside, he decided the army should take on more black recruits, and a mostly black regiment from Rhode Island, containing free men and slaves who were given their freedom for enlisting, was raised. An officer serving on the French staff noted later that this regiment "is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers." In fact, this unit was hand-picked by Washington and Lafayette to carry out the critical assault on Cornwallis's men at Yorktown.
An interesting side note here involves Washington's aide-de-camp, John Laurens, from one of the wealthiest colonial families. He and his father had made their money from the slave trade and owned many slaves. Yet, educated in England and Geneva, he had come under the sway of the Lockean ideal of innate human liberty. He had transcribed Washington's letter endorsing the plan to recruit black infantrymen and with his father derived a scheme to emancipate several hundred blacks. He asked his father to turn over some slaves to him instead of leaving him a fortune, in order to turn them into a fighting force; they would gain their freedom when the war was over. Washington approved of Laurens' plan. But Laurens' father Henry nixed it, fearing it would subject his son to ridicule throughout the South. A year later Laurens revived the plan for South Carolina and Georgia and brought Alexander Hamilton aboard; it was especially urgent now because the British had captured Savannah. But Washington no longer approved, fearing that hundreds or thousands of newly freed slaves would cause immense discontent among those in bondage, including his own. He was also concerned about how the scheme would affect the sale price of slaves he was trying to unload - although his conscience was pricking him more by this time, and he would not separate families by sale. The wartime desperation for troops was such that even several Southern legislators proposed to the Congress that slaves be offered enlistment and freedom once the war had ended. But it was voted down (the planters were horrified by it) in the South Carolina Assembly. Charleston fell to the British.
Once the war had concluded, Washington's dear friend Lafayette wrote to him, suggesting that he begin the process of ending slavery. He would buy an estate in the West Indies, where freed slaves could be employed as tenant farmers. "Such an example as yours might render it a general practice," hinted Lafayette. Knowing Washington's obsession with his prestige and with appearances, he added as a challenge, "If it be a wild scheme, I had rather be mad in this way, than to be thought wise in the other task." Lafayette did buy the estate, in French Guiana, and Washington effusively praised "the benevolence of [his] heart," but did nothing further. Lafayette had personally contributed around $1 million to the war effort, but later said, "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery."
At the Constitutional Convention, Washington served as president, presiding over but not taking part in the debates. He looked on as the Founding Fathers enshrined slavery and kicked the can down the road. But Wiencek finds evidence that he was thinking hard about freeing his slaves as early as 1789, but kept it secret from all except his private secretary, not wanting to set his own family against him on the issue.
As the case of William Costin - Jacky Custis' and Ann Dandridge's mulatto slave son - shows, the Washington-Custis family were not strangers to interracial sex. Jacky's daughter Eliza married an Englishman, Thomas Law, in 1796; while an official of the East India Company, he had taken an Indian mistress and had three sons by her. Two of the sons came to America - he believed they would be more welcome there than in England - and Eliza told Law that "she would be a mother to them." They met Washington, and attended Harvard and Yale.
A slave named West Ford was the daughter of Venus - a slave belonging to Washington's half-brother John and his wife Hannah, who lived 95 miles from Mount Vernon - and some unidentified white man. Stories had been passed down to two separate branches of Ford's descendants that West as a child had traveled often to church with George Washington, and had ridden around in a wagon with him (although the association that runs Mount Vernon asserts there is no "documentary evidence" that the two ever met). Two of Ford's descendants told the New York Times that a history was passed down directly from West Ford to his grandson, to their mother, that Venus "was his personal sleep partner and that when it was obvious she was pregnant he no longer slept with her....When she was asked who fathered her child, she replied George Washington." West Ford was freed by Hannah Washington's will, and her son Bushrod Washington later bequeathed him 160 acres of land adjacent to Mount Vernon. This extreme generosity from a family that freed no other slaves stands out, and strongly suggests a family connection.
The most plausible explanation is that Bushrod or one of his two brothers fathered West Ford - they had ample opportunity, whereas most historians have found it difficult to impossible to pinpoint a time when George Washington and Venus would have been at the same location. Another difficulty is that Ford's precise birthdate, or even month and year of birth, is unknown. "Personal sleep partner" suggests an ongoing relationship, which is fairly clear could not have happened with George Washington. Then again, the research of Annette Gordon-Reed with regard to Jefferson and Sally Hemings suggests that slave family oral histories or testimonies are often mistakenly discounted; Madison Hemings had asserted in a newspaper interview that his mother had told him he and his brothers and sisters were Jefferson's children. Wiencek finds one instance when Hannah and "her maid" (Venus) traveled to Mount Vernon, and conveniently Martha Washington was sick abed at the time. But he acknowledges that Washington's sense of propriety, control, and decorum make it highly unlikely he would have a sexual dalliance with a slave. My money is on the youngest of Hannah's sons, Augustine, who died in an accident in April 1784 at age 17. The oral histories indicate Venus' relationship with West Ford's father "stopped abruptly" - perhaps when Augustine died - and his full name was George Augustine Washington, which matches another part of the oral history, Venus' assertion that "George Washington" was the father. It would also explain why Hannah Washington showed such generosity to West Ford in her will: he was the only thing left of her teenage son.(2)
Two final anecdotes show Washington in an unflattering light. As President, he and Martha lived in Philadelphia with some of their Mount Vernon slaves. This was a problem, because Pennsylvania had passed a law by which any slave who was in residence for six months became free. Washington had his secretary move slaves back and forth from Philadelphia to Virginia so that they would fall short of the six months’ residency. He even wrote his secretary a letter instructing him to lie about the scheme, if necessary. He was particularly concerned about his wife’s slaves (the “dower negroes”) because if they disappeared, the family would not only lose their labor but he would have to compensate the Custis heirs for their property losses.
In 1796, Martha’s slave Ona Judge ran away from Philadelphia. This was the young woman who was closest to the First Lady, doing her hair every morning and accompanying her to social events. She arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Unfortunately, slavery was still legal there, and the Fugitive Slave Act which Washington had signed in 1793 allowed escaped slaves, if found by their owner or an owner’s agent, to be brought before a court and ordered returned to the owner. Someone who knew the Washington family and had seen Judge wait on them recognized her in the street, and Judge confessed to running away. When Washington heard about it, he spoke confidentially to his Secretary of the Treasury, asking him to write to his employee, the customs collector at Portsmouth, to seize Judge and ship her back. “Everything about this was illegal,” notes Wiencek. “The president had set the machinery of the federal government in motion to recover private property.” Also, according to the law, Martha as the owner of Ona had to set the legal action in motion, and a slave could not be seized and transported, but had to appear before a magistrate so that ownership could be established. The customs collector found her, but did not seize her as ordered. Instead, he relayed her request to the Washingtons: she would come back to them, as long as she would be freed upon their deaths. His letter suggested that they follow the correct legal procedure to have her returned. Washington wrote an angry reply: he would not negotiate with a slave, and particularly not when it would be rewarding her betrayal – “however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People”. Washington had alleged that Judge had been taken off by a “seducer,” which was not true and probably a tale concocted by Martha to provide some moral cover. It seems likely that Washington’s vehemence with regard to recovering Judge was to placate his wife. He asked the collector to seize Judge quietly, without raising a ruckus. If that was not possible, he would “forego her Services altogether.” In the meantime, Judge had gotten married to a free man and had a daughter. Martha’s desire to have her back had not abated, and she sent her nephew Burwell Bassett to find her. Bassett found Judge and her baby; Judge’s husband was away at sea. Bassett was staying with Senator John Langdon, a longtime friend of the Washingtons. He told Langdon that he was planning to forcibly seize Judge and her daughter. But Langdon, aware that Judge’s child, though born in New Hampshire, would still be a slave because of her mother’s status, was “appalled,” and slipped away during dinner to send a message to Judge that she was in danger and should flee. She did, for good. Just a few weeks earlier, Washington had written the will in which he emancipated all his slaves at Martha’s death, specified that the old and infirm would be clothed and fed until their (the slaves’) deaths, and that any child slaves without parents or with unwilling parents would be taught to read and write and trained in a useful occupation up to the age of twenty-five.
(1) I'm not convinced. At the least, the author is using an extremely narrow definition of racist. In a gracious thank you letter to Phillis Wheatley after she sent him her panegyric poem, Washington addressed her as "Miss Phillis" - with the author noting, "Nothing could have induced him to address a black woman by her last name - a convention reserved for whites". However he did sign the letter "with great Respect, Your obedt humble servant...", reminding me of the time Jefferson admonished his grandson for not bowing to a black man in the street who had bowed to them.
(2) https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/07/us...
Errata: On the map, “Washington’s Virginia,” Leesburg, Great Falls, Alexandria, Mount Vernon, Belvoir, and Gunston Hall are on the wrong side of the Potomac River.
--------
The popular image is of a man who subjected himself to rigorous self-control and discipline (and who, like Jefferson, cared immensely what society thought of him and what his legacy would be), and that image mostly survives the book although there is the question of whether Washington fathered a mulatto son with a slave named Venus who was owned by his brother and sister-in-law. To this image we can add a man who had enormous personal and military courage, but not as much political courage. Slavery had become disgusting enough to him that he pointedly and vehemently insisted in his will that his slaves be emancipated upon his wife's death (the vehemence was because he knew she and her descendants would try to fight it), but not quite disgusting enough that he was willing to risk making political enemies among southern politicians by freeing them during his life.
Martha Washington does not come off well here. She was an extremely advantageous marriage for George, who needed her wealth to ease his debts already as a young man. But she never developed the moral enlightenment he did on slavery, and was a bad influence on him in the matter of the runaway slave Ona Judge. She spoiled her son Jacky Custis, who was always entitled, lazy, and dissolute, fathering a son with Martha's black-white-Indian slave Ann Dandridge, who was also Martha's half-sister and thus Jacky's aunt. Jacky protested to his stepfather when soldiers and veterans were given the right to vote.
