Robert Carter III (February 28, 1728 – March 10, 1804) was an American planter and politician from the
Northern Neck of Virginia. During the
colonial period, he sat on the
Virginia Governor's Council
The Governor's Council, also known as the Privy Council and Council of State, was the upper house of the legislature of the Colony of Virginia (the House of Burgesses being the other house). It also served as an advisory body to the List of colon ...
for roughly two decades. After the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
saw the
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were the British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America which broke away from the British Crown in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and joined to form the United States of America.
The Thirteen C ...
gain independence from the
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
as the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, Carter, influenced by his belief in
Baptism
Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...
, began the largest
manumission
Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing slaves by their owners. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that the most wi ...
in the
history of the United States
The history of the present-day United States began in roughly 15,000 BC with the arrival of Peopling of the Americas, the first people in the Americas. In the late 15th century, European colonization of the Americas, European colonization beg ...
prior to the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
.
Despite strong opposition from family members and neighbors, Carter began emancipating the hundreds of slaves he owned via a
deed of gift filed with the
Northumberland County, Virginia
Northumberland County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 11,839. Its county seat is Heathsville. The county is located on the Northern Neck and is part of the Northern Neck George Was ...
authorities on September 5, 1791, seventy years before the Civil War. Over the following years, Carter gradually emancipated over 500 of his slaves by filing documents with the
Northumberland County, Virginia
Northumberland County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 11,839. Its county seat is Heathsville. The county is located on the Northern Neck and is part of the Northern Neck George Was ...
authorities, and settled many
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...
on land he gave them. Carter died in
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
in 1804.
[ Levy, 2005]
Early life and education
Carter was born into one of the
First Families of Virginia
The First Families of Virginia, or FFV, are a group of early settler families who became a socially and politically dominant group in the British Colony of Virginia and later the Commonwealth of Virginia. They descend from European colonists who ...
, as a grandson of Virginia land baron
Robert "King" Carter of
Corotoman. In 1732, both his father and grandfather died within four months of each other, leaving the young boy in the care of his uncles
Charles
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...
and
Landon Carter, as well as his mother. In 1735, she remarried to John Lewis of
Warner Hall in
Gloucester County.
Although his uncles had been sent to England for their education, young Robert was sent to the
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest instit ...
, beginning with preparatory classes since he was only nine years old. In 1749 he reached legal age and received his inheritance.
[Sara Bearss (ed.) ''Dictionary of Virginia Biography'' (Richmond, 2006), vol 3, p. 87]
After crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Liverpool with
Lawrence Washington, Carter traveled to London, where he and
Philip Ludwell Lee started legal studies at the
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...
.
Family life
In 1754, Carter married
Frances Ann Tasker, daughter of former Maryland governor
Benjamin Tasker. They ultimately had seventeen children, of whom eight daughters and four sons reached adulthood. The successful marriage seemed to settle Carter, who began to pay attention to his vast landholdings, as well as politics.
Early career
Carter returned to Virginia in 1751 where he was admitted to the bar. He took up residence at Nomony Hall. This was his preferred spelling for his inherited plantation on the Northern Neck.
''Nominy'' or ''Nomini'' are more commonly used today, as in the highway marker noting the plantation site. He also became a local justice of the peace for Westmoreland County in 1752; the county justices of that era also jointly administering the county. However, Carter was unsuccessful in at least two campaigns to become one of the county's two (part-time) representatives in the
House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses () was the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly from 1619 to 1776. It existed during the colonial history of the United States in the Colony of Virginia in what was then British America. From 1642 to 1776, the Hou ...
.
In 1758, using his in-laws' connections with the
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for Business and Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
, Carter secured an appointment from
George II to the
Virginia Governor's Council
The Governor's Council, also known as the Privy Council and Council of State, was the upper house of the legislature of the Colony of Virginia (the House of Burgesses being the other house). It also served as an advisory body to the List of colon ...
