Robert Carter of Nomini Hall

Robert Carter of Nomini Hall PDF Author: Louis Morton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Virginia
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"The study was not written as a biography; it is rather a description of the various economic and social aspects of the plantation system as reflected in the career of one planter. Biographical material has been used with this end in view. Throughout, the career of Robert Carter serves as a framework upon which to construct the story of the Virginia aristocracy."-- Foreword.

Robert Carter of Nomini Hall

Robert Carter of Nomini Hall PDF Author: Louis Morton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Virginia
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"The study was not written as a biography; it is rather a description of the various economic and social aspects of the plantation system as reflected in the career of one planter. Biographical material has been used with this end in view. Throughout, the career of Robert Carter serves as a framework upon which to construct the story of the Virginia aristocracy."-- Foreword.

The First Emancipator

The First Emancipator PDF Author: Andrew Levy
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0375761047
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
“[Andrew Levy] brings a literary sensibility to the study of history, and has written a richly complex book, one that transcends Carter’s story to consider larger questions of individual morality and national memory.” –The New York Times Book Review In 1791, Robert Carter III, a pillar of Virginia’s Colonial aristocracy, broke with his peers by arranging the freedom of his nearly five hundred slaves. It would be the largest single act of liberation in the history of American slavery before the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite this courageous move–or perhaps because of it–Carter’s name has all but vanished from the annals of American history. In this haunting, brilliantly original work, Andrew Levy explores the confluence of circumstance, conviction, war, and emotion that led to Carter’s extraordinary act. As Levy points out, Carter was not the only humane master, nor the sole partisan of emancipation, in that freedom-loving age. So why did he dare to do what other visionary slave owners only dreamed of? In answering this question, Levy reveals the unspoken passions that divided Carter from others of his class, and the religious conversion that enabled him to see his black slaves in a new light. Drawing on years of painstaking research and written with grace and fire, The First Emancipator is an astonishing, challenging, and ultimately inspiring book. “A vivid narrative of the future emancipator’s evolution.” –The Washington Post Book World “Highly recommended . . . a truly remarkable story about an eccentric American hero and visionary . . . should be standard reading for anyone with an interest in American history.” –Library Journal (starred review) “Absorbing. . . Well researched and thoroughly fascinating, this forgotten history will appeal to readers interested in the complexities of American slavery.” –Booklist (starred review)

Robert Carter of Nomini Hall

Robert Carter of Nomini Hall PDF Author: Louis Morton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Virginia
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description


The First Emancipator

The First Emancipator PDF Author: Andrew Levy
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588364690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Robert Carter III, the grandson of Tidewater legend Robert “King” Carter, was born into the highest circles of Virginia’s Colonial aristocracy. He was neighbor and kin to the Washingtons and Lees and a friend and peer to Thomas Jefferson and George Mason. But on September 5, 1791, Carter severed his ties with this glamorous elite at the stroke of a pen. In a document he called his Deed of Gift, Carter declared his intent to 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 the very action that 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 haunting, brilliantly original work, Andrew Levy traces the confluence of circumstance, conviction, war, and passion that led to Carter’s extraordinary act. At the dawn of the Revolutionary War, Carter was one of the wealthiest men in America, the owner of tens of thousands of acres of land, factories, ironworks–and hundreds of slaves. But incrementally, almost unconsciously, Carter grew to feel that what he possessed was not truly his. In an era of empty Anglican piety, Carter experienced a feverish religious visionthat impelled him to help build a church where blacks and whites were equals. In an age of publicly sanctioned sadism against blacks, he defied convention and extended new protections and privileges to his slaves. As the war ended and his fortunes declined, Carter dedicated himself even more fiercely to liberty, clashing repeatedly with his neighbors, his friends, government officials, and, most poignantly, his own family. But Carter was not the only humane master, nor the sole partisan of freedom, in that freedom-loving age. Why did this troubled, spiritually torn man dare to do what far more visionary slave owners only dreamed of? In answering this question, Andrew Levy teases out the very texture of Carter’s life and soul–the unspoken passions that divided him from others of his class, and the religious conversion that enabled him to see his black slaves in a new light. Drawing on years of painstaking research, written with grace and fire, The First Emancipator is a portrait of an unsung hero who has finally won his place in American history. It is an astonishing, challenging, and ultimately inspiring book.

Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773-1774

Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773-1774 PDF Author: Philip Vickers Fithian
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813900797
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 PDF Author: Alan Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393241424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History Finalist for the National Book Award Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "Impressively researched and beautifully crafted…a brilliant account of slavery in Virginia during and after the Revolution." —Mark M. Smith, Wall Street Journal Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom’s swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Over many nights, hundreds of slaves paddled out to the warships seeking protection for their families from the ravages of slavery. The runaways pressured the British admirals into becoming liberators. As guides, pilots, sailors, and marines, the former slaves used their intimate knowledge of the countryside to transform the war. They enabled the British to escalate their onshore attacks and to capture and burn Washington, D.C. Tidewater masters had long dreaded their slaves as "an internal enemy." By mobilizing that enemy, the war ignited the deepest fears of Chesapeake slaveholders. It also alienated Virginians from a national government that had neglected their defense. Instead they turned south, their interests aligning more and more with their section. In 1820 Thomas Jefferson observed of sectionalism: "Like a firebell in the night [it] awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once the knell of the union." The notes of alarm in Jefferson's comment speak of the fear aroused by the recent crisis over slavery in his home state. His vision of a cataclysm to come proved prescient. Jefferson's startling observation registered a turn in the nation’s course, a pivot from the national purpose of the founding toward the threat of disunion. Drawn from new sources, Alan Taylor's riveting narrative re-creates the events that inspired black Virginians, haunted slaveholders, and set the nation on a new and dangerous course.

Never Pleasing to the World

Never Pleasing to the World PDF Author: Peggy Patterson Garland
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480875198
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Born into the richest planter family in the Northern Neck of Virginia, Robert Carter III’s life is anything but typical. A neighbor of George Washington and the Lees of Stratford Hall, Carter is destined to be a gentleman farmer, slaveholder, and leader in the church, militia, court, and government. Carter has no idea that one day he will rebel against everything he is taught. While growing up, he spends time with his best friend and personal slave, Sam Harrison, who provides him with a first-hand look into his less than ideal life. After Carter comes of age, he escapes to London where he encounters the Enlightenment. At age twenty-three, he returns home to take over his eighteen plantations and live a productive life. But as a chain of events drives him to chart new territory for his time, Carter is ultimately led to make a decision that shocks and alienates his class and his family and forever changes the lives of over five hundred people. Never Pleasing to the World is the story of how a child of privilege, influenced by slaves long before the Civil War, creates a community of freed slaves in the most powerful state in the South.

A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia

A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia PDF Author: Robert Baylor Semple
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 854

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Book Description


American Slavery, 1619-1877

American Slavery, 1619-1877 PDF Author: Peter Kolchin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140241501
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Beginning with the Colonial period, progressing through the Revolution and the Antebellum period, the book chronologically documents the historical evolution of slavery in the USA

Life in Black and White

Life in Black and White PDF Author: Brenda E. Stevenson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199923647
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
Life in the old South has always fascinated Americans--whether in the mythical portrayals of the planter elite from fiction such as Gone With the Wind or in historical studies that look inside the slave cabin. Now Brenda E. Stevenson presents a reality far more gripping than popular legend, even as she challenges the conventional wisdom of academic historians. Life in Black and White provides a panoramic portrait of family and community life in and around Loudoun County, Virginia--weaving the fascinating personal stories of planters and slaves, of free blacks and poor-to-middling whites, into a powerful portrait of southern society from the mid-eighteenth century to the Civil War. Loudoun County and its vicinity encapsulated the full sweep of southern life. Here the region's most illustrious families--the Lees, Masons, Carters, Monroes, and Peytons--helped forge southern traditions and attitudes that became characteristic of the entire region while mingling with yeoman farmers of German, Scotch-Irish, and Irish descent, and free black families who lived alongside abolitionist Quakers and thousands of slaves. Stevenson brilliantly recounts their stories as she builds the complex picture of their intertwined lives, revealing how their combined histories guaranteed Loudon's role in important state, regional, and national events and controversies. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, for example, were hidden at a local plantation during the War of 1812. James Monroe wrote his famous "Doctrine" at his Loudon estate. The area also was the birthplace of celebrated fugitive slave Daniel Dangerfield, the home of John Janney, chairman of the Virginia secession convention, a center for Underground Railroad activities, and the location of John Brown's infamous 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry. In exploring the central role of the family, Brenda Stevenson offers a wealth of insight: we look into the lives of upper class women, who bore the oppressive weight of marriage and motherhood as practiced in the South and the equally burdensome roles of their husbands whose honor was tied to their ability to support and lead regardless of their personal preference; the yeoman farm family's struggle for respectability; and the marginal economic existence of free blacks and its undermining influence on their family life. Most important, Stevenson breaks new ground in her depiction of slave family life. Following the lead of historian Herbert Gutman, most scholars have accepted the idea that, like white, slaves embraced the nuclear family, both as a living reality and an ideal. Stevenson destroys this notion, showing that the harsh realities of slavery, even for those who belonged to such attentive masters as George Washington, allowed little possibility of a nuclear family. Far more important were extended kin networks and female headed households. Meticulously researched, insightful, and moving, Life in Black and White offers our most detailed portrait yet of the reality of southern life. It forever changes our understanding of family and race relations during the reign of the peculiar institution in the American South.