Washington was stingy with his field slaves. They got one set of clothing per year, plus a wool jacket for winter. There was no allowance made for repairing worn out clothing, and when it needed mending, the slaves had to steal wheat sacks. Every newborn got a fresh blanket, but the adults' blankets had to last years, and Washington also required them to carry leaves in their blankets to spread on the floors of the stables and livestock pens. He was obsessed with productivity and calculated how many tobacco seedlings should be planted per day per slave. His slaves always underperformed. When he rode around his plantations and spotted wagons carrying much smaller loads than he thought practical, he would stop and instruct the slaves on efficient wagon-filling and transport. When the productivity of his seamstresses declined, he had an overseer threaten to make them field slaves.
Some of Washington's denture teeth were pulled from his slaves' mouths. They were compensated; Wiencek notes that it had also been European practice for the rich to buy teeth from the poor.
Wiencek unearths a new bit of information - acting as a lottery manager in Williamsburg in 1769, Washington raffled off children in order to settle the debts of a planter named Bernard Moore who was in hock to the Custis estate. As guardian for his stepchildren, Washington was responsible for the financial management of their estates and inheritances. For the purchase of a £10 ticket, gamblers might win 1,800 acres of land with a forge and grist mill, apple and peach orchards, or Sukey, about 12 years old, and Betty, about 7. Moore's bad fortune had started when it was discovered that the recently deceased speaker of the House of Burgesses had embezzled more than £100,000 of public funds. Moore had borrowed heavily from the embezzled money, too much to repay, and his estate had to be liquidated. Wiencek writes, "In modern terms, it was as if the collapse of a Wall Street brokerage, due to the malfeasance of its officers, had led to the sale of the children of the cleaning staff to pay the debts of the corporate vice presidents."
The children of indentured servants also suffered horribly. In the early 1760s Washington had been elected to the vestries of two church parishes and was appointed a justice of Fairfax County - both government positions. It was a crime for an indentured servant to have a bastard child. The punishment could be a fine, the extension of the term of service, or both. If the servant could not pay the fine (and the fines were so high it was rare that she could), she might be whipped. In addition, her owner would take ownership of the bastard children, so the court records contain statements like "the churchwardens of Fairfax parish bind Sarah Blinston about three years old and Thomas Blinston about fifteen months old (base born children) apprentices to Sampson Darrell Gent according to Law." This was a case on which Washington sat in judgment.
Washington was chosen on the first ballot to command the troops in the Revolutionary War. He insisted on no salary but allowed his expenses to be covered. Since this is not a military biography, Wiencek mostly sidesteps battles and focuses on the issue of black troops. They were already in existence when Washington arrived in Massachusetts, having joined up spontaneously. This was disturbing to some Southerners in the Continental Congress, who demanded their expulsion. Washington agreed, on both slaves and free men, and issued the order banning them. At the same time, the British were inviting slaves to join their ranks and gain their freedom (and some Mount Vernon slaves did). Washington revised his order to admit free blacks, but not slaves. Wiencek believes that the "personal appeals had moved him, that the humanity of these free black people made itself apparent to him," and also that he was influenced in his decision by the black poet Phillis Wheatley's poem lauding him. He invited Wheatley to his home in Cambridge and they met for half an hour, according to a biographer, something he would not have done in Virginia (according to Wiencek) because it went so much against custom.
Black and white sailors ferried Washington and his army across the Delaware River in 1776. At Valley Forge, where blacks and whites fought alongside, he decided the army should take on more black recruits, and a mostly black regiment from Rhode Island, containing free men and slaves who were given their freedom for enlisting, was raised. An officer serving on the French staff noted later that this regiment "is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers." In fact, this unit was hand-picked by Washington and Lafayette to carry out the critical assault on Cornwallis's men at Yorktown.
An interesting side note here involves Washington's aide-de-camp, John Laurens, from one of the wealthiest colonial families. He and his father had made their money from the slave trade and owned many slaves. Yet, educated in England and Geneva, he had come under the sway of the Lockean ideal of innate human liberty. He had transcribed Washington's letter endorsing the plan to recruit black infantrymen and with his father derived a scheme to emancipate several hundred blacks. He asked his father to turn over some slaves to him instead of leaving him a fortune, in order to turn them into a fighting force; they would gain their freedom when the war was over. Washington approved of Laurens' plan. But Laurens' father Henry nixed it, fearing it would subject his son to ridicule throughout the South. A year later Laurens revived the plan for South Carolina and Georgia and brought Alexander Hamilton aboard; it was especially urgent now because the British had captured Savannah. But Washington no longer approved, fearing that hundreds or thousands of newly freed slaves would cause immense discontent among those in bondage, including his own. He was also concerned about how the scheme would affect the sale price of slaves he was trying to unload - although his conscience was pricking him more by this time, and he would not separate families by sale. The wartime desperation for troops was such that even several Southern legislators proposed to the Congress that slaves be offered enlistment and freedom once the war had ended. But it was voted down (the planters were horrified by it) in the South Carolina Assembly. Charleston fell to the British.
Once the war had concluded, Washington's dear friend Lafayette wrote to him, suggesting that he begin the process of ending slavery. He would buy an estate in the West Indies, where freed slaves could be employed as tenant farmers. "Such an example as yours might render it a general practice," hinted Lafayette. Knowing Washington's obsession with his prestige and with appearances, he added as a challenge, "If it be a wild scheme, I had rather be mad in this way, than to be thought wise in the other task." Lafayette did buy the estate, in French Guiana, and Washington effusively praised "the benevolence of [his] heart," but did nothing further. Lafayette had personally contributed around $1 million to the war effort, but later said, "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery."
At the Constitutional Convention, Washington served as president, presiding over but not taking part in the debates. He looked on as the Founding Fathers enshrined slavery and kicked the can down the road. But Wiencek finds evidence that he was thinking hard about freeing his slaves as early as 1789, but kept it secret from all except his private secretary, not wanting to set his own family against him on the issue.
As the case of William Costin - Jacky Custis' and Ann Dandridge's mulatto slave son - shows, the Washington-Custis family were not strangers to interracial sex. Jacky's daughter Eliza married an Englishman, Thomas Law, in 1796; while an official of the East India Company, he had taken an Indian mistress and had three sons by her. Two of the sons came to America - he believed they would be more welcome there than in England - and Eliza told Law that "she would be a mother to them." They met Washington, and attended Harvard and Yale.
A slave named West Ford was the daughter of Venus - a slave belonging to Washington's half-brother John and his wife Hannah, who lived 95 miles from Mount Vernon - and some unidentified white man. Stories had been passed down to two separate branches of Ford's descendants that West as a child had traveled often to church with George Washington, and had ridden around in a wagon with him (although the association that runs Mount Vernon asserts there is no "documentary evidence" that the two ever met). Two of Ford's descendants told the New York Times that a history was passed down directly from West Ford to his grandson, to their mother, that Venus "was his personal sleep partner and that when it was obvious she was pregnant he no longer slept with her....When she was asked who fathered her child, she replied George Washington." West Ford was freed by Hannah Washington's will, and her son Bushrod Washington later bequeathed him 160 acres of land adjacent to Mount Vernon. This extreme generosity from a family that freed no other slaves stands out, and strongly suggests a family connection.
The most plausible explanation is that Bushrod or one of his two brothers fathered West Ford - they had ample opportunity, whereas most historians have found it difficult to impossible to pinpoint a time when George Washington and Venus would have been at the same location. Another difficulty is that Ford's precise birthdate, or even month and year of birth, is unknown. "Personal sleep partner" suggests an ongoing relationship, which is fairly clear could not have happened with George Washington. Then again, the research of Annette Gordon-Reed with regard to Jefferson and Sally Hemings suggests that slave family oral histories or testimonies are often mistakenly discounted; Madison Hemings had asserted in a newspaper interview that his mother had told him he and his brothers and sisters were Jefferson's children. Wiencek finds one instance when Hannah and "her maid" (Venus) traveled to Mount Vernon, and conveniently Martha Washington was sick abed at the time. But he acknowledges that Washington's sense of propriety, control, and decorum make it highly unlikely he would have a sexual dalliance with a slave. My money is on the youngest of Hannah's sons, Augustine, who died in an accident in April 1784 at age 17. The oral histories indicate Venus' relationship with West Ford's father "stopped abruptly" - perhaps when Augustine died - and his full name was George Augustine Washington, which matches another part of the oral history, Venus' assertion that "George Washington" was the father. It would also explain why Hannah Washington showed such generosity to West Ford in her will: he was the only thing left of her teenage son.(2)
Two final anecdotes show Washington in an unflattering light. As President, he and Martha lived in Philadelphia with some of their Mount Vernon slaves. This was a problem, because Pennsylvania had passed a law by which any slave who was in residence for six months became free. Washington had his secretary move slaves back and forth from Philadelphia to Virginia so that they would fall short of the six months’ residency. He even wrote his secretary a letter instructing him to lie about the scheme, if necessary. He was particularly concerned about his wife’s slaves (the “dower negroes”) because if they disappeared, the family would not only lose their labor but he would have to compensate the Custis heirs for their property losses.