. When
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...
succeeded to the throne in 1760, Carter was reappointed to the post, which served as the colony's appellate court as well as advised on executive matters. Carter purchased a house in
Williamsburg from his cousin
Robert Carter Nicholas Sr.
Robert Carter Nicholas (January 28, 1728-November 1780) was a Virginia lawyer, patriot, legislator and judge. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and its successor, the Virginia House of Delegates. He became the last treasurer of the C ...
and moved his growing family there in 1761. Carter also began reading voraciously, as well as socializing with the city's top intellectuals, including
Governor Fauquier,
George Wythe
George Wythe (; 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 Signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, signatories of the ...
,
William Small,
John Blair and young
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...
a classmate of Carter's.
Patriotism
At first loyal to his King, Carter expressed support for the Crown during the period of popular rejoicing that accompanied news of George III's repeal of the
Stamp Act, but Parliament passed additional laws obnoxious to colonial interests, and by 1772 the new Governor
Dunmore exacerbated tensions. That year, Carter moved his ailing family (having lost three young daughters to unknown illnesses within 11 months) back to Nomony Hall on the Northern Neck, announcing his retirement from public life. Carter never appeared in the Governor's Council minutes (other than as present) after it voted to allow slaveholders or local authorities to punish slaves without due process. Moreover, rather than educate his sons at the College of William and Mary, Carter hired
Philip Fithian as tutor.
Carter concentrated his efforts on trade, including ironworks, a textile factory, and a flour mill, in addition to draining swamps around Nomony and diversifying crops at all his plantations. Although publicly neutral, Carter honored the continental boycott declared in 1774, and in 1775 joined
Richard Corbin in expressing the council's concern about rumors of
British marines being stationed at Williamsburg.
Carter declined to give the loyalty assurances Dunmore required, and the governor dissolved the council in 1776. The following summer, he gave a oath of loyalty to the new Commonwealth of Virginia. Although Carter declined to hold political offices suggested by Patriot friends, he began supplying provisions and bayonets to Patriot forces during the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
, which resulted in his plantations near the Potomac River being raided by British ships.
Slaveholding and spiritual seeking
Although his great-grandfather John Carter had freed slaves in his will (as well as provided homesteads and livestock for them), the colony of Virginia made individual manumission illegal in the year Carter's father and grandfather died. It was not authorized again until 1783. King Carter had greatly expanded the institution of slavery in Virginia, by purchasing many from ships to work on his plantations. He owned more than a thousand slaves upon his death. King Carter gave his grandson Robert III his first slave (a girl) when the infant was three months old. By the time he came of legal age in 1749, Robert Carter III owned of land and 100 slaves.
Although Carter sold land and some slaves to pay his debts in 1758, he did not purchase more slaves (unlike
George Washington
George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
and other neighbors). He became known among his neighbors for his humane treatment of the enslaved workers in this region. Carter rarely whipped slaves, or allowed them to be whipped, let alone scarred them, although he whipped his own children, particularly his eldest son Robert Bladen. Carter's plantations had roughly double the rate of slave population increase as others in the state. Carter was particularly moved by the example of Governor Fauquier, who in his will allowed his slaves to choose their masters.
When Carter became a co-administrator of his father-in-law's estate, he (with the support of
Daniel Dulany) delayed scheduling a sale of the slaves of
Bel-Air plantation, since that would break up families. But his delays led to more than 18 years of litigation with his Tasker in-laws.
Conversion
Carter became known for his religious freethinking and support of
Dissenters
A dissenter (from the Latin , 'to disagree') is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Dissent may include political opposition to decrees, ideas or doctrines and it may include opposition to those things or the fiat of ...
even before the Revolution. He resigned from the
Cople Parish Church vestry in 1776. During the following year he had a mystical experience while feverish from a
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...
inoculation. This prompted further spiritual seeking, from composing his own prayer for God to "have pity upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels & Hereticks", to making trips to attend services and hear from
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
,
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
,
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...
and
Baptist
Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...
preachers (all classified as dissenters), and investigating
Arminianism
Arminianism is a movement of Protestantism initiated in the early 17th century, based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was origina ...
and perhaps
Catholicism
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
(although these pursuits were illegal in Virginia at the time, where the Anglican Church was the state established church). On September 6, 1778, the Rev.
