An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America - Hardcover

Henry Wiencek

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786261293 ISBN 13: 9780786261291

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 2004

Synopsis

A Library Journal Top 10 Nonfiction Editors' Pick for 2003
A Main Selection of the History Book Club

When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to free his slaves, having earlier said that slaveholding was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." After groundbreaking original research, historian Henry Wiencek explores Washington's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life - as Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president, and statesman - documenting for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's decision.

About this title

Review:

Was George Washington a dedicated slaveholder and, like Thomas Jefferson, a father of slave children? Or was he a closeted abolitionist and moralist who abhorred the abuse of African-Americans? In An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America Henry Wiencek delves into Washington's papers and new oral history information to assemble a portrait of the first President of the United States that (while uneven in the telling) concludes that Washington supported emancipation by the time of his death.

To begin, Wiencek briefly addresses and dismisses the claim that Washington fathered a child with Venus, (a slave owned by Washingtong's brother, John Augustine). According to Wiencek, the President was likely sterile and such an affair would have been out of character for a man who prided himself on "self-control."

Wiencek's real focus in An Imperfect God is Washington's personal and political position regarding emancipation. The primary ground for Wiencek's argument is Washington's will and a selection of private letters that elaborate a plan for providing land and means for his freed laborers. The will in particular offers powerful evidence of Washington's true intentions, including explicit declarations manumitting Washington's slaves after his death. As Wiencek shows, the document punctuated a long period of equivocation.

An Imperfect God is an imperfect book. Wiencek's occasional first-person accounts of his field research, including discussions with descendants of Washington, feel strangely out of place in what is elsewhere a straightforward biography punctuated with digressions into Washington's larger historical context. Further, Wiencek sometimes dabbles in hagiography and is willing to excuse much in a man who was a slaveholder his entire life. Yet, Wiencek is right to point out the distinctions of Washington among the slaveholding Founding Fathers. Readers can only imagine along with Wiencek the national tragedy that could have been averted had Washington provided the great example of emancipation while in office. --Patrick O'Kelley

About the Author:

Henry Wiencek, a nationally prominent historian and writer, is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1999

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorndike Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786261293
• ISBN 13: 9780786261291
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 671