In 1796, Martha’s slave Ona Judge ran away from Philadelphia. This was the young woman who was closest to the First Lady, doing her hair every morning and accompanying her to social events. She arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Unfortunately, slavery was still legal there, and the Fugitive Slave Act which Washington had signed in 1793 allowed escaped slaves, if found by their owner or an owner’s agent, to be brought before a court and ordered returned to the owner. Someone who knew the Washington family and had seen Judge wait on them recognized her in the street, and Judge confessed to running away. When Washington heard about it, he spoke confidentially to his Secretary of the Treasury, asking him to write to his employee, the customs collector at Portsmouth, to seize Judge and ship her back. “Everything about this was illegal,” notes Wiencek. “The president had set the machinery of the federal government in motion to recover private property.” Also, according to the law, Martha as the owner of Ona had to set the legal action in motion, and a slave could not be seized and transported, but had to appear before a magistrate so that ownership could be established. The customs collector found her, but did not seize her as ordered. Instead, he relayed her request to the Washingtons: she would come back to them, as long as she would be freed upon their deaths. His letter suggested that they follow the correct legal procedure to have her returned. Washington wrote an angry reply: he would not negotiate with a slave, and particularly not when it would be rewarding her betrayal – “however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People”. Washington had alleged that Judge had been taken off by a “seducer,” which was not true and probably a tale concocted by Martha to provide some moral cover. It seems likely that Washington’s vehemence with regard to recovering Judge was to placate his wife. He asked the collector to seize Judge quietly, without raising a ruckus. If that was not possible, he would “forego her Services altogether.” In the meantime, Judge had gotten married to a free man and had a daughter. Martha’s desire to have her back had not abated, and she sent her nephew Burwell Bassett to find her. Bassett found Judge and her baby; Judge’s husband was away at sea. Bassett was staying with Senator John Langdon, a longtime friend of the Washingtons. He told Langdon that he was planning to forcibly seize Judge and her daughter. But Langdon, aware that Judge’s child, though born in New Hampshire, would still be a slave because of her mother’s status, was “appalled,” and slipped away during dinner to send a message to Judge that she was in danger and should flee. She did, for good. Just a few weeks earlier, Washington had written the will in which he emancipated all his slaves at Martha’s death, specified that the old and infirm would be clothed and fed until their (the slaves’) deaths, and that any child slaves without parents or with unwilling parents would be taught to read and write and trained in a useful occupation up to the age of twenty-five.
(1) I'm not convinced. At the least, the author is using an extremely narrow definition of racist. In a gracious thank you letter to Phillis Wheatley after she sent him her panegyric poem, Washington addressed her as "Miss Phillis" - with the author noting, "Nothing could have induced him to address a black woman by her last name - a convention reserved for whites". However he did sign the letter "with great Respect, Your obedt humble servant...", reminding me of the time Jefferson admonished his grandson for not bowing to a black man in the street who had bowed to them.
(2) https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/07/us...
Errata: On the map, “Washington’s Virginia,” Leesburg, Great Falls, Alexandria, Mount Vernon, Belvoir, and Gunston Hall are on the wrong side of the Potomac River.
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May 5, 2020
Something you won’t learn in school, George’s first purchase from London as a married man was a “quantity of Spanish fly” while Martha opted for “a spruced-up nightgown". How nice was Martha Washington? She held her own half-sister as a slave. When George later on wanted to free his slaves, “Martha lifted not a finger to help.” But marrying that racist tart “saved Washington from financial ruin” as GW had been holding off one creditor for two years. “Washington was the first person to breed mules in America.” Without him, it would have been “20 Donkey Team Borax.” GW demanded all workers “may be at their work as soon as it is light and work until it is dark.” This of course meant getting up before it was light and walking back in the dark. Because GW had a lot of draft animals, his slaves had to grow lots of fodder crops. George was usually taller than others by a foot. Mount Vernon’s brick slave barracks are still there, a testament to the “permanence of slavery.” Washington’s uncle disciplined his “favorite” slave by slashing him and then immersing him in brine to increase his suffering. George’s formal schooling ended by age fifteen, after that he was an autodidact.
Forget GW’s wooden teeth: this book clarifies the super dark fact that GW had teeth yanked from the heads of slaves and placed in his own mouth, but also offers a partial explanation. In Europe, there was a custom that the rich would pay the poor for their teeth, and the dentist that did the deed was a Frenchman at Mount Vernon (who transplanted teeth for the aristocracy) and “Washington paid his slaves for their teeth” so that they might “procure for themselves a few amenities”. Slaves taught their own children “how to survive”. GW’s slaves were “miserably clothed. A set of clothing was doled out just once a year supplemented by a woolen jacket in winter. Their clothing would have soon been “reduced to mere rags” and yet GW denounced their “villainy” when slaves stole socks or wheat sacks to mend clothing. “Discovery of a mended garment could bring down punishment”. What slave wouldn’t want to be forced to work for George who gave you one blanket every two years and you were expected to share it with livestock so that at the end of the two lovely years, it was reduced to “a filthy, insect-ridden rag”? Who wouldn’t want to work this way for the father of our country? One overseer, reported one December that the black “children had no clothes at all – none – and it was already winter.” Before his revolutionary role, Washington spent his time as a planter ordering “breeding wenches” and “blithely exiling a man to a likely death at hard labor.”
Historian Carl Bridenbaugh saw the origins of Patriotism/Patriarchy in the plantation system: White boys were given a personal servant to rule over, and they were expected to rule over their own land and their “people” as they saw fit. Edmund Morgan wrote that the indentured servants sent to the colonies by England were considered “its filth and scum”. One quarter of Virginia’s freemen were landless and lived in or near poverty. Morgan wrote that only after Virginians had rid themselves of all these unruly indentured servants and switched to outright slavery, did it become possible to talk of individual liberties and freedom. It simply had been previously too dangerous to talk of liberty and freedom when Virginia had an obvious discontented white working class. Sally Hemmings was three-fourths white and was “the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife.” The top selling US textbook in the 50’s talked about “Sambo” suffering less than other groups during slavery and that most slaves “were adequately fed, well cared for, and apparently happy.” The textbook ends with a black “devoted to his white folks”. Visitors at Colonial Williamsburg get upset even today, at any implication on the official tour that the founders weren’t perfect.
Weincek uncovers what he calls GW’s “moral nadir” when he finds George Washington officially raffled off slaves. GW’s hope had been that he could get a higher price through raffling by appealing to the “sporting spirit” of other Virginians. In 1773, GW’s overseer wrote to him saying separating families for sale was “like death to them.” By 1775, GW had started to soften and started buying whole families.
A black man fought at Lexington, the Continental Army had 5,000 blacks constituting 6% > 13% of it’s size. No one saw a Continental regiment without blacks. Unlike racist Jefferson, GW made the decision to “admit blacks to his army” and caused a black poet’s work to be published and even entertained her at his headquarters. 1776 enlistment slowed and 1777 was so bad that enlisting blacks had been a wise move. Black sailors and fishermen from Massachusetts end up saving Washington’s army by evacuating it from New York without losing a single man. The painting of GW crossing the Delaware shows a black at his side who was the slave of a New Hampshire officer. One officer wrote that the integrated Continental Army was creating “the foundations for the Abolition of Slavery in America.” Seven hundred blacks fought in Washington’s army at the Battle of Monmouth. Three fourths of a Rhode Island regiment were black and considered top-notch soldiers. Baron von Closen wrote that overall, he thought one in four of the Continental soldiers were black. GW wanted to protract the war and he knew he might lose in which case he planned on fleeing to his Ohio lands as a hunted man. “He knew every foot of that terrain.” It’s interesting to note that “a number of Washington’s slaves” who were less impressed by his new celebrity ran away to the British. Although Lafayette fought for the Americans, he said, “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that I was founding a land of slavery.” South Carolina had been opposed to enlisting blacks, and Northerner big wig John Adams took their side. Samuel Johnson had written, “How is it that we hear the largest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?”
Washington travels to NYC, boldly bringing his slaves to the “capital of a free and enlightened people.” Transporting the slave system where ever they went seemed “natural”. When the US Capitol shifts from New York to Philadelphia, Washington rotates his Philadelphia slaves so that none stay there the full six months, in such case they might consider themselves legally free. In doing so, not only did George Washington tell a lie, but he instructed his secretary to lie. GW writes Patrick Henry that he wanted to establish “an American Character” marked by independence and freedom. Any Native American or enslaved black reading that same letter would of course asked: Independence for who? Freedom for who? At GW’s best, he allowed three of his slaves to go by themselves to the theater. But he also signed the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and he spent three years chasing his wife’s runaway slave Ona Judge - even after she had married a free man. After visiting Washington and seeing his slaves jealously guarded by paranoid overseers with guns, Niemcewicz writes sarcastically, “What a country of liberty.” He adds, “They work all week not having a single day for themselves except holidays.” GW actually referred to his slave dwellings as “Coverings” and admitted that white people would not live in them. Washington’s death amounted to “a slow strangulation”.
Thomas Jefferson compares blacks to orangutans while hiding his obvious prejudice behind “the gloss of pseudoscientific verification.” Jefferson enslaved “his own kin”. Jefferson said, “A woman [slave] who brings a child every two years [is] more profitable than the best man [slave] of the farm.” When Jefferson worked on revising local slave codes, he actually proposed a law that a white woman could in effect be legally lynched for having a black man’s child. What a charmer. Washington on the other hand, said to Edmund Randolph (and it was recorded by Jefferson) that if the Union split into North and South, “he made his mind up to be of the Northern.” In fifteen years, Washington went from being an unquestioning slaveholder to planning to give up “his most valuable remaining assets”. Emancipation was planned by him secretly but clearly as early as 1789 (ten years before death). Washington also stated, “I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union.” Really great book, deeply interesting, and wildly unlike the sanitized US History taught me in school.