Lewis Lunsford baptised Carter by immersion in
Totuskey Creek. Carter scandalized neighbors further by joining
Morattico Baptist Church, which had a mixed congregation of white and black, free and slave. In this period, most elite planters still belonged to the Anglican Church. Carter knew he risked persecution, for Eleazar Clay, another wealthy man, had his life threatened after such conversion. During the three weeks preceding his own baptism, Carter attended two different services that were attacked by armed mobs that included Revolutionary War veterans. His wife Frances Ann Tasker Carter, who was declared an invalid in October 1779 after the birth of their 16th child, moved to
Bladensburg, Maryland
Bladensburg is a town in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 9,657 at the 2020 census. Areas in Bladensburg are located within ZIP code 20710. Bladensburg is from Washington, D.C.
History
Originally called Garr ...
, for health reasons. She converted to the Baptist faith there a year before her death in 1787.
Meanwhile, Carter became a prominent Baptist, serving on its General Association, financing the foundation of several churches in the Northern Neck, and corresponding with eminent ministers.
The noted Methodist missionary and anti-slavery activist
Francis Asbury
Francis Asbury (August 20 or 21, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was a British-American Methodist minister who became one of the first two bishop (Methodist), bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the col ...
also lodged at Nomony Hall at least twice after Carter's Baptist conversion.
Carter believed human slavery immoral, and tried to pass his beliefs to his children. However, his eldest son, Robert Bladen (although an admirer of the poet
Phyllis Wheatley), at least twice sold young female slaves against his father's wishes. He also gambled and incurred such large debts that when Robert Bladen fled to England in 1783, his father was compelled to liquidate not only lands, but also slaves and thus break up families, in order to pay off his son's debts. In 1785 his son-in-law John Peck sold slaves whom Carter had given to his daughter Anne Tasker Carter as a
dowry
A dowry is a payment such as land, property, money, livestock, or a commercial asset that is paid by the bride's (woman's) family to the groom (man) or his family at the time of marriage.
Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price ...
before the couple married and moved northward. Carter gave his remaining daughters dowries that did not include human property.
In February 1786, Carter decided to send his youngest sons
George and John Tasker Carter to the new Baptist university in Rhode Island (what is now
Brown University
Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...
). He wrote to its minister president
James Manning:
I beg leave to appoint you their Foster Father intimating that my desire is that both my Said Sons shd. be active Characters in Life ... The prevailing Notion now is to Continue the most abject State of Slavery in this irginiaCommon-Wealth – On this Consideration only, I do not intend that these my two Sons shall return to this State till each of them arrive to the Age of 21 years.
In November 1788, Carter sent three daughters to live with Baptist friends in Baltimore, instructing their hosts "Girls are not to act by a Maid, but by themselves." But he also sent a slave as barter for their room and board.
During the 1780s, some Baptists began to segregate their meetings. After the Baptist Ketocton Association of churches passed a motion that hereditary slavery was "contrary to the word of God," and Morattico Baptist Church changed its rule to allow only free male members to vote on church issues, tumult rocked the General Committee. Carter's wife had died and the grieving widower responded to the changes by drafting a charter for Yeocomico Church that required egalitarian voting. He left Morattico for the splinter congregation, signing its charter below the signatures of several slaves. Carter unsuccessfully ran for a position in the
Virginia Ratification Convention. While struggling with several bouts of illness, he was cared for by his daughter Sarah Fairfax Carter. He postponed her proposed marriage to
Richard Bland Lee, perhaps because of the suitor's pro-slavery ideas.
Carter continued to host spiritual seekers, including a "Mr. Moyce," who in January 1788 introduced him to the writings of
Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg (; ; born Emanuel Swedberg; (29 January 168829 March 1772) was a Swedish polymath; scientist, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, Christian theologian, philosopher, and mysticism, mystic. He became best known for his book on the ...
