Best washington biography

2.       You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe

Alexis Coe begins her book by noting that there hasn’t been an adult biography of George Washington written by a woman in over forty years. She then pokes fun of some of Washington’s male biographers, who she nicknames the “Thigh Men” for their obsession with the Founding Father’s manliness. The historian Joseph Ellis, for example, admired how Washington’s thighs “allowed him to grip a horse’s flanks tightly and hold his seat in the saddle with uncommon ease.”

Coe’s perspective is helpful when considering George Washington’s mother, Mary Washington. The Thigh Men often present Mary as a shrew, though there is little evidence to support such a harsh view. Coe’s Mary Washington, on the other hand, is a hard-working widow, who managed the farm and raised arguably the greatest American of all time.

This book has lots of lists and sidebars and primary sources. I really enjoyed the inclusion of this content and believe it’s a smart way to reach a wider audience. Among the many interesting bits, Coe includes a recipe for hoecakes, Washington’s favorite breakfast. There’s also a sidebar with Washington’s waspish marginalia to sections of a pamphlet written by James Monroe that was critical of the Washington administration.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. One criticism, however, is that there is little here on Washington’s military career. Ironically, it’s as if she’s conceding that this is a topic for male historians. Personally, I believe—paraphrasing Georges Clemenceau— the subject of war is too serious a matter to be entrusted solely to the Thigh Men.

3.       The Indian World of George Washington by Colin Calloway

Calloway, who believes that “nothing was more central than the relationship between the first president and the first Americans,” has written one of the best and most important books about George Washington. Throughout Washington’s eventful life, he inhabited a world “on the land of dispossessed Indian people.” He had been linked to the frontier as a surveyor, speculator, soldier, and politician, and would accumulate 45,000 acres of western lands by the time of his death.

This is a fascinating book that I couldn’t put down. The Indians actually named Washington, Conotocarious, which means “Town Destroyer.” Several years after the Revolutionary War, Seneca chiefs told Washington, “When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you Town Destroyer; and to this day when the name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale and our children cling to the necks of their mothers.”

Calloway makes it clear that his goal isn’t to demonize Washington. Rather, he tries to show that his life was “inextricably linked to Native America, a reality we have forgotten as our historical hindsight has separated Indians and early Americans so sharply, and prematurely, into winners and losers.” Calloway concludes by examining Washington’s complex legacy. The founding father “saw his policies as setting Indians on the road to survival, not destruction, giving them the opportunity to remake themselves as American citizens.” Yet, Washington ultimately “failed to balance expansion onto Indian lands with justice to Indian people.”

4.       Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

George Washington owned and managed hundreds of slaves at Mount Vernon during his lifetime. This outstanding book by Erica Armstrong Dunbar examines the connection between Washington and the institution of slavery. The journalist Michele Norris feels Never Caught “ought to be on Americans’ reading list about our real history.” I strongly agree.

Ona Judge, one of Martha Washington’s favored slaves, ran away from Philadelphia in 1796, and ended up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Judge decided to flee after hearing that Martha intended on giving Ona to her granddaughter as a wedding present. Upon learning of the escape, George Washington wrote, “The ingratitude of the girl, who was brought up & treated more like a child than a Servant (& Mrs. Washington’s desire to recover her) ought not to escape with impunity if it can be avoided.”

George Washington may have expressed ambivalence about slavery later in his life, but he remained financially dependent on the institution throughout his career as a soldier and statesman. This book shows that Washington was a demanding slaveowner, who took extraordinary steps to protect his human “property.” When an official suggested that Ona Judge might return if she was promised her freedom, Washington wrote, “for however well disposed I might be to gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People (if the latter was in itself practicable at this moment) it would neither be politic or just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference.” Washington waited until his death to free 123 of his own slaves, though their emancipation would be delayed until after Martha died. And Martha’s 150 separately owned “dower” slaves would not be freed upon her death. George Washington’s legacy was forever tarnished by his lifelong involvement with slavery. He recognized that the ownership of his fellow human beings was wrong, but he lacked the moral courage to do anything meaningful about it.