Forget GW’s wooden teeth: this book clarifies the super dark fact that GW had teeth yanked from the heads of slaves and placed in his own mouth, but also offers a partial explanation. In Europe, there was a custom that the rich would pay the poor for their teeth, and the dentist that did the deed was a Frenchman at Mount Vernon (who transplanted teeth for the aristocracy) and “Washington paid his slaves for their teeth” so that they might “procure for themselves a few amenities”. Slaves taught their own children “how to survive”. GW’s slaves were “miserably clothed. A set of clothing was doled out just once a year supplemented by a woolen jacket in winter. Their clothing would have soon been “reduced to mere rags” and yet GW denounced their “villainy” when slaves stole socks or wheat sacks to mend clothing. “Discovery of a mended garment could bring down punishment”. What slave wouldn’t want to be forced to work for George who gave you one blanket every two years and you were expected to share it with livestock so that at the end of the two lovely years, it was reduced to “a filthy, insect-ridden rag”? Who wouldn’t want to work this way for the father of our country? One overseer, reported one December that the black “children had no clothes at all – none – and it was already winter.” Before his revolutionary role, Washington spent his time as a planter ordering “breeding wenches” and “blithely exiling a man to a likely death at hard labor.”
Historian Carl Bridenbaugh saw the origins of Patriotism/Patriarchy in the plantation system: White boys were given a personal servant to rule over, and they were expected to rule over their own land and their “people” as they saw fit. Edmund Morgan wrote that the indentured servants sent to the colonies by England were considered “its filth and scum”. One quarter of Virginia’s freemen were landless and lived in or near poverty. Morgan wrote that only after Virginians had rid themselves of all these unruly indentured servants and switched to outright slavery, did it become possible to talk of individual liberties and freedom. It simply had been previously too dangerous to talk of liberty and freedom when Virginia had an obvious discontented white working class. Sally Hemmings was three-fourths white and was “the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife.” The top selling US textbook in the 50’s talked about “Sambo” suffering less than other groups during slavery and that most slaves “were adequately fed, well cared for, and apparently happy.” The textbook ends with a black “devoted to his white folks”. Visitors at Colonial Williamsburg get upset even today, at any implication on the official tour that the founders weren’t perfect.
Weincek uncovers what he calls GW’s “moral nadir” when he finds George Washington officially raffled off slaves. GW’s hope had been that he could get a higher price through raffling by appealing to the “sporting spirit” of other Virginians. In 1773, GW’s overseer wrote to him saying separating families for sale was “like death to them.” By 1775, GW had started to soften and started buying whole families.
A black man fought at Lexington, the Continental Army had 5,000 blacks constituting 6% > 13% of it’s size. No one saw a Continental regiment without blacks. Unlike racist Jefferson, GW made the decision to “admit blacks to his army” and caused a black poet’s work to be published and even entertained her at his headquarters. 1776 enlistment slowed and 1777 was so bad that enlisting blacks had been a wise move. Black sailors and fishermen from Massachusetts end up saving Washington’s army by evacuating it from New York without losing a single man. The painting of GW crossing the Delaware shows a black at his side who was the slave of a New Hampshire officer. One officer wrote that the integrated Continental Army was creating “the foundations for the Abolition of Slavery in America.” Seven hundred blacks fought in Washington’s army at the Battle of Monmouth. Three fourths of a Rhode Island regiment were black and considered top-notch soldiers. Baron von Closen wrote that overall, he thought one in four of the Continental soldiers were black. GW wanted to protract the war and he knew he might lose in which case he planned on fleeing to his Ohio lands as a hunted man. “He knew every foot of that terrain.” It’s interesting to note that “a number of Washington’s slaves” who were less impressed by his new celebrity ran away to the British. Although Lafayette fought for the Americans, he said, “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that I was founding a land of slavery.” South Carolina had been opposed to enlisting blacks, and Northerner big wig John Adams took their side. Samuel Johnson had written, “How is it that we hear the largest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?”
Washington travels to NYC, boldly bringing his slaves to the “capital of a free and enlightened people.” Transporting the slave system where ever they went seemed “natural”. When the US Capitol shifts from New York to Philadelphia, Washington rotates his Philadelphia slaves so that none stay there the full six months, in such case they might consider themselves legally free. In doing so, not only did George Washington tell a lie, but he instructed his secretary to lie. GW writes Patrick Henry that he wanted to establish “an American Character” marked by independence and freedom. Any Native American or enslaved black reading that same letter would of course asked: Independence for who? Freedom for who? At GW’s best, he allowed three of his slaves to go by themselves to the theater. But he also signed the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and he spent three years chasing his wife’s runaway slave Ona Judge - even after she had married a free man. After visiting Washington and seeing his slaves jealously guarded by paranoid overseers with guns, Niemcewicz writes sarcastically, “What a country of liberty.” He adds, “They work all week not having a single day for themselves except holidays.” GW actually referred to his slave dwellings as “Coverings” and admitted that white people would not live in them. Washington’s death amounted to “a slow strangulation”.
Thomas Jefferson compares blacks to orangutans while hiding his obvious prejudice behind “the gloss of pseudoscientific verification.” Jefferson enslaved “his own kin”. Jefferson said, “A woman [slave] who brings a child every two years [is] more profitable than the best man [slave] of the farm.” When Jefferson worked on revising local slave codes, he actually proposed a law that a white woman could in effect be legally lynched for having a black man’s child. What a charmer. Washington on the other hand, said to Edmund Randolph (and it was recorded by Jefferson) that if the Union split into North and South, “he made his mind up to be of the Northern.” In fifteen years, Washington went from being an unquestioning slaveholder to planning to give up “his most valuable remaining assets”. Emancipation was planned by him secretly but clearly as early as 1789 (ten years before death). Washington also stated, “I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union.” Really great book, deeply interesting, and wildly unlike the sanitized US History taught me in school.
August 9, 2014
Henry Wiencek has made the study of the Founding Fathers' relation to slavery something of a speciality, and this book is another excellent example. I have also read his book about Thomas Jefferson and his slaves, a book equally as interesting, if far more controversial!
To his credit, however, unlike Jefferson George Washington did not just talk about his disregard for slavery; he also acted upon it, albeit posthumously. Knowing he would face a battle amongst his own family and hampered by legal constraints, Washington expressly freed his slaves in his will, an act that went very much against the grain of his time. Washington expressed his dislike of slavery numerous times throughout his career, admired many of the black soldiers, slave and free, who served in the Revolutionary Army and drew up more than one plan of emancipation - it is a sad 'what if' to wonder how history made have been different had Washington followed through with one of his plans to emancipate his slaves whilst serving as President of the United States.
Slavery is the great leveller in terms of American morality, and for all the emancipation of his slaves in his will, Washington doesn't emerge from these pages with much more respectability than Jefferson did. Unlike the latter, it is highly unlikely that Washington ever fathered children with any of his slaves, but then Washington never fathered children with his wife either, so that doesn't necessarily mean he too wasn't sneaking off to the slave quarters, however out of character it would have been for a man of his iron will and self-control.
In a way, books like this are only necessary because of the decades and centuries of mythologising that have come to shroud the origins of the American Republic. For all of their actions, there is no reason why we should expect higher standards of justice and morality from men like Jefferson and Washington just because of their Revolutionary actions. They were products of their time, and that time accepted slavery as a given. We seek to find evidence that men like Washington disliked slavery and fought against it because it makes us feel better about admiring them. But we can respect their actions as the Founders of their country without needing to admire them as men.
To his credit, however, unlike Jefferson George Washington did not just talk about his disregard for slavery; he also acted upon it, albeit posthumously. Knowing he would face a battle amongst his own family and hampered by legal constraints, Washington expressly freed his slaves in his will, an act that went very much against the grain of his time. Washington expressed his dislike of slavery numerous times throughout his career, admired many of the black soldiers, slave and free, who served in the Revolutionary Army and drew up more than one plan of emancipation - it is a sad 'what if' to wonder how history made have been different had Washington followed through with one of his plans to emancipate his slaves whilst serving as President of the United States.
Slavery is the great leveller in terms of American morality, and for all the emancipation of his slaves in his will, Washington doesn't emerge from these pages with much more respectability than Jefferson did. Unlike the latter, it is highly unlikely that Washington ever fathered children with any of his slaves, but then Washington never fathered children with his wife either, so that doesn't necessarily mean he too wasn't sneaking off to the slave quarters, however out of character it would have been for a man of his iron will and self-control.
In a way, books like this are only necessary because of the decades and centuries of mythologising that have come to shroud the origins of the American Republic. For all of their actions, there is no reason why we should expect higher standards of justice and morality from men like Jefferson and Washington just because of their Revolutionary actions. They were products of their time, and that time accepted slavery as a given. We seek to find evidence that men like Washington disliked slavery and fought against it because it makes us feel better about admiring them. But we can respect their actions as the Founders of their country without needing to admire them as men.
February 10, 2011
This book examines George Washington's evolving views about slavery over his lifetime. Washington was born into a slave society and both he and his wife, Martha, not only owned slaves, but were genetically related to slaves with whom they interacted (including Martha's much younger half-sister). However, Washington's attitudes toward slavery began to change during the Revolutionary War when he commanded both white and black troops and was impressed by the loyalty and bravery of the black soldiers he encountered during the war. In his will, written five months before his death in December 1799, Washington wrote that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret" and he made provisions for his slaves to be freed after the death of Martha. Knowing that there would be objections to this emancipation and attempts to evade the provisions of his will within his own family, Washington included specific obligations and prohibitions. For example, slaves who were to be freed were not to be sold outside of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Henry Wiencek consulted private papers, court records, and the archives of the Washington family in developing the thesis of this book. Unfortunately, George Washington was one of the most private of the Founding Fathers and after his death, no doubt on the request of her husband, Martha Washington burned decades worth of their correspondence and so the author had to make some educated leaps to fill in some of the gaps in the documentary evidence. One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was the information that of the more than 300 slaves at Mount Vernon, George Washington only owned about 120 of them. Most were part of the Custis estate and he had no power to free those slaves, and, in fact none of the dower slaves of the Custis family were freed. One of the most impressive aspects of this book was the documented evidence demonstrating how the cruelty of slavery affected everyone involved--the individual slaves and the owners.
April 23, 2018
This is well written and very interesting. It's a bit dated as so much more has come to light about say Oney Judge. None the less readable and interesting.
