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

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.