George Carter I (17771846), son of
Robert "Councillor" Carter the III and
Frances Ann Tasker Carter
Frances Tasker Carter (1738 – October 31, 1787) was born in Annapolis, Maryland. Her parents were Benjamin Tasker and Ann Bladen. Benjamin was one of the richest men in the Province of Maryland and a president of the Maryland Council and Pr ...
was an American plantation owner most famous for his building of
Oatlands Plantation
Oatlands Historic House and Gardens (formerly Oatlands Plantation) is an estate located in Leesburg, Virginia. Oatlands is operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a ...
, an
estate located in
Leesburg, Virginia
Leesburg is a town in the state of Virginia, and the county seat of Loudoun County. Settlement in the area began around 1740, which is named for the Lee family, early leaders of the town and ancestors of Robert E. Lee. Located in the far northea ...
, and as one of the wealthiest individuals in Virginia's
Loudoun County
Loudoun County () is in the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. In 2020, the census returned a population of 420,959, making it Virginia's third-most populous county. Loudoun County's seat is Leesburg. Loudoun C ...
during the early 19th century.
Early life
George's father Robert Carter III was famous for his
manumission
Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...
of 452 slaves during his lifetime and for being an outspoken critic of slavery in colonial America. Rather than send George to his own alma mater,
William & Mary, Robert sent George to the ''College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations'' (now
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
), writing to its president
James Manning that his sole motivation for doing so was Virginia's devotion to slavery, and that "On this consideration only, I do not intend that these two sons shall return to this State till each of them arrive at the age of 21 years."
After six years in Rhode Island, George began studying law at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, but left shortly thereafter, relocating in 1798 at the age of 21 to take up management of the 3400 acres of land his father owned in Loudoun County.
Building of Oatlands Plantation
George began construction of
Oatlands Plantation
Oatlands Historic House and Gardens (formerly Oatlands Plantation) is an estate located in Leesburg, Virginia. Oatlands is operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a ...
in 1804, and would continue to build on this estate throughout his life. George's father Robert, who also died in 1804, had begun emancipating slaves in 1791, a process which proved to be a long and drawn out legal affair, overseen by an executor, as well opposed by Robert's neighbors and family. In 1805, George Carter filed suit in an attempt to stop the remaining emancipations of Carter slaves, but the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled against George in 1808. George needed slaves for his work at Oatlands and thus set about buying more to replace those being emancipated. Census records indicate that in 1800, Oatlands had 10 slaves, and by 1860, 128 slaves.
Personal life
George did not marry until 1835, at age 58, when he wed Elizabeth Osborne Carter, widow of
Joseph Lewis Jr. George had earlier suggested in an 1816 letter that in one of his "vicious and corrupt" habits he had "been too open, and not used dissumulation enough, and have rendered myself liable to be animadverted upon - but in this I comfort myself in knowing that I have no mulatto children."
''The Way It Was''
in The Free Lance-Star - 8 June 2002.
See also
*Robert Carter III
Robert "Councillor" Carter III (February 28, 1728 – March 10, 1804) was a lawyer and planter from the Northern Neck of Virginia, in what became the United States. For two decades he sat on the Colonial Virginia Governor's Council. After the ...
*History of slavery in the United States
The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Slave ...
Notes
References
''Elizabeth Osborne Carter Diary''
in ''Thomas Balch Library ''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, George 01
1777 births
1846 deaths
Brown University alumni
George I George I or 1 may refer to:
People
* Patriarch George I of Alexandria ( fl. 621–631)
* George I of Constantinople (d. 686)
* George I of Antioch (d. 790)
* George I of Abkhazia (ruled 872/3–878/9)
* George I of Georgia (d. 1027)
* Yuri Dolgoruk ...
American planters
American slave owners
People from Leesburg, Virginia