The author considers George Washington to have not been racist and a benevolent slave owner. Which is a bit like a compassionate rapist. A oxymoron.
He then follows up with GW violating the Federal Slave Act as sitting president. Followed by detailed methods he used to oppress the Enslaved Peoples on his many estates.There is no benevolence in these actions. In addition the idea that black folks owe free service is racism all on it's own. The author details the daily lives of most of GW's Enslaved population on multiple Washington and Custis Estates: they left home before light, worked until dark, were provided a single meal a day. They were expected to grow their own food, keep their own chickens and hunt and fish. In the small amount of down time they were alloted. In addition they were inadequately clothed unless in service where visitors could see them. Yet the author makes repeated references to slave theft. I guess they were just supposed to nobly starve and freeze to death. GW was the thief. He stole their labor they were surviving. He's the thief not them. He also references common slave resistance techniques and then uses that as a reason that GW 'had' to punish them, as if owning humans was something he had to do. As if humans being oppressed have none of the rights of liberty that GW felt entitled to. I appreciate the effort by this author but GW's actions can not be excused. They absolutely are representative of who he is and they taint his image for all posterity. Period.
The author considers George Washington to have not been racist and a benevolent slave owner. Which is a bit like a compassionate rapist. A oxymoron.
He then follows up with GW violating the Federal Slave Act as sitting president. Followed by detailed methods he used to oppress the Enslaved Peoples on his many estates.There is no benevolence in these actions. In addition the idea that black folks owe free service is racism all on it's own. The author details the daily lives of most of GW's Enslaved population on multiple Washington and Custis Estates: they left home before light, worked until dark, were provided a single meal a day. They were expected to grow their own food, keep their own chickens and hunt and fish. In the small amount of down time they were alloted. In addition they were inadequately clothed unless in service where visitors could see them. Yet the author makes repeated references to slave theft. I guess they were just supposed to nobly starve and freeze to death. GW was the thief. He stole their labor they were surviving. He's the thief not them. He also references common slave resistance techniques and then uses that as a reason that GW 'had' to punish them, as if owning humans was something he had to do. As if humans being oppressed have none of the rights of liberty that GW felt entitled to. I appreciate the effort by this author but GW's actions can not be excused. They absolutely are representative of who he is and they taint his image for all posterity. Period.
March 15, 2011
I thought this biography of George Washington was excellent. Too often we think of famous people, especially statesmen, as having a set of ideals which are static and consistent throughout their lives. Wiencek has explored Washington's changing attitudes concerning slavery. He was raised with the instution of slavery and accepted it as the way his society operated, but Wiencek believes that as he commanded black regiments in the Revolution he began to see them as human beings and began to see the gross inequity of slavery. He was unable to see the instution abolished in the new constitution, but succeeded in freeing his own slaves and making restitution where he could.
I appreciated the scholarship and lack of agenda in this book. I felt like Wiencek had true admiration for Washington and all he accomplished in his lifetime and yet was able to admit his less admirable attributes that were a part of the time period in which he lived. In fact, I believe that he showed Washington to be an even greater person because he was able to review his own attitudes and to change in a time and place where it was not easy. Washington did not free all of his slaves the moment he became aware of the injustice, but he did begin to prepare them for freedom indicating that he still was conscious of the responsibility of a slave owner to provide for his "people" and to consider their welfare.
I appreciated the scholarship and lack of agenda in this book. I felt like Wiencek had true admiration for Washington and all he accomplished in his lifetime and yet was able to admit his less admirable attributes that were a part of the time period in which he lived. In fact, I believe that he showed Washington to be an even greater person because he was able to review his own attitudes and to change in a time and place where it was not easy. Washington did not free all of his slaves the moment he became aware of the injustice, but he did begin to prepare them for freedom indicating that he still was conscious of the responsibility of a slave owner to provide for his "people" and to consider their welfare.
April 6, 2015
The concept of individual liberty for all was new to the world when the founding fathers created the United States of America. It quickly became evident that the new country, born in idealism, had a fatal flaw; that of slavery. The most revered leader of all, George Washington, was a slave owner. Recognizing slavery as the morally repugnant institution that it was, Washington struggled with his conscience for many years and left written evidence that he had searched for a politically and economically acceptable way to free his slaves. Sadly, that goal was not accomplished until after his death, as mandated by his last will and testament. The Southern states, especially Georgia and South Carolina, were unyielding in their demand that slavery be preserved and the slave trade by expanded, to the point of threatening to betray the revolutionary cause and join the war on the side of the British if their demands were not met. Thus, the seeds of the Civil War were sown at the birth of our nation. A very enlightening book.
April 17, 2022
Amazing research and exceedingly well written. I have found other books on Washington and slavery to be somewhat cumbersome reading. This one has a nice flow while embracing an impressive amount of detail. It is amazing to me that Wiencek wrote this nearly 20 years ago. He uncovered evidence and ties that I haven't read in other sources. I don't always agree with his take on things (he is sometimes forgiving where I would not be, and harsh where I think grace is warranted), but his opinions always have a basis in fact. Highly recommend.
May 22, 2014
I wish this book was required reading in US history classes across the country.
Let me put this in perspective for you, I am a black male and part of the Millennial generation, which basically means I have a college degree, too much debt, and a weak foundation in history; it has been my job to change the latter two over the past few years. It also means, before reading this book, I prescribed to the Dave Chappelle theory concerning the "founding fathers," which instructs me to run the opposite direction if I ever saw one of the "founding fathers." I know, this sounds ridiculous, but non-melanin challenged folks like myself tend to look at the "founding fathers" in a different light, hence the whole owning my ancestors and not thinking twice about thing. George Washington did more than think twice, he elevated above the common perspective of his day. I greatly admire this man, thanks to this book.
Wiencek does not pull any punches. The pacing of the account reads like a well edited film. There are historical cameos by the likes of Phyllis Wheatley, Thomas Jefferson, and more. This book paints the image of an honest, flawed, and courageous man that was not afraid to seek answers to questions no one with his power would even ask until years later. There are atrocities in here that will make any human cringe, and there are waving banners of empathy that restore your hope in human nature. If you, like many of us in the US, are wanting to embrace some true historical accounts that do not skip over the unfavorable details, then you should read this book. Everyone should read this book.
Let me put this in perspective for you, I am a black male and part of the Millennial generation, which basically means I have a college degree, too much debt, and a weak foundation in history; it has been my job to change the latter two over the past few years. It also means, before reading this book, I prescribed to the Dave Chappelle theory concerning the "founding fathers," which instructs me to run the opposite direction if I ever saw one of the "founding fathers." I know, this sounds ridiculous, but non-melanin challenged folks like myself tend to look at the "founding fathers" in a different light, hence the whole owning my ancestors and not thinking twice about thing. George Washington did more than think twice, he elevated above the common perspective of his day. I greatly admire this man, thanks to this book.
Wiencek does not pull any punches. The pacing of the account reads like a well edited film. There are historical cameos by the likes of Phyllis Wheatley, Thomas Jefferson, and more. This book paints the image of an honest, flawed, and courageous man that was not afraid to seek answers to questions no one with his power would even ask until years later. There are atrocities in here that will make any human cringe, and there are waving banners of empathy that restore your hope in human nature. If you, like many of us in the US, are wanting to embrace some true historical accounts that do not skip over the unfavorable details, then you should read this book. Everyone should read this book.
September 16, 2015
One of the least discussed, and most misunderstood aspects of George Washington’s life, was his relationship to the institution slavery in general, and to his own slaves in particular. For those inclined to a sympathetic view, the portrayal of Washington as a man who treated his slaves better than most and who eventually freed them at his death, is all they need to know. For those inclined to the opposite view, the fact that Washington never emancipated his slaves during his lifetime, was not above the use of corporal punishment to “correct” their behavior, and that he sold slaves solely for disciplinary reasons, provides more than enough justification for this view. Henry Wiencek in his excellent book An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, looks at Washington and slavery from both sides, chastising or praising Washington’s behavior where the evidence warrants. Wiencek’s driving theme however, is the process by which Washington moved from an attitude of relative indifference to slavery and its effects, to viewing it with repugnance by his death. He asserts that on the issue of slavery, the founding fathers perhaps ought to be judged not on a modern standard of morality that would surely condemn all, but on the example set by Washington. The overall effect of the book therefore, is to lead one to a more positive image of Washington relative to his ownership of slaves. Finally, Wiencek looks at two controversies involving Washington’s family and their actual and potential slave family members. Organizationally the book is roughly chronological, looking at Washington’s interactions with slavery throughout his life, at how the Virginia gentry handled the increasingly complicated definition of race, and how they decided who would remain in servitude and who wouldn’t. With his obvious passion for both George Washington and against the evils of slavery, Wiencek is prone in some places to make sweeping assertions that are not necessarily supported by the evidence.
Wiencek begins with a fairly standard look at Washington’s early life, his tumultuous relationship with his mother, his attempt to join the British Navy, and his early military career. More importantly, he describes the nature of the society in which Washington was raised; a society where “the keys to prosperity were the tobacco leaf and the deed of land.” (Wiencek, 27) Compared to Massachusetts where land access was controlled by the middling rank, in Virginia, it was controlled by an “elite who employed it to maintain their own hegemony.” (Wiencek, 28) Within this system, the institution of slavery thrived to the point that by the time Washington came of age, it “had taken over the colony to the degree that…’to live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible’.” (Wiencek, 45) He recounts the success Washington’s enjoyed in this system, combining a knack for land speculation with a talent for marrying above their station. Washington not only emulated his ancestors, but exceeded them in wealth and influence. It was in this context that Washington began his journey from someone who viewed slavery primarily in economic terms, to one who became opposed to it on both economic and moral grounds.
