Robert Pleasants (1723–1801) was an American educator and

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

. He was born in Henrico County, Virginia and became a plantation owner and operator of Robert Pleasants & Co., a consignment

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

exporting company. His father, John Pleasants, also a Quaker and member of the Curles Neck Meeting, wrote a will asking his heirs to free over 500 slaves when they reached 30 years of age. Contacts with the anti-slavery advocate

Anthony Benezet Anthony Benezet, born Antoine Bénézet (January 31, 1713May 3, 1784), was a French-American abolitionist and educator who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the early American abolitionists, Benezet founded one of the world's fir ...

and what became the

Pennsylvania Abolition Society The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society. It was founded April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and held four meetings. Seventeen of the 24 men who attended initia ...

in 1774, spurred their commitment to the abolitionist movement. However, testamentary manumission provisions were illegal in Virginia when John Pleasants died in 1771. Robert Pleasants lobbied Virginia legislators to allow manumissions, and when such became legal in 1782, freed his slaves, then hired them as paid laborers and provided for their education. Robert Pleasants also hired John Marshall and initiated Pleasants v Pleasants as executor of his father's will and on behalf of the slaves that his siblings failed to free despite the will's provision. They won before Chancellor

George Wythe George Wythe (; December 3, 1726 – June 8, 1806) was an American academic, scholar and judge who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The first of the seven signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence from ...

, but his ruling was greatly restricted by the Court of Appeals led by

Edmund Pendleton Edmund Pendleton (September 9, 1721 – October 23, 1803) was an American planter, politician, lawyer, and judge. He served in the Virginia legislature before and during the American Revolutionary War, rising to the position of speaker. Pendleto ...

. Pleasants ended up giving about 78 former slaves over 350 acres of land, and by 1801 founded the Gravelly Hill School, the first educational institution for free blacks in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

.“History and Archives,” Richmond Friends Meeting (Quakers)
/ref> The Civil War

Battle of Glendale The Battle of Glendale, also known as the Battle of Frayser's Farm, Frazier's Farm, Nelson's Farm, Charles City Crossroads, New Market Road, or Riddell's Shop, took place on June 30, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia, on the sixth day of the Sev ...

was fought on the property, part of which was eventually rebuilt as the Gravel Hill Baptist Church. Robert Pleasants was also one of the founders of the short-lived Virginia Abolition Society, and served as its president in 1790. The society disbanded after Virginia passed a law in 1798 forbidding abolitionists from sitting on juries in

freedom suit Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or ter ...

cases. Meanwhile, Pleasants submitted numerous petitions to the Virginia state government and the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...

calling for the end of the slave trade. The most famous, from 1791, is now at the

Library of Virginia The Library of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia, is the library agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It serves as the archival agency and the reference library for Virginia's seat of government. The Library moved into a new building in 1997 and ...

. Many of Pleasants' letters to

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...

and

Patrick Henry Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, politician and orator known for declaring to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): " Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first a ...

regarding the legality and morality of slavery still survive. Some of the founders replied to Pleasants, affirming their own distaste for the "peculiar institution." The Swem Library at the College of William and Mary holds many of Pleasants' papers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pleasants, Robert 1723 births 1801 deaths African-American history of Virginia American slave owners American educators American abolitionists American Quakers Quaker abolitionists History of slavery in Virginia History of Virginia Legal history of Virginia People from Henrico County, Virginia Quakerism in Virginia Quaker slave owners