The first emancipator
Subtitle: the forgotten story of Robert Carter, the founding father who freed his slaves
By: Andrew Levy.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 310
Subjects: Carter, Robert, 1728-1804; Plantation owners -- Virginia -- Biography; Slaveholders -- Virginia -- Biography; Gentry -- Virginia -- Biography; Revolutionaries -- United States -- Biography; Slaves -- Emancipation -- Virginia; Slavery -- Virginia -- History -- 18th century; Slaves -- Emancipation -- United States -- Case studies; Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Virginia -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
Genres: Biography.; Case studies.
Description: Robert Carter III was born into the highest circles of Virginia's Colonial aristocracy, neighbor and kin to the Washingtons and Lees and a friend and peer to Thomas Jefferson and George Mason. But in 1791, Carter severed his ties with this elite at the stroke of a pen. Having gradually grown to feel that what he possessed was not truly his, clashing repeatedly with his neighbors, his friends, government officials, and, most poignantly, his own family, he set free nearly five hundred slaves in the largest single act of liberation in the history of American slavery before the Emancipation Proclamation. How did Carter succeed in what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson claimed they fervently desired but were powerless to effect? And why has his name all but vanished from the annals of American history? In this vivid book, Andrew Levy traces the confluence of circumstance, conviction, war, and passion that led to Carter's extraordinary act.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [199]-214) and index.