For most in Americans today the face of slavery in the eighteenth century is a wholly black one. However, as Wiencek shows in an excellent chapter entitled “On the Borderland,” the reality of slavery was far more complicated. Racial mixing forced colonial leaders to enact laws with contorted definitions of who was considered a slave and who wasn’t. Depending on the situation of the mother, the circumstances at child birth, the nature of the birth, or whether the offspring of slaves or indentured servants, a child was determined to be free, slave, or indentured. Ferreting out mixed race children became an obsession for officials trying to maintain the economic viability of the institution. George Washington became a participant in this obsession when he was appointed a justice of Fairfax County in 1764, a position from which he participated in decisions that today seem unusually cruel, including the forcible removal of children from their mothers, and corporal punishment of poor and destitute women.
Wiencek explores this further using three vignettes involving George and Martha Washington and their families. The first, in a chapter dedicated to Martha Washington and her eventual marriage to George Washington, the implications of race mixing, legally and culturally, are explored. John Custis, the father of Martha’s first husband Daniel Parke Custis, fathered a child by one of his slaves. Instead of trying to hide the child Custis embraced him and declared publicly his relationship. At one point John Custis threatened to rewrite his will, leaving “Black” Jack Custis as his only heir. Jack Custis was eventually emancipated in his father’s will and given land and a horse, extraordinary gestures for someone born into a state of slavery. It was this type of “boundary crossing,” from slave to free, that disturbed Virginia’s elite leaders. In order to preserve slavery, explicit definitions of what constituted slavery had to be maintained. John Custis’ efforts on behalf of his son Jack crossed that line.
After his father’s death, and not long before his own, Jack Custis’ half-brother Daniel Parke Custis was married to Martha Dandridge who eventually had two children. Not long after, when their children were still very young Daniel Parke Custis died, leaving a very large estate to Martha. In 1759, the Widow Custis married George Washington, who thus added the property of Daniel Parke Custis to his own, making him one of the wealthiest men in Virginia. A large part of this wealth were the slaves he held, which had nearly doubled as the result of his marriage. One of the slaves who eventually inhabited Mount Vernon was one Ann Dandridge, the illegitimate daughter of John Dandridge and a slave of mixed African and Cherokee heritage, and Martha Washington’s half-sister. This illustrates vividly, even in the first family of America, the strange nature of slavery in Virginia. Martha Washington owned her half-sister. In a further twist, Wiencek presents convincing evidence that Martha’s son Jacky Custis fathered a child by Ann Dandridge. Thus, the child of this union was not only Martha Washington’s grandchild, but her niece as well, and was also owned by Martha Washington. It throws into very stark relief the blurring racial lines in Virginia, and particularly the powerlessness slave women had over their own bodies.
In a third vignette, Wiencek delves into the persistent claims of some that George Washington fathered a child – West Ford – by a slave woman named Venus. Wiencek does a good job plowing through the evidence, particularly the wills of George Washington’s brother John Augustine Washington and his wife Hannah Bushrod Washington, showing fairly persuasively that the circumstances were such that it is plausible George Washington was West Ford’s father. However, he also does a good job presenting evidence this could not have been the case including the possibility George Washington was sterile due to the bout of small pox he suffered as a young man, and that Washington’s legendary emphasis on self-control would preclude the possibility. Wiencek concludes it is more likely Ford was the son of one of John Augustine’s sons. DNA evidence would probably be needed to make a reasonable determination, something that is unlikely to happen. Wiencek handles this chapter with great skill, avoiding the temptation to make definitive claims not supported by a reasonable interpretation of the evidence.
Where Wiencek does not avoid making claims unsupported by evidence is in the discussion of the root causes of Washington’s change of heart regarding slavery. In a chapter entitled “A Scheme in Williamsburg,” Wiencek makes the case that Washington’s experiences in Williamsburg as a member of the House of Burgesses started him on “a long moral transfiguration that concluded in the writing of his will – his indictment of the laws, the country, and the people that enacted events that, to him, had the feeling of death.” (Wiencek, 188) Specifically, Wiencek cites Washington’s involvement in a raffle in which slaves would be awarded to the winner. This raffle, designed to liquidate the assets of Bernard Moore in payment for his debts, Wiencek argues, along with the slave auctions Washington surely witnessed, started him on this path. His evidence for this is scant. He cites the fact that it was about this time that Washington began to show a reluctance for separating slave families, and the reaction of modern day tourists to a mock auction, as support for this contention. In my opinion this is pretty slim evidence on which to make a claim of this magnitude. While it is certainly possible he is correct, Wiencek’s assertion here doesn’t rise to the plausibility standard one expects of research historians.
In a more persuasive chapter on his Revolutionary War experiences, Wiencek details Washington’s evolution with regards to enrolling blacks into the Continental Army. Utterly opposed to it at first Washington, by degrees, lessened his opposition to the point where by the end of the war a significant portion of the army was comprised of black soldiers. In fact, as Wiencek points out, the Continental Army was the most integrated American army until the Vietnam War. Washington also shows some support for schemes devised by Alexander Hamilton, Henry Laurens and Lafayette, to enroll slaves with the promise of freedom. There can be no doubt that Washington witnessed numerous acts of courage on the part of these soldiers, evidenced by his trust in a majority black regiment from Rhode Island to spear head the attack on one of two redoubts, the capture of which was vital to the eventual American triumph at Yorktown. These soldiers performed their duty flawlessly, a fact that could not have been lost on Washington.
Here again however, Wiencek engages in a bit of hyperbole to make his point. He argues the failure of efforts by Henry Laurens and his father to enroll slaves into the Continental Army in South Carolina, resulted in the disastrous loss of Charleston in 1780. In fact the reason for the defeat were far more complex than that, and are more directly attributable to poor leadership. He later makes the claim that were it not for the timely action of his slave, George Washington’s cousin William Washington would have been killed pursuing Colonel Banastre Tarelton at Cowpens, thus putting the victory in jeopardy. While it is true Washington’s life was probably saved by his slave William Ball, and that losing Washington’s services would have been a blow to the southern army, it is quite a stretch to say this one incident saved the battle for the Americans. By that time most of Tarleton’s forces had been either killed or captured.
Finally, Wiencek guides us through Washington’s views on slavery from the end of the war to the end of his life. As he ably demonstrates Washington’s progression to the ultimate emancipation of his slaves was not smooth. He was dishonest in his attempts to retrieve Martha’s runaway slave Ona Judge, and in the schemes he devised to make sure slaves accompanying him to Philadelphia while he was President were not set free after six months, as provided for by Pennsylvania law. However, Wiencek skillfully describes attempts by Washington to formulate a plan for emancipation of his slaves while President, pointing out that he was willing to take a significant financial hit in order to do so. That these attempts did not pan out does not cast a shadow on the effort. Wiencek also does an excellent job of describing the day-t-day life of the slaves on Washington’s farms, Washington’s frustration at their work ethic, and the ways in which he meted out punishment. He does not spare Washington’s reputation here, pointing where Washington was cruel in meting out punishment, as when he blithely sent a recalcitrant slave to sure death in the West Indies. He is also critical of Washington for the way he threatened slaves with harsh punishment or separation from their families, to get more work out of them. He is unsparing in his criticism of the quarters slaves were housed in, which, at best were barely adequate, and at worst, were squalid. Finally, citing Washington’s will as evidence, Wiencek makes a persuasive claim that Washington, in contrast to Jefferson, was not a racist in the strict sense of the word. In providing for the education of parentless minors, Washington demonstrated his view that slaves were not inherently inferior to whites, but that their servitude had made them that way.
Once again however, in describing Washington’s efforts at emancipating his slaves, both while he was President, and later in his will, Wiencek makes a claim that does not seem entirely supported by evidence. In this case it is a lack of evidence he finds persuasive, specifically that there is no record of Martha Washington aiding in these efforts. This, combined with Martha’s obsession with getting Ona Judge returned to her, even when it became apparent that any overt effort to do so would harm her husband politically, is cited by Wiencek for his contention that a wide rift had grown between George and Martha Washington over the emancipation of his slaves. I did not find this persuasive, particularly since there is little extant correspondence between the two, and none on this topic.
Overall I was quite impressed. I think Wiencek makes a good case for using Washington’s evolution on slavery as a good yardstick other slave owning founders could be judged by. He was after all, the only one to free his slaves, and while at many times his behavior towards his slaves was not admirable, his ability to evolve his thinking and to act on it was fairly astounding for the time.
February 4, 2020
Fascinating read. Full of interesting details about not only George Washington, but colonial Virginia. The premise is that because George Washington freed his slaves upon his death, it means that his POV on slavery has radically changed. I'm not sure I'm buying some of Wiencek's hypothesis, but it was still an interesting read.
December 2, 2020
This book did a good job of recognizing that virtue and hypocrisy coexist in all of us, and that historical figures, even revered ones, are no different. It also showed that personal growth towards good is possible.
July 10, 2020
I've read a lot about George Washington, but given the current climate (summer 2020) and the reevaluation of historical icons from our past, I thought it was time to consider a deeper dive into Washington and slavery than most birth-to-death Washington biographies provide. And this nearly two-decade-old book offers just that - an examination of Washington's evolving attitudes toward slavery, and of the institution of slavery itself.
This is a difficult one to review, because the information it contains is excellent, but the telling is very uneven. Wiencek introduces topics, goes off on long tangents, alternates between Washington's time and vignettes from modern times, and goes back and forth between third-person and first-person points of view - sometimes in the middle of a narrative about events occurring in Washington's time, the perspective abruptly shifts to Wiencek himself and the process he underwent in researching and writing the book ("here's what so-and-so told me" or "I was shocked at what I discovered in the archives"). It kind of feels like he couldn't decide how to frame the story - whether it was better told as straight-ahead history, or whether it was about his own personal journey of discovery - so he tries to do both, to mixed effect.