, a Scandinavian aristocrat, scientist and mystic who had developed followers in London. Carter began to request copies of his writings from business correspondents. In December 1789, Carter believed he "died", perhaps another religious experience tinged by illness. In 1790, Carter wrote in a letter to English Baptist minister
John Rippon that "the toleration of slavery indicates very great depravity of mind."
He also criticized ministers who offered universal redemption, but only "partial Election before Creation". In the nineteenth century, as some Virginia Baptist churches became more accommodating of slavery, it began to grow in the number of members. In 1790 it claimed 20,000 members in Virginia; a decade later, well after the disestablishment of the Anglican Church, it had become Virginia's second largest sect.
Manumission
In the years after the Revolutionary War, Virginia's legislature (having barred the slave trade in 1778) passed several laws sympathetic to freeing slaves, although it did not pass a law legalizing manumission until 1782, and throttled many petitions for wider emancipation. Numerous slaveholders in the
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...
area freed their slaves, often in their wills (like Quaker
John Pleasants) or deeds, and noted principles of equality and Revolutionary ideals as reason for their decisions. The number of free African Americans increased in the Upper South from less than one percent before the Revolution, to 10 percent by 1810. In
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...
, three-fourths of the slaves had been freed by 1810. In the decade after the act's passage, Virginians had freed 10,000 slaves, without visible social disruptions. The price of slaves reached a 20-year low as the percentage listed as "black, tithable" (i.e. slaves) fell below 40%, the lowest point in the century. However, Virginia's courts sidestepped issuing appellate decisions ratifying emancipation until 1799, and the methodology of within-life emancipation was not established.
Carter hoped Virginia's legislature would pass a gradual emancipation plan, as did New York and New Jersey. His neighbor
Ferdinando Fairfax published one such plan in a Philadelphia-based journal, and Quaker
Warner Mifflin presented petitions to Congress to do the same, but
James Madison
James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...
buried the proposals in committee. In early 1791, Carter refused to rent a plantation to
Charles Mynn Thruston, a Revolutionary veteran and Anglican minister, with whose racial views he disagreed. His Baptist friend
John Leland left Virginia after a final anti-slavery sermon, which Carter copied in full into his journal.
Carter began a personal program of gradual
manumission
Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing slaves by their owners. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that the most wi ...
of slaves on his many plantations. He announced his plan on August 1, 1791, and began a new legal process by recording a Deed of Gift in Northumberland County on September 5, 1791. Since the manumission law required a five shilling fee, and Carter had plantations and slaves in several Virginia counties, he corresponded with the Westmoreland County clerk (where he resided) and followed up by filing manumission papers at the Westmoreland County court sessions the following February, May, July and August. His actions were resisted by his son-in-law John Peck, and various overseers and white tenants of his estates. Carter designed the gradual program to reduce the opposition of slave-owning white neighbors, but he failed to gain their support. He refused tenants' requests to relocate slave breeding women in order to circumvent the Deed of Gift. That winter Carter was shunned, although he sought help from fellow slavery opponents, including
George Mason
George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, where he was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution. His wr ...
(who declined to help and cited his own age and infirmity). By the filings of February 27, 1793, Carter was ahead of his own planned schedule. Moreover, he refused to relocate freed blacks, and began offering them wages to work for him. He also offered some grants and tenancies, sometimes dispossessing obstreperous white tenants. Carter began investigating relocating to the District of Columbia. He leased Nomony plantation and its servants to his son J.T. on April 26, 1793 (expressly conditional to the Deed of Gift).
Then, before the next Westmoreland court session, perhaps victimized by mob action such as tar-and-feathers, Carter and his daughters fled by ship with Negro George and Negro Betty to
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
(on May 8, 1793). He never returned, despite numerous entreaties from family and friends. The meetinghouse used by the Yeocomico Baptist Church burned down six months after Carter left; Carter saved an unsigned complaining letter (which he believed from Thruston) that compared the Deed of Gift to fire destroying neighbors' houses.
