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Robert “Councillor” Carter III

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Robert “Councillor” Carter III

Birth
Lancaster County, Virginia, USA
Death
4 Mar 1804 (aged 78)
Baltimore City, Maryland, USA
Burial
Hague, Westmoreland County, Virginia, USA Add to Map
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In 1791, Robert Carter III was one of the richest and most powerful men in America. His 16 vast plantations -- so many he named 12 after signs of the zodiac -- stretched from the Chesapeake Bay to the northern Shenandoah Valley. His schooners plied the Potomac and Rappahannock bearing textiles and tools from his plantation workshops and iron from his foundry in Baltimore. He had banking interests and land companies, and a mansion in Williamsburg, and his Westmoreland County estate, Nomini Hall, was a showplace of its owner's many accomplishments in music, literature, science and the arts. He even loaned money to Thomas Jefferson.

But 200 years ago on the first of August, Robert Carter did something that stunned the plantation society he seems to typify: He freed his 500 slaves.

Seventy years before the Civil War, some 30 years before the abolitionist movement took strong root in the North or even in Britain, one of the nation's largest slaveholders decided that no man should own another, and acted on that decision.

"Whereas I Robert Carter of Nomini Hall in the County of Westmoreland & Commonwealth of Virginia am possessed as my absolute property of .....many negroes and mullato slaves..." he wrote in an intricate legal document of manumission, "and Whereas I have some some time past been convinced that to retain them in Slavery is contrary to the true principals of Religion & Justice...I do hereby declare that such...shall be emancipated.

From the Washington Post article dated 21 July 1991 by Ken Ringle

Thank you contributor "W E" for this addition.
In 1791, Robert Carter III was one of the richest and most powerful men in America. His 16 vast plantations -- so many he named 12 after signs of the zodiac -- stretched from the Chesapeake Bay to the northern Shenandoah Valley. His schooners plied the Potomac and Rappahannock bearing textiles and tools from his plantation workshops and iron from his foundry in Baltimore. He had banking interests and land companies, and a mansion in Williamsburg, and his Westmoreland County estate, Nomini Hall, was a showplace of its owner's many accomplishments in music, literature, science and the arts. He even loaned money to Thomas Jefferson.

But 200 years ago on the first of August, Robert Carter did something that stunned the plantation society he seems to typify: He freed his 500 slaves.

Seventy years before the Civil War, some 30 years before the abolitionist movement took strong root in the North or even in Britain, one of the nation's largest slaveholders decided that no man should own another, and acted on that decision.

"Whereas I Robert Carter of Nomini Hall in the County of Westmoreland & Commonwealth of Virginia am possessed as my absolute property of .....many negroes and mullato slaves..." he wrote in an intricate legal document of manumission, "and Whereas I have some some time past been convinced that to retain them in Slavery is contrary to the true principals of Religion & Justice...I do hereby declare that such...shall be emancipated.

From the Washington Post article dated 21 July 1991 by Ken Ringle

Thank you contributor "W E" for this addition.

Gravesite Details

March 11, 1804 - Robert Carter III dies suddenly in Baltimore and is buried in the garden of his family estate Nomony Hall in Westmoreland County. (This taken from www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Carter_Robert_1728-1804)

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  • Created by: srehbein
  • Added: Jul 9, 2012
  • Find a Grave Memorial ID:
  • Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/93352901/robert-carter: accessed ), memorial page for Robert “Councillor” Carter III (9 Feb 1726–4 Mar 1804), Find a Grave Memorial ID 93352901, citing Nomini Hall Cemetery, Hague, Westmoreland County, Virginia, USA; Maintained by srehbein (contributor 47181224).