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

In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the first president's engagement with slavery. Born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people, George Washington 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. Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. This revelatory narrative documents for the first time the moral transformation that culminated in his decision - unique among the Founding Fathers - to emancipate his own slaves. Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: Now we see him in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.