Later life and death
Upon reaching Baltimore, Carter was told that his son Robert Bladen Carter had died in London, nine days after being assaulted by a city sheriff trying to collect gambling debts. Carter joined the congregation of
James Jones Wilmer, an
Episcopal priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...
receptive to Swedenborg's views, bought a small house on Green Street, and began attending many religious meetings. Before leaving Nomony Hall, Carter locked his books and papers in the library, and gave the only key not to his son J.T., but to a wandering Baptist preacher named
Benjamin Dawson. Dawson proved a corrupt debt collector, but a diligent abolitionist, duly securing legal papers from Carter in Baltimore and filing them in Westmoreland and other counties to free slaves. Carter made provision for his relatives, allocating them land, but not the slaves who were the subject of the Deed of Gift. On July 26, 1797, upon learning from Dawson that attorney
John Wickham doubted the legal validity of the power of attorney which allowed Dawson to file further manumission papers, Carter executed an agreement selling Dawson his remaining slaves for the nominal sum of a dollar. Dawson duly filed this with the Westmoreland clerk, despite suffering a beating by Carter's son-in-law Spencer Ball.
Carter spent the last decade of his life issuing manumission papers pursuant to his recorded program, writing letters in support of freed slaves whose papers had been stolen, and contemplating religious and political issues. Carter lent money to Baltimore to build its city hall, negotiated with the Bank of the United States, and donated money to refugees from
Saint Domingue, who fled the
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution ( or ; ) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known Slave rebellion, slave up ...
. Carter thought he had lived too long—mourning his daughter Anne's death in childbirth in 1798, and the deaths of Rev. Lunsford and his son-in-law
John Maund in
Caroline County, Virginia
Caroline County is a United States county located in the eastern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The northern boundary of the county borders on the Rappahannock River, notably at the historic town of Port Royal. The Caroline county se ...
the following year. In 1803, the year before his death, Carter wrote his daughter Harriet L. Maund, "My plans and advice have never been pleasing to the world."
Citizen Robert Carter (as he preferred to be called) died in his sleep, unexpectedly, on March 10, 1804. His son and executor, George, brought the body back to Nomony and buried his father in the garden. The same day that George announced his father's death, he bought slaves for Nomony, in order to replace those his father had freed over his objection.
On April 3, 1805, Rev. Thruston, acting as judge of
Frederick County, Virginia
Frederick County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 91,419. Its county seat is Winchester. The county was formed in 1743 by the splitting of Orange County. It is Virginia's nor ...
, refused to allow Dawson to record the scheduled deed for emancipation for that year, perhaps because of George Carter's objection. But on March 24, 1808, the
Virginia Court of Appeals upheld Dawson's objection, declared the county court had erred, and authorized liberation of the slaves illegally held in bondage. Dawson continued to free sons and daughters born to Carter's slaves after 1791, as did Thomas Buck and John Rust after 1826.
[ Levy, 2005, p. 169]
See also
*
Robert Carter I
*
Carter's Grove
*
Slavery in the United States
The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865 ...
*
George Wythe
George Wythe (; 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 Signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, signatories of the ...
References
Works cited
*
''Baptists in America''in ''A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America, and Other Parts of the World''.
External links
Robert Carter IIIat ''
Encyclopedia Virginia''
Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and JusticeNomini Hall Slave Legacy Project:Chronicling the Descendants of the Slaves freed by Robert Carter III at Nomini HallGuide to the Robert Carter letter books and day books, 1771-1804 and undated, Duke University* McLaughlin, Eliott C.
"Like Washington and Jefferson, he championed liberty. Unlike the founders, he freed his slaves" ''
CNN.com'', September 5, 2021.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Robert 03
1728 births
1804 deaths
People from colonial Virginia
18th-century American planters
American Swedenborgians
Robert III
College of William & Mary alumni
Politicians from Baltimore
People from Westmoreland County, Virginia
People of Virginia in the American Revolution
Virginia Governor's Council members
American slave owners
Tasker family