Overview

How should we remember George Washington’s entanglement in slavery? Americans have argued over that question for nearly 250 years. More than any other Founding Father, Washington’s ties to slavery have vexed us. He enslaved more people than any of his fellow founders, yet he was the only one of them to emancipate the people he held in bondage. Since his death, Americans have grappled with this contradiction, shaping and reshaping our collective memory of Washington and slavery—along with our understanding of the nation. In Thy Will Be Done, historian John Garrison Marks tells the story of Americans’ long, fraught struggle to come to terms with Washington’s legacy of slavery. He traces how politicians, abolitionists, educators, activists, Washington’s former slaves and their descendants, and others have remembered, forgotten, and manipulated slavery’s place in Washington’s story, and how they have wielded versions of that story in the political and cultural fights of their time. Marks shows how generational struggles over our collective memory of Washington and slavery have always been part of a bigger conversation about defining the United States and its people. As debates about the founders’ participation in the system of slavery continue to roil public discourse, Marks shows with new clarity that Americans have never collectively reconciled Washington’s conflicted legacy. By truly grappling with Washington’s role as enslaver and emancipator we may come to better understand the nation and ourselves.

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9781469693521

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Reviews

""An engaging and nuanced chronicle of the legacy of George Washington and slavery over the past 250 years. Given increasingly polarized debates about how to interpret our country's history, Thy Will Be Done is a vital contribution to understanding our national history and memory.""--Cassandra A. Good, author of First Family: George Washington's Heirs and the Making of America ""I pass the proverbial baton to John Garrison Marks, who finishes what I started in this fascinating and frustrating look at how we remember George Washington. Of all his impressive titles, he held 'master' the longest, and it was arguably the key to his success--and our own. But for the last 250 years, Americans have done their best to ignore that reality in favor of a more fashionable, palatable one. In the process, we've lost sight of him, and of ourselves. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence offers us a unique chance to set the record straight--because if we don't try, it may just be our last.""--Alexis Coe, New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington ""Impressive in chronological scope, range of sources, and methodology. Few historians work as skillfully as John Garrison Marks does in his sensitive, primarily archival reconstruction of the early history of the people freed through Washington's will and the primarily oral history of contemporary interpretation of enslavement at Mount Vernon.""--Andrew M. Schocket, author of Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution

Author Information

John Garrison Marks is a historian, writer, and author of Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery.

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