A review by judyward
An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek

3.0

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.