Customer Reviews

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

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I received this book as a Christmas gift, and was afraid it might be a cynical and politically-correct portrait of George Washington. Far from it.
Washington was probably the only man who could have steered us between the rock of tyranny and the whirlpool of anarchy. And when his second term was up, "the man who refused to be king" got on his horse and returned to his beloved farm. Mount Vernon, however, was a house divided when it came to dealing with the corrupting institution of slavery. Martha Washington and the extended family had radically different views from the patriarch, who wanted to begin educating the slaves.
It is soul-wrenching to read of the missed opportunities to stymie slavery. The Founding Fathers had the power to bring our way of life into greater consonance with our sublime rhetoric of liberty. If George Washington had freed his slaves while in office, rather than after his death, it would have created an implacable precedent for his successors.
Thomas Jefferson was a genius (George Will called him the "Man of the Millenium"), but it's appropriate that his stock should go down a bit in recent years -- and Founding Fathers such as John Adams and George Washington should be re-discovered and re-treasured. Henry Wiencek has a fascinating section about Phillis Wheatley, poet and slave. The reader can only be stunned by Jefferson's hostility toward her, contrasted with Washington's openness.
The chapter on Williamsburg is superb. Jefferson called the colonial capital "the finest school of manners and morals that ever existed in America." Williamsburg had the first theater in the British colonies. The same royal governor who designed Williamsburg, earlier had laid out Annapolis. The author makes you feel like you're walking the broad expanse of Duke of Gloucester Street and "looking down the vistas of the past."
One learns many things from Henry Wiencek. For instance, President Washington told Secretary of State Randolph that if the Union ever split, "he had made up his mind to remove and be of the Northern [side]." (As the fiery clouds of secession rolled in, and Lincoln tried to convince Robert E. Lee -- married to the Washingtons' great-granddaughter -- to take command of the Northern armies, was either man aware of the Founder's remark?)
The book's frontispiece map of "Washington's Virginia" is the only off-key note. The editors overlooked the fact that Mount Vernon and Alexandria have been magically transplanted from the west bank of the Potomac to the east bank.
I loved this book! I tip my hat to Mr. Wiencek, who penned these words in the acknowledgments: "I close with an old Virginia toast, heartfelt: `God bless General Washington.'"

I enjoyed An Imperfect God because the writing itself was excellent. Although the author veered back and forth between first person observations to a more biographical stance, he managed to engage my attention with his well woven historical references and his ancedotal stories which had a very personal feel.

There were places where the author seemed to rehash stories told by others without adding anything new, and other places where his scholarship was fresh and his conclusions provoke conversation. Wiencek shows us repeatedly the paradox of a man who benefited by owning slaves and their labor, who came to a point of understand the the corrupting influence of absolute power slavery geve owners over the lives of others. Washington allowed arrangements between slaves and their owner/relatives within his own household which we would find untenable at best, and the subject of offensive jokes at worst. The story of Martha Washington's slave sister and Martha's son from her first marriage, which produced a child, is one which would be considered unpalatable in these days but was commonplace in the 17th century until the end of legal slavery. Yet, at the end of his life, he provided for the manumission of his slaves.

Clearly, Wiencek is not a revisionist historian, in the way that most traditional historians use the term. He is a revisionist in the best sense of the word, adding to our knowledge as well as encouraging us to look at viewpoints we might not have considered.

In the end, however, Wiencek's book provides a fresh look at a difficult time and convoluted relationships which have had scant acknowledgement outside the African American community. As our nation finally comes to grips with recent revelations that 20th century segregationist Strom Thurmon fathered a daughter with a black house maid in the early 20th century, we see that Thurmon's behavior is merely an extention of the behavior exhibited in the 1700s by other leaders. Timely, indeed.

I expected a politically correct hit-piece on Washington, but was pleasantly surprised by what was a really helpful and honest look at the human being on the dollar. I'm just a high school history teacher in Eastern Kentucky, so I guess I'm not really qualified to judge historical accuracy, but it seemed like a pretty good book to me.

I especially appreciated how Wiencek made Washington's background understandable. One can better understand Washington when you see how far he had to move from his contemporaries--priveleged Virginia slaveowners--to even consider freeing his slaves. His growth and his blindness are both clearly and fairly presented. Washington seems more like a real human being, with good and bad like the rest of us.

As for hagiography, I saw none. I suppose if you are a Washington hater you will be disappointed--likewise if you really think that he never told a lie. But if you want to meet a real human being who, almost alone among his contemporaries, struggled greatly to rise above much (but not all) of their racism, this is a great book. The author's first person accounts were a nice touch for all but those who prefer strict dry-as-dust history writing.

There was much here that will help me to better teach American history.

This thoroughly researched book contains a number of startling facts. That mixed-race children in Southern households was commonplace, but never spoken about. That African-descended soldiers in the American revolution made a huge contribution, and arguably tipped the scales in the colonials' favor.

Did you know that the top-notch regiment in the Continental army, the one hand-picked by Washington to perform a critical mission during the pivotal battle of Yorktown, was the 1st Rhode Island regiment? Did you know that this regiment was 75 percent black? I didn't, and that is only one of the thought-provoking revelations in this book.

The troubling and uncomfortable subject of America's slave owning founders is a difficult one with which to deal, and 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. Never the less, it is important to 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 clearly 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 able to directly confront during his life.

