What do we know about Robert Carter's slaves after their emancipation?
Where did they go? What did they do?
(Perhaps my questions reveal the books I have not read . . . .)
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Henry Wiencek
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 08:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Andrew Levy's FIRST EMANCIPATOR
I must disagree with Kevin Hardwick because I do see a collective historical
amnesia regarding slavery in the founding era. If the general reading
public knew all about Robert Carter's emancipation, and about the similar
emancipation by Richard Randolph, then "The First Emancipator" and Mel Ely's
"Israel on the Appomattox" would not have found publishers. I think most
people--I'm talking about the David McCullough/Joe Ellis/Dumas Malone
audience--the college-educated reader of non-fiction history--would tell you
that it was impossible to free slaves, and they'd cite the example of
Jefferson. They'd say that the laws prevented it, the Bible approved
slavery, the planters had to have slave labor, the African-Americans were
believed to be a different, inferior species. Joseph Ellis's formulation
has been that the founders "were trapped." And then you tell them that
George Washington freed his slaves. That's a surprise. And that others did
it as well, and that Lafayette and Kosciuszko begged Washington and
Jefferson to give up slavery, that thousands of African-American troops
fought in the Revolution, and that the morality of slavery was openly
debated at the Constitutional Convention. Carter's emancipation is the most
effective rebuke to the notion that emancipation was so impossible that it
was not even considered at the time. I agree that Levy labors a bit at the
beginning of his book to make the historical amnesia point, but he has to
huff and puff so much because he's fighting against a very heavy barrier of
received wisdom.
Henry Wiencek
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