That said, the book is well worth the occasional frustrations in reading it. Washington is the main character of the story, of course, but the book spends considerable time on the harsh conditions, the degradation and terror that slaves had to endure, just so you don't lose sight of what this story is really about.
Historians generally have given Washington great credit for freeing his slaves in his will, which is more than what most other Founding Fathers did. Modern-day critics, however, condemn him for not freeing them outright much earlier, and for owning slaves in the first place. Both perspectives are valid, but Wiencek generally comes down on the side of being sympathetic to Washington.
Washington, after all, was born into a society where slavery was considered acceptable and economically necessary. Wiencek traces how his attitudes changed, he started becoming more of a "benevolent" slaveholder (to the extent that's even possible) and ended up trying to clear the decks for emancipating his slaves as soon as he could make it economically feasible to do so. We can only wish he came to this realization earlier, and didn't ultimately wait until his death to act upon his epiphany.
So should Washington be honored for the views he had upon his death and the actions he ultimately took, or condemned for the views he had earlier in life and the actions he avoided taking? Some old-school historians believe, since he ultimately freed his slaves, that Washington=good! Some modern critics believe, since he was a slaveholder and didn't free them during his lifetime, that Washington=bad! The truth is somewhere in between. You may not agree with all of Wiencek's conclusions, but his book does a great service in contributing to the conversation, all these years later.
This is a difficult one to review, because the information it contains is excellent, but the telling is very uneven. Wiencek introduces topics, goes off on long tangents, alternates between Washington's time and vignettes from modern times, and goes back and forth between third-person and first-person points of view - sometimes in the middle of a narrative about events occurring in Washington's time, the perspective abruptly shifts to Wiencek himself and the process he underwent in researching and writing the book ("here's what so-and-so told me" or "I was shocked at what I discovered in the archives"). It kind of feels like he couldn't decide how to frame the story - whether it was better told as straight-ahead history, or whether it was about his own personal journey of discovery - so he tries to do both, to mixed effect.
That said, the book is well worth the occasional frustrations in reading it. Washington is the main character of the story, of course, but the book spends considerable time on the harsh conditions, the degradation and terror that slaves had to endure, just so you don't lose sight of what this story is really about.
Historians generally have given Washington great credit for freeing his slaves in his will, which is more than what most other Founding Fathers did. Modern-day critics, however, condemn him for not freeing them outright much earlier, and for owning slaves in the first place. Both perspectives are valid, but Wiencek generally comes down on the side of being sympathetic to Washington.
Washington, after all, was born into a society where slavery was considered acceptable and economically necessary. Wiencek traces how his attitudes changed, he started becoming more of a "benevolent" slaveholder (to the extent that's even possible) and ended up trying to clear the decks for emancipating his slaves as soon as he could make it economically feasible to do so. We can only wish he came to this realization earlier, and didn't ultimately wait until his death to act upon his epiphany.
So should Washington be honored for the views he had upon his death and the actions he ultimately took, or condemned for the views he had earlier in life and the actions he avoided taking? Some old-school historians believe, since he ultimately freed his slaves, that Washington=good! Some modern critics believe, since he was a slaveholder and didn't free them during his lifetime, that Washington=bad! The truth is somewhere in between. You may not agree with all of Wiencek's conclusions, but his book does a great service in contributing to the conversation, all these years later.
August 11, 2016
I can't decide quite how I feel about this book. I think it may have been more interesting for me if I was more knowledgeable about American history. However, it was an interesting perspective, George Washington as conflicted slaveholder, on a historical figure that I had seen as relatively one-dimensional. I felt like the author was a bit too sympathetic to Washington, typically assuming the best of intentions, but he did not shy away from showing the reality of owning slaves and Washington's contribution.
It's jarring to see a sympathetic portrayal of someone owning slaves and it's uncomfortable since they're perspective is hard to imagine. This book really did delve into the economic issues surrounding slavery, particularly the idea that it was started to replicate the British caste system, and the way that slave owners were a small proportion of the population (the number given was 7%) but they held an inordinate amount of political sway because they were landowners and were among the only people able to vote.
The book raises a lot of questions but not about slavery -- since there's no question of the evil there -- the questions are bigger. Who is complicit in slavery? How can a society which is theoretically comprised of good people allow evil to continue? What evils are we perpetuating now under the guise of necessity and who is responsible for effecting change?
It's jarring to see a sympathetic portrayal of someone owning slaves and it's uncomfortable since they're perspective is hard to imagine. This book really did delve into the economic issues surrounding slavery, particularly the idea that it was started to replicate the British caste system, and the way that slave owners were a small proportion of the population (the number given was 7%) but they held an inordinate amount of political sway because they were landowners and were among the only people able to vote.
The book raises a lot of questions but not about slavery -- since there's no question of the evil there -- the questions are bigger. Who is complicit in slavery? How can a society which is theoretically comprised of good people allow evil to continue? What evils are we perpetuating now under the guise of necessity and who is responsible for effecting change?
August 16, 2007
A very educational book about slavery in early America, examined by a study of Washington's relation to the peculiar institution. Washington went through a transformation over the course of his life, to the end that he freed and made provisions for his slaves in his will; the author objectively looks both at Washington's shortcomings and virtues in this matter. Some of the earlier chapters seemed a bit sporadic in their focus, but most of the book was well-written; I found the chapter on African-American involvement in the War for Independence particularly fascinating.
April 18, 2018
Excellent read. A well researched book that gives great information about our first President and his thoughts and dealings with slaves.
August 17, 2025
My school assigned An Imperfect God as mandatory summer reading, but I found the tome to be valuable. Wiencek explores the life of George Washington with a special emphasis on enslavement. He explains the complicated internal struggle Washington faced when dealing with slavery, and he discussed how this influenced Washington’s public decisions on the matter.
Wiencek also explored many of the locations that Washington spent time in. For instance, Wiencek visited Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, Tudor Place, and more. It is refreshing to see Wiencek exploring places that preserve this history but continue to exist today.
Wiencek quotes numerous passages from various historical documents and contextualizes them, showing how they relate to the story of Washington’s life. Personally, I did not know a great deal about our first president before I read this book, but Wiencek managed to explain the events of Washington’s life in a clear and compelling way. So, I learned a great deal about all sorts of things Washington did, even though this book primarily discusses enslavement.
One thing that struck me about An Imperfect God is that even in a field that has been heavily explored by dozens upon dozens of serious historians, Wiencek was able to discover and highlight crucial sources that had previously been underreported or ignored altogether. Wiencek found a primary source discussing Washington’s role in a slave raffle and provided seemingly new information about the dating of John Augustine’s will, which is important to the debate around whether or not Washington fathered an enslaved African.
There is one key reason why An Imperfect God gets 4 stars and not 5: The book was a bit of a slog. Admittedly, I had to rush through the tome in a short period, but I still found it quite difficult to get through. The pages are long and some chapters are enormous. There are few clear stopping points in this dense history book. During the 55 page chapter titled “A Scheme in Williamsburg”, it felt to me that Wiencek was prolonging the tale of a few events when they could have been easily shortened and conveyed with more clarity.
There were a few times when I simply wanted to put this book down and take a nap. That hurts its rating. However, I am still glad that I read this novel. George Washington was a fascinating man who embodies many of the paradoxes of early (and arguably present) America: He fought for a nation based on principles of freedom and liberty, but held hundreds of humans in bondage. He came to support a gradual emancipation in principle, but did not use his power and prestige to call for one. Washington invented and heard a million justifications for enslavement in his life, but ultimately freed those whom he had enslaved.
An Imperfect God thoroughly examines all these complicated paradoxes, and that ensures that it is worth a read.
Wiencek also explored many of the locations that Washington spent time in. For instance, Wiencek visited Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, Tudor Place, and more. It is refreshing to see Wiencek exploring places that preserve this history but continue to exist today.
Wiencek quotes numerous passages from various historical documents and contextualizes them, showing how they relate to the story of Washington’s life. Personally, I did not know a great deal about our first president before I read this book, but Wiencek managed to explain the events of Washington’s life in a clear and compelling way. So, I learned a great deal about all sorts of things Washington did, even though this book primarily discusses enslavement.
One thing that struck me about An Imperfect God is that even in a field that has been heavily explored by dozens upon dozens of serious historians, Wiencek was able to discover and highlight crucial sources that had previously been underreported or ignored altogether. Wiencek found a primary source discussing Washington’s role in a slave raffle and provided seemingly new information about the dating of John Augustine’s will, which is important to the debate around whether or not Washington fathered an enslaved African.
There is one key reason why An Imperfect God gets 4 stars and not 5: The book was a bit of a slog. Admittedly, I had to rush through the tome in a short period, but I still found it quite difficult to get through. The pages are long and some chapters are enormous. There are few clear stopping points in this dense history book. During the 55 page chapter titled “A Scheme in Williamsburg”, it felt to me that Wiencek was prolonging the tale of a few events when they could have been easily shortened and conveyed with more clarity.
There were a few times when I simply wanted to put this book down and take a nap. That hurts its rating. However, I am still glad that I read this novel. George Washington was a fascinating man who embodies many of the paradoxes of early (and arguably present) America: He fought for a nation based on principles of freedom and liberty, but held hundreds of humans in bondage. He came to support a gradual emancipation in principle, but did not use his power and prestige to call for one. Washington invented and heard a million justifications for enslavement in his life, but ultimately freed those whom he had enslaved.
An Imperfect God thoroughly examines all these complicated paradoxes, and that ensures that it is worth a read.
September 1, 2021
A very good retelling of the highlights of Washington's life with an overt focus on his thoughts, words, opinions, and most importantly, his actions and interactions with African-Americans.
The good news is, of four books I've read about GW this is the one that most delves into his views and actions regarding African-Americans (both enslaved and free.)