Wiencek writes of Washington with respect. He does not attempt to attack the greatness of the man, but to show us how even the noble of spirit can fail to act in the face of institutionalized evil. 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.

This should not be the first or the only book that you read on George Washington - it would not present a balanced picture of the man. Yet the dark history that it details is important, and is ignored at our peril. Knowing this, the greatest failure of the founding generation is as important to a full understanding of America as is knowledge of their tremendous achievements, and only by facing the inherent contradiction of the two can we move on to build a better America for future generations.

Theo Logos

This is a first-rate piece of history. Washington's life was so big that it is hard to grasp the man for all his deeds. Although it may not have been Wiencek's main purpose to reveal Washington the man through his experiences as a slaveholder, the book does exactly that. The story is well-written, and contains information on black troops in the Continental Army (20% of the force), as well as interesting material on how mixed-race children played a part in blurring the slave-owner distinctions in 18th century Virginia. You will enjoy it.

George Washington owned slaves. Nothing new there. For anyone who looks at the title and thinks this is another attack on the foundingest (sorry) of all Founding Fathers, that person is making a big mistake. I love reading about the Revolutionary period and the Founders, and George Washington is my ultimate favorite historical figure. Yet we all must struggle with a great man who took part in a great injustice. There's no way to get around it. And don't go claiming that we can't judge him by today's standards. Although that would be foolish, we can fault him by not living up to HIS OWN standards and the standards of many from his era. Washington knew slavery was wrong. Many around him argued vehemently against slavery. And yet...

What Wiencek does is look at the topic from many different angles. He is part historian, part memoirist, part current events commentator, and part novelist. That is, he writes beautifully about a topic that clearly means a lot to him. He tells us Washington's story, but he also talks about HOW he came about the topic and HOW he went about researching it. For example, he writes about his trips to Mount Vernon and how he actually took in his own hands the tools slaves used at Washington's estate; he tried for only a short time the jobs slaves had to do all of their lives. I have not read tons on slavery, but of what I have read, nothing so clearly ingrained in me the cruel monotony of the lifestyle as did Wiencek's telling.

Weincek also chronicles some of the modern era's efforts to deal with our past. When Williamsburg attempted to do a mock slave sale, he poignantly described how just a single reenactment was so emotionally draining on all involved; it was never repeated again. One of the more interesting of Weincek's findings was that Washington actually took part in a slave raffle. So sad.

When I finished reading the book, I was not left with hatred for the great man. I still love him, but wish he did more to end the great American moral failure. But coming up short is not the same as coming up empty. He freed his slaves upon his death and provided some economic assistance to them for many years later. Other slaves continued on at Mount Vernon until Martha Washington passed away.

Well. There it is. History, if nothing else, points out our failings so that we don't repeat them. Of course, we often do repeat many of our mistakes, but maybe, just maybe, the next time will be less painful.

Not being acquainted much at all outside of popular lore about GW from schooldays, found this read just truly outstanding and revelatory.

The ties between tobacco, Southern antebellum, slavery and founding of country of freedom all wove together in this author's demonstrated ability to weave and bob between biography and oral history and personal investigation.

The stress of idealism vs. reality and its consequences are all laid out for the reader.

One can only wince at the inhumaneness poured upon this labor force by the planters who then dominated its politics, and only around 7% of the population?

This is just an amazing book which opens this facet of our founding to us to contemplate and hopefully begin to truly make this imported group of laborers the due place they deserve in our country. One will learn many insights into this man, his times, and the issues the earliest Americans faced. All written well in a form that flows and keeps ones interest peaked.

Just outstanding.

Washington's times and person come alive for me in this book. I could hardly set the book down. The author's research and insights are masterful. This is more than a biography of Washington, it is a revelation of what it was like to live in Virginia of the 18th century. I went to college in Williamsburg and shall never again visit the town without seeing children auctioned off as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson ride by. Washington is even more admirable now, as one can appreciate his pilgirmage from slaveowner to emancipator.

This book is definitely "different". In it, the author examines how President George Washington went from a man steeped in the belief that slavery was acceptable to one who seemed to be deeply troubled by it. Unlike most history texts of the period, this one spends a lot of time constructing arguments and making educated guesses. Although at times the arguments seemed to be a little bit of a stretch, the author presents a lot of apparently fresh research and his ideas were definitely new and insightful. Bravo!

It is fairly interesting how the author pours through seemingly uninteresting records of slave sales and otherwise uninteresting personal correspondences of Washington and his family in order to discover what Washington's true thoughts were and what he actually did when it concerned his slaves. Slavery was not a topic that Washington liked to talk about publicly, and he seemed to have thoughts both pro and con, so we're frequently left with no definite answer.

Furthermore, he seemed to part company with his wife on this subject! Martha, it appears, had no problem with the continuation of slavery, while Washington clearly did. In his will, Washington freed most of his slaves. We also discover that Washington had thoughts about doing so during his presidency. That would have set quite a precedent. It never happened, but things would have been different if it did.

In the first half, the author spends time explaining how slavery evolved in the United States. Slavery just didn't happen overnight. It evolved and changed over the years, finally becoming that brutal institution we all now recognize. These sections were quite interesting and well done, too.