The bad news, while much is made about George's intentions, evolution of thought, desires, hopes for the betterment of African-American life in America, his actions very rarely amounted to very much. When it came to actually doing anything that helped African-Americans, Washington was the lover who promises to visit every day, but comes around only 4 times a month; Washington was the kid who always has an excuse for not turning in his homework; Washington was the co-worker who never turned his portion of the project, leaving it to others to do.
For a man who took action so quickly and decisively so many times in his life for so many different causes, it is GLARING how easily he did not take action regarding bettering the lives of African-Americans. Actions speak louder than words, and Washington's actions prove he really didn't care all that much about the well-being of African-Americans.
George Washington may be The Father Of America, but he was also an enslaver who fully participated in profiting from enslaving and brutally punishing African-Americans. That, and more, is made very clear in this book.
Fight the British to evade taxes? Right away! Take up the cause of emancipation to prove America really is the land of the free? That's too difficult to pursue. I wonder if the fact that GW was promised large land holdings for fighting in two wars was the real reason he chose to fight for America - and maybe he failed to pursue emancipation because it would detract from his wealth. For all the author tries to rationalize GW's actions and explain "the times" to us, it is very apparent that GW was not much different than Jefferson and all the other slavers - they both maintained slavery to maintain their wealth.
Imperfect indeed.
The good news is, of four books I've read about GW this is the one that most delves into his views and actions regarding African-Americans (both enslaved and free.)
The bad news, while much is made about George's intentions, evolution of thought, desires, hopes for the betterment of African-American life in America, his actions very rarely amounted to very much. When it came to actually doing anything that helped African-Americans, Washington was the lover who promises to visit every day, but comes around only 4 times a month; Washington was the kid who always has an excuse for not turning in his homework; Washington was the co-worker who never turned his portion of the project, leaving it to others to do.
For a man who took action so quickly and decisively so many times in his life for so many different causes, it is GLARING how easily he did not take action regarding bettering the lives of African-Americans. Actions speak louder than words, and Washington's actions prove he really didn't care all that much about the well-being of African-Americans.
George Washington may be The Father Of America, but he was also an enslaver who fully participated in profiting from enslaving and brutally punishing African-Americans. That, and more, is made very clear in this book.
Fight the British to evade taxes? Right away! Take up the cause of emancipation to prove America really is the land of the free? That's too difficult to pursue. I wonder if the fact that GW was promised large land holdings for fighting in two wars was the real reason he chose to fight for America - and maybe he failed to pursue emancipation because it would detract from his wealth. For all the author tries to rationalize GW's actions and explain "the times" to us, it is very apparent that GW was not much different than Jefferson and all the other slavers - they both maintained slavery to maintain their wealth.
Imperfect indeed.
March 19, 2022
4 1/2 stars. A thoughtful account of a harrowing institution and a man who came close to emancipating his slaves before he took office as our first president, and did do so on his death. Wiencek seems to handle the complexities of Washington's reactions to slavery and to Blacks, and his gradual movement toward emancipation with insight, and a lot of research. Although published almost twenty years ago, the subject is only more relevant today.
One of the most striking things about the experience of reading this book is how clear it becomes that the planters knew what they were doing was wrong, and how hard the colonists, north and south, had to struggle during the Revolution to hold the contradictory reactions of anger at being treated like slaves (as they said) by the British and the denial they had to achieve while themselves literally holding slaves.
The book is a trifle disorganized, but this does not prevent the reader from taking in the horrendous situation in which enslaved people found themselves, nor how wretchedly and inhumanely most of their white masters behaved. An occasional shaft of light shines out when a Lafayette accurately assesses the horrors of slavery, or a family responds as fellow human beings to a Black person's situation. Washington does not himself emerge whole from this analysis; his growth from being a person who could raffle off a child to being a man struggling quietly, but mightily against his entire family (especially Martha) to free his slaves is over many years. But he saw that slavery was likely to be a fatal flaw in the country he had worked so hard to establish. It is reported that this devoted Virginian thought it likely that slavery might split the country into North and South, and if that happened, he would become a Northerner.
There is a lot in this book to make you think, and think again.
One of the most striking things about the experience of reading this book is how clear it becomes that the planters knew what they were doing was wrong, and how hard the colonists, north and south, had to struggle during the Revolution to hold the contradictory reactions of anger at being treated like slaves (as they said) by the British and the denial they had to achieve while themselves literally holding slaves.
The book is a trifle disorganized, but this does not prevent the reader from taking in the horrendous situation in which enslaved people found themselves, nor how wretchedly and inhumanely most of their white masters behaved. An occasional shaft of light shines out when a Lafayette accurately assesses the horrors of slavery, or a family responds as fellow human beings to a Black person's situation. Washington does not himself emerge whole from this analysis; his growth from being a person who could raffle off a child to being a man struggling quietly, but mightily against his entire family (especially Martha) to free his slaves is over many years. But he saw that slavery was likely to be a fatal flaw in the country he had worked so hard to establish. It is reported that this devoted Virginian thought it likely that slavery might split the country into North and South, and if that happened, he would become a Northerner.
There is a lot in this book to make you think, and think again.
March 6, 2022
This is not a typical biography of Washington, focusing on his various accomplishments as a general in the French Indian War, as Commander-in-chief during the American Revolution, and as President of the newly-formed United States of America. While these aspects are referred to, the focus is on how Washington dealt with what has become what we now see as the glaring blindspot of the Founding Fathers: creating a nation founded on the concept of personal freedom and the equality of all men while owning slaves. The author explores Washington's ancestors, family connections, and Virginia culture, how Washington managed his plantation, and his interactions with various issues dealing with slavery and with the presence of blacks in the Revolutionary army. Particularly interesting were the chapters dealing with whether or not Washington fathered a child by his brother's slave and with how Washington handled the delicate matter of his wife's personal attendant who had run away to a free state. The author shows how documents reveal that Washington had formed a plan to free his slaves, but had abandoned it, but ordered in his will that all of his slaves be freed after his death. Evidence shows that Washington was torn by the issue of slavery, but feared that the system was too powerful for him to publicly stand against it during his lifetime.
November 9, 2017
I really enjoyed understanding more about George Washington and how his views on slavery evolved throughout his lifetime. I feel like as our country becomes more and more divided, Washington is also becoming a divisive figure: people hate him for owning slaves, or they brush aside the fact by saying he was simply a product of his times. It's nice to finally get into it and figure out how I feel about Washington's life.
And I will say-- this book actually left me admiring Washington even more. Yes, he owned slaves. But I'm more impressed that he was able to change his views and understand that what he was doing was wrong, even if he never managed to fix things during his lifetime (mostly because his family wouldn't let him). It takes a very courageous and thoughtful person to actually change your mind, especially concerning an issue as important as this, and even more so when it involves most of your own private wealth.
And I will say-- this book actually left me admiring Washington even more. Yes, he owned slaves. But I'm more impressed that he was able to change his views and understand that what he was doing was wrong, even if he never managed to fix things during his lifetime (mostly because his family wouldn't let him). It takes a very courageous and thoughtful person to actually change your mind, especially concerning an issue as important as this, and even more so when it involves most of your own private wealth.
January 3, 2025
A humanizing look at George Washington. Detailing his family history, and life before, during and after presidency. It’s written very well, and is entertaining, and the information provided is counter to many of the common legends told about.
My one complaint is that it seems like after every few pages or so the author feels the need to remind the reader that Washington owned slaves, and that slavery is bad. In terms of how those themes works into the story of Washington’s life, there are great segments that can humanize Washington’s participation in that system, and there are segments where you question his sanity and question whether freeing his own slaves upon death was “cramming for the final.” Those segments should be left to reader interpretation and the author could do a little less handholding in my opinion. Good book though.
on to Chernow’s Washington.
My one complaint is that it seems like after every few pages or so the author feels the need to remind the reader that Washington owned slaves, and that slavery is bad. In terms of how those themes works into the story of Washington’s life, there are great segments that can humanize Washington’s participation in that system, and there are segments where you question his sanity and question whether freeing his own slaves upon death was “cramming for the final.” Those segments should be left to reader interpretation and the author could do a little less handholding in my opinion. Good book though.
on to Chernow’s Washington.
March 29, 2020
It took me a while to finish as I set it aside with travel and finishing my next book. This book was a bit different and I enjoyed the revelation that old George had a son with a slave. I knew he was not the stoic George we see in photos and was a decent man to his slaves, soldiers, and the public but never envisioned that he, like many others, had relations with slaves. Guess I am a romantic, and like to believe the George and Martha love story.
Wiencek does a great job in letting the reader know George and that he was a man of his age. He presents Washington the man as a person and not that picture on our school wall staring at us. Washington is not to be judged by today's standards, but put ourselves in his shoes. A good read!
Wiencek does a great job in letting the reader know George and that he was a man of his age. He presents Washington the man as a person and not that picture on our school wall staring at us. Washington is not to be judged by today's standards, but put ourselves in his shoes. A good read!
April 18, 2025
This is an excellent study of not just George Washington's views and actions regarding slavery, but also an examination of the larger culture he was a part of and the complex family relationships that curtailed Washington's ability to emancipate slaves. Furthermore, the author has done extensive work to understand the kind of labor enslaved people were engaged in, how the arrangement of Washington's farms and plantations would have impact their family life, and using limited documentation to piece together individual stories of just a few of the people enslaved by the Washington family. A compelling history and one that permits a deeper understanding of Washington, the people who labored on his plantations, and the world they both inhabited.
October 6, 2021
This book is more about slavery then Washington as a president. What we are having here is slavery like it was in America during Washington's days. It's just an eyeopener for you to read about this. Like how horrible slavery is and why it was in these days so difficult to do something about it. For instance slavery had to do a lot with economy. Then there is racism and how the slaves were not human beings but some kind of property. In this book you can find all kinds of questions about this. And you can also find Washington's views concerning slavery. Well I leave to you to read this book to find out, if you are interested.
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